The Geri-hatricks
From Chicken Soup for the Soul: Young at Heart
By Bobbie Wilkinson

It’s not the men in my life that count — it’s the life in my men.
~Mae West

After forty years of marriage, my husband and I have shared many fun adventures together, such as living on a houseboat when we were first married, rafting down the Colorado River at the bottom of the Grand Canyon, buying and moving a huge barn to our property so we could reassemble it and renovate it ourselves... you get the picture. Oh — and because we couldn’t afford to have our home built for us, my husband surprised me by enrolling me in a plumbing, wiring and carpentry class when I was pregnant with our second of three children so I could be a certified helper. We obviously don’t fit into any box that’s remotely considered “normal.”

And so it is that my husband, who just turned seventy-five, still has a passion for ice hockey. Not watching it... playing it! Throughout our marriage, he has belonged to many different hockey leagues and played in a variety of pickup games; largely dependent on what age group he was in. Now that he is a senior-senior, he still plays twice a week. My favorite team of all the ones he has played on is his current over-seventy group: the Geri-hatricks. Is that a genius name or what? The men who play with him come from all walks of life, from one who is a mortician to others who are journalists or doctors. In fact, the mortician suffered a mild heart attack one night during a practice, and it was largely thanks to a doctor on his team that this man is still alive and skating. (Keep reading)