One day our Office Manager, a tiny woman, told me she could no longer reach the thermostat because there were too many boxes in her way. Skeptical, I went to investigate and she was right. I looked around the office as though I had never seen it before and realized that, after over 20 years of operation, we were buried beneath piles of old files and that we had literally carved walking paths through towers of file boxes.
That same afternoon I rented an air conditioned storage unit to store all this paperwork, mainly because it seemed easier to just get the mess out of my sight than have to go through 20 years of files to figure what to keep and what to pitch. The lady at the self-storage facility showed me an immaculate unit at the top of a flight of stairs. Unwisely, I decided not to rent a unit with elevator access because it was an additional $10 per month.
Later that day I called “Old Guys Moving and Storage “ because I liked the whimsical nature of the name. But the next morning when Harold showed up to give me an estimate I realized that the name was not whimsical but literal.
Harold moved pretty fast for a guy with a walker and his practiced eye generated an estimate within seconds. As I signed the contract Harold confided that he had been in the moving business for 65 years, ever since he was 18. “Nowadays I let the youngsters do the heavy lifting,” he said and we both chuckled. But the next morning when Johnny and Joey arrived to move my boxes I realized that only an 83 year old, like Harold, could possibly identify these two as “youngsters.”
Johnny read my mind. “Don’t worry,” he told me. “We’re old but we’re strong.” I nodded bleakly as he bent over to pick up a box; he straightened right up, clutching his lower back. “Wow, that’s heavy,” he said to Joey. “Can you give me a hand?”
During the slow process of getting all of the boxes out of my office, down the elevator and onto their truck I learned that Johnny and Joey were both in their mid-70’s. “But the youngsters can’t keep up with us,” bragged Johnny
The boys, who were both from the Bronx, took lots of breaks and during their frequent rest periods they flirted with the Office Manager.
“Are you single?” asked Johnny.
“I make a mean pot of borscht,” said Joey.
“Do you like to dance?” asked Johnny; “I’m dying to try out my new hip.”
“I can drive at night,” Joey said while Johnny glared at him.
At the storage unit Joey and Johnny looked at the flight of stairs, then at me with frank dismay. “I told Harold there was no elevator ,” I said defensively.
“What a prick,” said Joey, referring, I hoped, to Harold.
“It’s not a problem,” said Johnny hastily. He manfully lifted a box off the truck’s bed and carried it up the stairs. At the top he dropped the box, put his hand over his heart and leaned against the wall, breathing heavily.
“Johnny!” said Joey. “Take your pill!” he glanced towards me . “He has angina,” he explained, running up the stairs. “He’s usually just fine.”
Joey vaulted up the stairs two at a time to give Johnny his pill but then Joey, bright red, leaned against the same wall as Johnny. “Water,” he said. “I need water. The heat, the humidity…….”
I got each of the boys a bottle of water from the vending machine and put them in the front seat of my car with the air conditioner on high. While they rested, I began to unload the truck. After an extended break, the boys were fine and the three of us, working together, came up with a plan to finish the job: Stationed in the truck, Johnny brought the boxes to the edge of the liftgate, I ran them up the stairs and Joey stacked them in the air conditioned unit.
By the time the truck was half empty, and I calculated that I had made my fiftieth round trip up and down the stairs, I was as wet as if I had jumped in the pool, but Joey and Johnny were pleased with the progress.
“This is going faster than I expected,” said Joey.
“I told you, “ said Johnny. “We’re old but we’re strong.”