J.Tilley and any other arthritis sufferers. Please read.

  I know what kind of pain you are all talking about, I've had inflammatory rheumatoid arthritis since the mid 70's , at first it was like growing pains but rapidly progressed to the incredible gut wrenching series of pain in my shoulders, hands, almost every joint...down to my toes, bringing tears there was so much pain, all the while I've been working climbing ladders, pulling and pushing various types of machines and working on pumps, and eating sometimes 12 to 20 ibuprofen tablets a day up to 3 years ago, which after having had enough pain and lost 80 %  sick time disability retirement was my goal, but seeing an arthritis specialist he gave me a cancer drug which helps reduce the swelling of the joints and reduce the pain, I've been on methotrexate for 3 years now, once a week injection and I now have no more pain, of course I am very careful of  what I lift, if I have a box of heavy machine bolts that needs to be put onto shelves I open the box and place them several at a time, If any of you gentlemen are suffering with arthritis by all means see a specialist and request this methotrexate, I'm 62 and I haven't felt this good since I was in my 20's please do yourself a favor and check into this, I wish it was around when this dreaded disease started...I'm looking forward to building some ships, and thanks to this medicine they WILL get built.   Karl   

  PS. As we all do sometimes I may over do some work, that's when I take a few alleve tablets, this does work, if I feel a twinge say in my shoulder a kind of hesitation in the joint then that signals I over did too much cutting tree limbs....

All that certainly makes sense.  And my optometrist assures me that, as long as I work in good light, closeup work is actually excellent exercise for the muscles in post-middle-aged eyes. 

This coming Saturday I'll be driving to Beaufort for a meeting of our ship model club (Carolina Maritime Modelers' Association; meetings at 2:00 on the last Friday of the month, September through May, at the North Carolina Maritime Museum; new members and visitors always more than welcome).  It's a terrific organization; about the only thing about it that bothers me just a little is that I, at age 56, am one of the youngest people in it.  (Being the youngest person in a room is, I admit, a refreshing - and increasingly rare - experience.  On the other hand, I worry a little about the future of the hobby.)  Sailing ship modeling, in particular, seems to attract lots of over-fifties, and some of the best ship models I've ever seen have been built by over-seventies.  I do believe I've got quite a few good years of model building ahead of me.