i did it and didn't die.

My roomie has a passion for watching the local news. Expressly Kathy Craine's weather reports. Nothing against Kathy, but she's old school weather—she just reads the words. Modern weather people are all meteorologists. Maybe that's what she likes about Kathy.

Anyway, she had the news on Friday night. I was in the office working. I hear this interview about a 9-11 stair climb in Hellertown at the school district stadium. I stopped, paid attention to the story, and then started to google.

I immediately thought of my nephew. He is all about law enforcement/emergencies/military. He will clearly have a career that has an adrenaline rush as part of the job description. On his bucket list is the 9-11 Memorial. Maybe in Spring.

I facebooked him and tagged his mom. She was in. He wasn't home. Ultimately he said yes. We were doing this.

What was I thinking? My knees are not what they used to be. Frankly, they need a shot of WD40. This plan of mine to fight off the family arthritis gene with exercise is not working out at all.

Eryn and the teen arrived at 7:30. They were ready to go. We planned to leave at 8. We had to register, and leave time to get lost. I had never been to the Saucon Valley HS's stadium before. We found it, registered and had to sit around a half hour before the flag ceremony.

They raised the flag, said prayers, and finished up quickly. We had to wait till 9:03 to start. Neither of the preachers were dressed to climb. It annoyed me. They were young and healthy, but here they were talking the talk, without walking the walk. Even a token 1 loop would have made a statement. But I digress.

The firefighters went first in full gear...one told me with the full tanks the whole outfit is about 100 pounds.  We had to do the stadium 12 times. (110 flights of stairs in the World Trade Center. It was over 2000 individual stairs. Don't know the exact number, the person talking was too far away.) About round 5 the firefighters started dropping gear. The interesting part was the civilians started picking it up and carrying it for the rest of the flights.

My nephew was one. Here he is at round 6 or 7 putting it on.

He carried it up and down the steps for the rest of the event. He was also the first in our group to finish. Mom finished next. While they waited for my fat butt to finish they went to the trailer and looked at the exhibits from 9-11. Including a piece of steel from the towers.

Here's Eryn and I with our 12 tick marks. I really didn't need the card I was having a count down. It was a good workout and we were all done in about an hour. At noon was going to be a silent fire/emergency vehicle parade. We didn't stick around for that.

The only negative of the day was attendance. There were more firefighters than civilians. That was a shame. Maybe next year. If they have it, me, the teen,  and my creaking knees will be there.

Now where is that bottle of Aleve?