When I first began accumulating "lifting aids" I blamed it on decades of office work and being "in bad shape," and resolved to get more exercise.

One helpful device was a "lift table" that I can drag something heavy onto and "jack it up" by pumping on the hydraulic jack.

Possibly the most helpful has been the hydraulic lift tailgate I added to my truck.

Now that I'm begining to need helper devices to lift my lifting devices, I have to consider the possibility that it isn't just a lack of exercise, and I might be getting a little older.

The lift table has a nice set of wheels, but to use it for anything out in the yard I have to find someone to help move it through the grass - or tie a cable hoist to a fence post and winch it across.

The lift gate is quite handy, since I can drop it down half-way and use it for a step to get in the truck bed, so I don't have to drag the ladder out. (Trucks are a lot taller now than when I was younger.)

A "ladder rack" on top of the truck makes a nice hand hold to steady my wobbly balance when I crawl up or move around in the back of the truck, although I have no idea how I'd get anything high enough up in the air to put it on the rack.

I'm considering whether there's a way to adapt the lift table to the lift gate, since I now have a real problem closing the tailgate (it is about 175 pounds dead-weight, but only takes about 50 - 60 lb to swing it up so I can manage it for now) when I get down out of the truck.

Maybe I can find some lifting-aid aids-lifting aids for lifting the lifting aids (I'm looking) to help getting the lifting-aid aids to the lifting aids so I can get the lifting aids to the loads I need to lift; but I suppose then I'd have to have help lifting all the big batteries they'd require; and by the time I found the right aid to move the aid to the aid I'd probably forget what it was I wanted to lift, I suppose.

(No summarizations about old-age being a problem of getting things up please.)

John