"He was really just above and beyond where most of our clients come in," Shaffer, 30, said. "He comes in excellent shape and does an amazing amount of chair stands and arm curls. He just kind of blew us away."
Again, Gralley is humble about the shape he's in.
"For some reason," he said with a laugh, "the older I get, the slower I get."
He's told this joke a hundred times, but Betty Gralley, his college sweetheart and mother of their three children, still laughs at it. "He's very easy to get along with," she said.
Their courtship began, fittingly, in an athletic way.
The two met at the University of Maryland, where both were students, and he played on the basketball team. They sat next to each other in class and he happened to mention his love of badminton.
"And I said, `Well, I'll take you on some time,'" Betty Gralley said. "And it just went on from there."
They were married in June 1949, in a United Methodist Church on Edmondson Avenue, when they were 23 years old - too young to imagine still being alive, much less being healthy, active and still in love, almost 60 years later.
"In those days, if you got to 50, you were up there toward middle age, or old age even," Bob Gralley said.
But here they are, retired at Oak Crest to be nearer to their children and grandchildren. Betty Gralley enjoys walking, and working in the Oak Crest Treasure Chest, which resells items to raise money for charity.
The two belong to two different bridge groups, they play double dominoes with a group of friends, and they have a little garden plot that they tend on the Oak Crest grounds.
With all that togetherness, it's no wonder Betty doesn't begrudge Bob's daily fitness jaunts. His alone time with the open road is good for him, he said.
"It helps you not only physically, but mentally, feeling better about yourself," Gralley said. "It's an enjoyment in life that a lot of people don't have. Especially as you get older, you need something like that."
And, Betty Gralley said, it's good for their marriage too.
"We've managed to stay friendly for 59 years," she said.
And if you combine the marathons, triathlons, trophies, medals and all those thousands of miles logged around the world - you probably won't find a better reason to exercise than that.
tanika.white@baltsun.com
