Frankly, with all the foot troubles I've had, even reading about the "Jingle Bell Walk" of the Arthritis Foundation makes me blow steam out my ears and think: "what kind of arthritis do THEY have, that they are still doing long walks!"   It's great that some people can still exercise that way, I don't want to take that away from them.  Sometimes i can walk more than other times - but the last measured walk I did for a cause was the local Alzheimer's Memory Walk.  It's almost 4 miles, and I should have taken the cart the last mile.  it did a number on me, and so I thought, well, that's something of the past now .... can't do that again!

   But it does especially frustrate me, because that was the main exercise I could do, other than stretching, even before RA.  When I take these RA surveys (primarily every six months for the NIAMS project - ask me if you want to know more) and get asked questions like "Did your symptoms interfere with your socialization/recreation - or., could you go bowling, do yard work, run errands, etc.    - I have to think 'wow, remember when I used to love to bowl (not that I did it that often) before my right hand/wrist self-destructed!  Now even a medium weight purse bothers me, and sometimes even a cup of coffee! (a SMALL one!)

   I actually don't mind the golfer guy - I kind of like him!  He's a bit dorky-looking, but why pick on him more than all the beautiful-actress articles I see where the girl who had juvenile arthritis is now back riding her horses, etc.   ~And what he has is psoriatic arthritis, which (I'm not sure ) may be less difficult than RA?   Turns out my son-in-law has plaque psoriasis - has back and joint pain (well, actually he and my daughter have been engaged for seven years, having jobs with no benefits in sight) .   (Oh yeah, he's off work now because he injured his leg on the job and got cellulitis - uh oh!   Immunity problems?  he's only 27!)

Gee, there's no sour grapes around, are there!

P.S. Just got word that one of my sisters may have either PR (polymyalgia rheumatica) or RA - she will be the 3rd one out of my four sisters to be diagnosed with PR.  (She doesn't have the RA markers apparently)   She's already on disability for other reasons ...

Uh, yeah, I know where you're coming from!  You are right about golf (as long as you don't ride a cart) - and possibly the reason I respond more positively to the ad is that I had a step-dad who had 3 sons who were # 1, 2, and 3 on the high school golf team - and he played golf himself as well _well, it did go with being a lawyer and belonging to the country club and all that - which i really WASN't into, but from a distance, it reminds me of family, even if it was a step family (they were actually friends of our family before the step-marriage (word?) and I never lived with my step-sisters/brothers - we all knew each other from school and were reasonably friendly anyway. I just felt bad that their mom lost their dad (who was my mom's divorce lawyer yet - shades of a soap opera!) to my mother - who rationalized it in ways that she would not have accepted from others!

     My personal experience with golf was NOT good - played around with the clubs in the back yard of a friend at 12 years old and got a black eye from being hit in the face with one of them!  (we didn't know then about calling "FORE!"  That was my first and only golf experience!

     Funny - my husband took golf as a gym class in college but never plays.  My brother-in-law who never wanted college and is a mechanic plays.  So the 'country club' typical breakdown flunks out there. On the otherhand - my brother-in-law is a GREAT mechanic - if you're ever stuck near Rutland, Vermont!