Exercising, Early Memories

Stop and Think

The painter is listed as "Hughes;" the magazine cover is The Saturday Evening Post, November 29, 1952. And the masthead caption reads:
Muscles are so confusing. Long ago, we knew a wiry little boy who got a muscle-building psychosis because the little girl next door could make a bigger bulge than he could with the biceps of the right arm. With this bulge, she could lick him, and she also used it to become pitcher on the Maple Street baseball team. Well, the little girl grew up and put on an evening dress and then wished the arm was thinner. Meanwhile, the boy spent twenty years building muscles like a mastodon's, then had nothing to use them for but carry a briefcase, and today he is exercising to restore thinness. Maybe painter Hughes' lad can be rescured from this tragic cycle by his father explaining to him that the best muscles come from hoeing and hoeing a garden.

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The mind is a wonderful thing.

Ain’t I profound? And what on earth do I know about the mind? I sit here and it works, apparently. Little thoughts pop in and out of my head, I see what’s before me, hear sounds within my range, and I smell (no wisecracks, thank you). I touch and feel with my hands, and I do so with my heart, my emotions. These things are recorded and I remember them, more or less. There you have it; my extensive knowledge of the mind.

What prompted the declaration about the mind and its grandness was my recent pause on the matter of guilt, a subject, which, was it physical, would likely be composed of tar, barbed wire and acid. Though we cannot ignore guilt, we are wise not to dwell on its ugliness. It disfigures, enflames, deteriorates and kills. Ironically, as it is with many potent concoctions, just enough will also restore. A healing balm in disguise.

Innocent thoughts and reminiscences uncover the weirdest feelings. In preparation of this week’s newsletter, I was recalling my early training days, hoping to stumble across a memory that would be meaningful, insightful or inspiring. Ambitious, I know, but it was a sunny and warm Sunday morning and the birds were singing. I put war and crime aside for the moment and, instead visited the days surrounding my twelfth and thirteenth years, Saturdays to be more precise. I worked with Tommy and Carl at their dad’s tiny grocery store on the corner of 13th and Washington in Hoboken, New Jersey. Where else?

Good times, tough times, wise guys, back alleys, hard work, climbing stairs -- lots of stairs -- and earning money hauling heavy boxes full of Tide, celery and bottled milk in a black and white concrete world. We delivered the daily and weekly household items to the care-worn tenants living within a three block radius of the Patty’s Market. We lived for tips, the idea of working, pleasing our boss, being honest, surviving and whooping it up. Every Saturday for years we wheeled push-carts, lugged groceries, swept floors and stocked shelves. We were lucky and thought of nothing neater to do. Other kids played; we couldn’t tell the difference.

Right about here I encountered the first sting of guilt. Carl and Tommy got up real early -- 5 AM -- and worked both Friday and Saturday. I took two buses getting to the store at 8:00 AM, way late and on Saturday only. What a slug! Another sting came when I reconstructed in my mind the backroom -- the storage room -- where we congregated for breaks throughout the day. Somehow a set of dumbbells found their way to a dark, remote corner through 20 feet of narrow man-made passageways amid towering boxes of canned goods and crated fresh produce. They sat on the floor like twin pagan gods. Guilt again reared its ugly head. No, I didn’t worship the inanimate objects, but I did try to lift them while tired, over-worked Patty had more important chores for me to do.

Imagine, 50 years later and I feel guilty about lifting weights while old Mrs. Desposito over on Hudson Avenue awaited her russet potatoes and loaf of pumpernickel. A wonderful thing, the mind is also weird, man.

What’s the moral to the story? Deliver the potatoes before lifting the weights. Wrong. Don’t cry over stale bread. Close, but no cigar. There’s no moral; lift without shame. Almost got it there… The lesson, I believe, is one must grin, accept one’s unrighteous past -- what’s done is done -- and move on. Be strong, bombers, or alas, like me you’ll become a neurotic weightlifter fraught with guilt, its stresses and the accompanying catabolism.

Lifting weights in the bowels of Patty’s grocery store was my first experience curling and pressing barbells with others. At times, only a dumbbell fit in the cramped space and the assorted plates were centered on one short bar while our dirty, still-small hands grabbed the outside ends. It worked, as things do when they must. We slaved over the clanking, which we muffled with rags to obscure our private endeavors from the awareness of the outside world. Patty had a fit periodically, though he generally approved of rascals: "How can I sell onions and apples with all that noise?"

We endured bruises trying to squat with the awkward metal object poorly balanced on our thin flesh-and-bone backs. The skin between our thumbs and index fingers was red and tender from plate-pinching when pressing the demon overhead or from a position lying on stacked boxes of 32-ounce Del Monte tomato juice. The stacked juices served as a platform for our feet during our performance of angled pushups. We were inventive, resourceful and progressive. The doorjamb over the toilet entry was suitable for chins and there were always groupings of crates that resembled dipping bars for everyone’s favorite exercise, Dips with a capital D. Bally’s had nothing on us. Fact is, they never will.

