I think I have decided that there are two types of tough…those of us born before WW2 and those born after.

Those of us born after WW2 measure toughness and nerves of steel very differently.  For example, a heroic feat of bravery and nerve might be going to that local Sushi restaurant that keeps getting shut down.  That Alpha male in the office is the guy that once spilled his triple pump soy latte on his hands and didn’t even flinch! Don’t get me started on those brave & daring men that skip using facial moisturizer.  The sad fact is that there are 80 year olds that can probably beat us up and take our lunch money.

Consider Ester, who at age 87 was enjoying a nice day on the porch.  When going to open the door a rattlesnake thought he would show her who was boss and bit her.  So how does this octogenarian react?  Fly into a panic and call 911? No.  Get a broom and chase the snake off? He wishes.  With venom already coursing through her veins, she grabs the snake and strangles it with her bare hands.  Thats right, where most of us would be scrambling for help she is punishing this reptile for inconveniencing her day.

Not to be out done, Gordon (age 69) is driving with his wife through Kruger National Park.  While driving he feels something rub against his leg and assuming it is an insect he brushes at it.  He then looks down and sees a highly aggressive spitting Cobra wrapped around his leg.  So not only can it bite you it can spit venom up to 8 ft highly accurately which would cause permanent blindness if not treated immediately.  So this is where I call it a day and just hope that the snake dies in the ensuing car wreck that will surely happen.  Gordon not only stays calm but drives 100 miles with this snake trying to find help.  Few of us would dare drive 100 miles with kids that don’t have their PS3 and a full assortment of DVDs for the in car entertainment system.  Gordon drove 100 miles with a Cobra whose head came up to his knee and was wrapped around his leg while “being tailgated on a narrow mountain pass in busy traffic” trying to get to a snake expert.

Image from African Reptiles & Venom

Gordon said “Fortunately I’m not the panicky type. My wife immediately put her feet up on the dashboard…I just had to drive on and hope not to get bitten”  So maybe they go lucky and this was a rare docile Cobra.  This species is actually considered the 2nd deadliest snake in Africa and is nervous high strung snake.  After they found a snake expert to remove it from the car they said “It was very aggressive and immediately spat enormous amounts of venom at us”.  Gordon’s quick thinking and calm in the face of danger saved his and his wife’s life.

Finally, in keeping with the reptile theme, Eliud (age 70) was putting her groceries in her van when a carjacker decided she would make an easy target for a for a quick score.  So when her van starts taking off she jumps in and put the guy in a choke hold.  This ninja Grandma said:

“I think he was trying to get me to fall out of the sliding door…He swerved one time and the door slammed shut and then he was mine.”  Yes you heard that correct, this 70 year old said…”He was mine”.  She goes on to say: “He kept telling me that he was going to kill me, and that he had a gun in his pants,…I told him, ‘You can’t reach it. Your pants are at your ankles.’ ”

Her daughter summed it up the best:  ”By the time I saw her, I was laughing…When she started telling me about how his eyes were poking out and how hard it is to break somebody’s neck, I knew she was fine.”

These are just a few ways to illustrate that our sense of hardship and sacrifice has been skewed by our relative comforts.  This apparently isn’t a recent trend though.  A few interesting notes on our ancestors:

• Roman Legions completed more than one-and-a-half marathons a day carrying more than half their body weight in equipment.
• Athens employed 30,000 rowers who could all exceed the achievements of modern oarsmen.
• Australian aboriginals threw a hardwood spear 110 meters or more (the current world javelin record is 98.48).
• Some Tutsi men in Rwanda exceeded the current world high jump record of 2.45 meters during initiation ceremonies in which they had to jump at least their own height to progress to manhood.

According to Australian anthropologist Peter McAllister:

“We don’t see that because we convert to what things were like about 30 years ago. There’s been such a stark improvement in times, technique has improved out of sight, times and heights have all improved vastly since then but if you go back further it’s a different story.

“At the start of the industrial revolution there are statistics about how much harder people worked then.

“The human body is very plastic and it responds to stress. We have lost 40 percent of the shafts of our long bones because we have much less of a muscular load placed upon them these days.

“We are simply not exposed to the same loads or challenges that people were in the ancient past and even in the recent past so our bodies haven’t developed. Even the level of training that we do, our elite athletes, doesn’t come close to replicating that.

“We wouldn’t want to go back to the brutality of those days but there are some things we would do well to profit from.”

So next time you wimp out on a health challenge because it is too tough…consider our past.