Unbudgeable Solid Dumbbells

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You’ll find the state of Texas at the bottom of the USA just above Mexico. Austin, the state’s capitol, is located in the Lone Star’s southern regions. The Dripping Springs Gang, as we've become known by Texas marshals and sheriffs, met last week in the remote hill country outside Austin. With a summer of hard riding ahead, it was our plan to fatten up, relax and practice the skills common to rebels.

We bent gnarly spikes, dragged rusty, back-breaking farm equipment by chains and hauled heavy, toe-busting flagstone across fields. The few who volunteered not to participate (hello) kept watch, took pictures and cheered for the merry musclemakers. Six-guns in hand, we shot steel critters invading the prairies and looking for action. None was fast enough to out-dodge our swift and careful aim.

The sun beat down relentlessly, clouds circled the horizons, faces and shoulders turned pink-red, but we endured.

Barbecued beef and chicken and all the fixings were served at the cook’s wagon all day long. Shade, conversation and repose were sought in the barn and sheds, alongside horses and burros and dogs. Water from a spring drowned our thirst and dark did not come without an extraordinary Texas sunset to sooth our souls. The lonely calls at nightfall from the brush were the peacock seeking companionship, something we had in abundance.

Always on the move, the gang wandered about Austin, a clean and friendly town known for, among other things, its nightlife. Music is one of old Austin’s gifts to the country-western world. There are some 300 live bands performing at various establishments every weekend, and the town’s school kids (University of Texas -- huge and growing) have been known to attend the affairs in large, riotous numbers. We gathered at Threadgill’s, est. 1933, to add to the noise and confusion and good cheer. The band was way over there and great, no doubt. The 37 of us seated at two meandering tables made our own ecstatic, eclectic music.

If you know where to look -- in the dark corners of a basement in an old brick building in the original part of the University -- you’ll find the Todd-McLean Physical Culture Collection. It’s vast and varied, stacked and packed amid shelves and filing cabinets, upon walls and tables and in spare rooms and closets and cubbyholes. Jan and Terry Todd, noteworthy powerlifters and odd lifters from yesterday (my day), Doctors in education at the University and devoted archivists, have an enormous, impressive and elaborate collection of strength and health memorabilia.

It’s all there -- rare books to old-time barbells, original strongman posters and manuscripts from the late 1800s to the early grip builders of men of steel -- in well-organized heaps and piles ready for its rebirth in 2008, its grand display in its spectacular new home under construction at the University’s Royal-Texas Stadium. 27,000 square feet of prime real estate situated above and in the center of everything athletic is reserved for The Todd-McLean strongman antiquities, where it belongs.

The grand opening is on our agenda.

I appreciate the old timers more and more -- now that I is one -- and their gear, stories, contributions and mystique. But, give me a room full of barbells and dumbbells and I’m in, well, a gym. I was gonna say heaven, but that’s ridiculous.

In Lockhart, a small town just outside of Austin, we found one such room. Off the main drag, down a block and next to the butcher shop there’s the Old Texas Barbell Company. The brick building housing the gym was built long before any of us were born, and the copious equipment arranged functionally on the plywood floors was modern 50 years ago. Modern in a gym is something I can do without. The dumbbells are solid and go up to unbudgeable, the bars are Olympic or thick and the pulleys work fine. Antique muscle-building paraphernalia is on the floor for use and on the wall to view. No jerks allowed.

Mike Graham, the owner and long-time powerlifter and bodybuilder and NPC promoter and judge and official, built the place and much of the gear, benches and racks. He’s as cool as Texas is hot. Did my first Austin show with him (Texas Athletic Club), like, 40 years ago and Laree and I did a second show (Hyde Park Gym), like, 20 years ago. We’re muscleheads, him and me. Carol, Mike’s strong wife and partner, tosses metal objects like they were winged and motorized. She’s a Master World Champion in the Weight Pentathlon and has American and World records in a variety of events -- shot, hammer, javelin, discus and such. She and Laree are sorta muscleheads, too.

By time the dust cleared there were nine desperados from the Dripping Springs Gang in the Old Barbell Co looking for trouble. I was one of them. For two hours we moved the iron, cleared the cobwebs, released stress, ignited small fires, gave thanks and pumped, sweated and muttered... another great day in the Great State. 
 
Monday, time for one more BBQ before hitting the trails. Airport, aircraft and airways on Tuesday. No more horses and six-guns, Partner.

Laree took notes. She’ll fill you in with the details. It’s tough being a bomber and a member of a notorious gang in the Wild West. God bless y'all... DD

Click here for Laree's Bash Report and photos

 THAT BOMBER BLEND

Quick note: To avoid mucus formation and the resultant throat-clearing that guarantees thunderous pain in the wired sternum, I ingested no milk products to this date. I’ve been a dairy man all my life. Today I mixed two scoops of Bomber Blend in cold water and guzzled it like a wild pig. No mucus, color returned to my face, I felt a warm pump all over and I laughed for no apparent reason, the first time in three weeks. Go figure.

I'm seriously considering the elimination of milk from my diet, maintaining some yogurt and cottage cheese and increasing my already substantial intake of the Bomber Blend. Man against mucus!

BOMB SQUAD FLASH

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