Interlude: The first thing I’d do if I managed a Bally’s gym would be line up the treadmills, stair climbers and elliptical walkers in a row out back and crush them. I would then resign without notice. The Bomber has a cruel side.

The Saturday training sessions took on regularity and substance through the spring of one year in particular, the spring of 13. Tommy grew sideburns of sorts and assumed with likeability an Elvis Presley swagger. I liked Don’t Be Cruel, but had my hands full being myself. Building muscles and strength short of extra facial hair was enough for me. We proceeded to rock n’ roll the weights in quiet discipline with a system that corresponded to our work day, the early morning chores and deliveries followed by chins and pressing; the late morning and midday deliveries and chores followed by arms, arms, arms, and the early evening deliveries and closing chores mixed with any bent-over lifting exercises we could invent. Carl did situps.

We were sure the girls would be impressed with our manly actions and this kept us motivated. And there were the guys on every block who thought they were tough and that, too, motivated us. "The bigger, the better" in a world where it’s "dog eat dog" were the well-worn philosophies of the three east coast runts trying to survive. And we did. We grew that spring like weeds grow every spring, tangled, taller and wild.

We also lifted because we loved it. That’ll keep one going for a long, long time.

On the corner adjacent to Patty’s market was the Hoboken YMCA, a large red-brick building where I learned to swim. Jimmy Dewland, another runt, and I were nine and decided it would be fun one afternoon to visit the Y’s big indoor pool and splash around -- two discerning and adventurous kids in the mid-1950s not wanting to skinny-dip in Secaucus creeks full of Secaucus sewage and muskrats. The same two buses that were to transport me to Patty’s Market in the next few years carried us to our watery baptism. Glub, gulp!

The man behind the front counter issued us day passes based on the fact that, yes, we could definitely swim, and had referenced Jimmy’s mom, a nurse and occasional volunteer at the Y. We were legit -- except Jimmy’s mom hadn’t served the organization in three years and neither of us could swim an inch. We used the sprinklers at our neighborhood grammar school park, but water over two feet deep was foreign to us. We were learning the arts of exaggeration and little white lies.

It was time to learn to swim. We followed the arrows to the locker rooms and watched the adults and did as they did: hung up our clothes, put on our swimsuits and trailed them to the pool. It was the size of a lake, deep on both ends, hot, muggy and smelled like the chemicals Mom kept under the sink. We were not happy. Some little kids with their parents bobbed around in life preservers at the pool’s far end. Not for us, no siree. Two busses and a packed lunch to get here, all for bobbing about like rubber ducks? I don’t think so.

We lowered ourselves into the water with the aid of the poolside ladder, held on for dear life and kicked about like miserable frogs in a soup. The experience and view from water level was delirious, sloshing water in the eyes and nose and over the head, noisy, awful tasting and stinging, and you can’t touch bottom even if you tried, which you don’t because it’s a deep and creepy way down there. Spitting and gurgling, gasping and gagging and then, as if by magic the frenzy gradually dissolves and is replaced by vague familiarity, understanding and security.

Jimmy let go first and kicked and splashed and moved away from the slippery tiled edge. He looked heroic in all his frantic flailing, a born swimmer. I was jealous for an unbearable instant and released my death grip to join him. We looked like feasting piranha as we churned up the water in our efforts to stay afloat.

Where a child’s energy comes from is a mystery too deep for science and where time goes no one really knows. I do know this: It wasn’t long into the afternoon before we thrashed our way across the pool to the opposite ladder. Like crossing the English Channel under enemy fire, nothing could stop us. We found getting out of the pool to be a delightful achievement in itself, tugging on the stainless steel poles reminding us of our weights at home. The ladder was thicker than our barbell, but had the same welcome feeling of resistance.

We stood by the shiny ladder uprights a long time before deciding to jump into the stinky blue water. Jimmy the daredevil went first and I waited for him to surface. He did, gasping like a pro. Good sign. I jumped in, floundered and was up and outta there with a nose-full. This act went on till we were dizzy, achy and slightly water-logged and it was late. It was late and the champs showered in tall tiled booths that echoed when we yelled.

We watched for the familiar landmarks of home with weary anticipation from the back of the bus where the big high school kids usually sat. Our legs were up against the seat rails and our arms crossed over our growing chests. We nibbled on dried fruit and peanuts. What a swell day for young men.

Things are no different today. I’m just older. We’re just older. Years have come and gone and the days keep rolling on. I notice inveterate gym-goers, especially muscleheads, are like kids. They never quite grow up; older, yes -- up, no. Is it an ailment, a shortcoming, a hang-up, a neurosis? Is it my imagination or miscalculation? I think it’s other things: playfulness, hopefulness, eagerness, on-going curiosity, a joyful refusal to submit without a good fight and an energy teemed with an enthusiasm of mind, body and spirit. It’s our survival instinct, perhaps, or some might say our God-given gift to live well and right for good.

We’re still improvising and inventing and re-inventing each day as if it was new. Well, after all, it is new. Absolutely new. Let’s make it better, the best.

The Bomber’s Creed. Train hard, eat right and soar high, for tomorrow we do it again.

God’s speed ... DD

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