Growing Up

"Grow up!" words marching across time to invade my fading memory.

    Physical fitness is a growing concern. More hours are spent daily on our phones, lap tops, and doing just about anything but moving. We have become a society of viewers, not doers. 

    I am not attempting to remove myself from the majority of us who do not get enough physical exercise, and pay the price for not doing so. I have to date been fortunate; I do not have any serious illnesses attributed to being overweight, heart disease, diabetes, and dozens of other disorders attributed to the lack of exercise.

    Where we used to walk up hill to both school and home, we now ride the bus, or if financially advantaged driven by a chauffer or cabby. The financially advantaged scenario is not the norm however, which leaves those of us in the not well to do category, on the bus, as walking to school has been deemed too dangerous to attempt if concerned with our health. We have in fact, because of social concerns, found the notion of physical activity not conducive to our health. This situation has promoted the proliferation of fitness centers, which charge fees to proselytize fitness centers as being the pheromonal mecca for a new age.

    We all have a tendency to look at ourselves and say, “compared to that guy, I’m not too bad off.” That of course is not the point. The inference being that because there are people in worse physical shape than ourselves, we needn’t worry, we are normal. When asked however if we have been striving to reach a plateau of normalcy, most people would say, “well not when you put it like that.” The point, at least the one promoted by weight loss drugs, is that if we want to be considered sexy, which has many connotations, most of them contrived, but inferring we need a beach body to reach King or Queen status.

    The problem with that philosophy is that beach bodies get hit by cars, get cancer, fall out of bed, and never walk again. What we are really looking for is a way to be comfortable with ourselves, and if that translates into being sexy, all the better; two birds with one banana split, as they say.

    Fat psychologists, not fat psychologists, but psychologists dedicated to weight reduction and fitness, have an interesting, if not delusional pretext for doing what they do; convince people they are not really who they believe themselves to be.

    Bertrand Oliver, although not a psychologist, in the true sense of the word, dabbled in the fat arts as part of his repertoire as a gym teacher. That was, I must clarify, back in the day when fitness involved more than two thumbs and a series of buttons related to a visionary screen, capable of convincing us we could be whoever we wished to be.

    He had been a drill instructor in the marines in between wars, and found his particular set of skills as they say, wasted. He retired, feeling boredom was a tool of the devil, and being an upstanding Christian, decided to seek shelter from, what he considered to be a Twinkie society, and those addicted to it by becoming a gym teacher at the Algonquin J. Calhoun Apostolic School for Boys. He would use his skills to develop the bodies of boys into the future fighting machines that would be necessary once the war hiatus ended.

    Although a product of immigrants, whose lifestyle included primarily macaroni and cheese casserole, and as much sugar and carbohydrates as could be legally digested, I remained a knife blade thickness that casted a shadow only on the brightest of days. The fact mattered little to sergeant Calhoun as he perceived every individual to have the potential to become the next Congressional Medal of Honor recipient.

     Sergeant Calhoun was a ardent believer in mind over matter. He used the example of a rich man being able to pass through the eye of a needle, being easier than entering heaven, but “not impossible.” He believed being unfit was a reflection of not only your moral station, but your mental failure to appreciate the opportunity to one day die for your country. He frightened the hell out of a lot us, literally as well as physically.

     We, unlike today’s mollycoddled youth, a reference often used by the sergeant to inspire us no doubt, were required to take gym class. It didn’t matter if you were afraid of showering with others of differing shapes and sizes, unless you were dying, and had a required note from a licensed mortician, you were participating in gym class. We understood, contrary to common belief, that his bite was worse than his bark. We capitulated to his demands, not only because we feared the repercussion of not doing so, but because we came to believe it was our patriotic duty, literally if not physically.

    Sergeant Calhoun was known throughout the school district for his ambitious callisthenic routines, which were required not only in gym class, but before any and all competitions between waring schools. His routine served as not only a warming up exercise, but also had the added affect of intimidating the opposing armies combatants. If it were not for the bright lights, stripped grass or polished floors looked upon by netted hoops, we would have resembled brightly colored GI’s sloshing through the jungles of Vietnam or the deserts of Afghanistan. 

    Our regiment consisted of a variety of athletic maneuvers intended to, “ripple those abs and display those biceps.” Although impressive in their own right, nothing compared to the synchronized jumping jack exercises that left the opposing army of reinforcing spectators, sliding to the far recesses of their benches. It wasn’t simply the acrobatics added to the common scissor moves, but the vocal component that sent shivers through the ranks of opposing warriors.

    Sergeant Calhoun’s voice mimicked his stocky physique in that it was not only bold and brassy, but projected a confidence that was impossible to dismiss. He, megaphone in hand, called out commands as if he were an auctioneer selling off the remnants of a neighbor’s concurred farm. We in turn, jumped in unison, turned with the precision movements of a Taiwanese watch, and responded, as if answering a duck call in a blind on a cold November day in the backwaters of a cat tailed pond.

    I was the chosen to be the designated “or” combatant. I should explain. “Or” being the differential between…well, a hyphen, and a preceding word, and the one following, without the notoriety, while maintaining the necessity.

    “Grow Up” or “Grow Out,” shouted in synchronistic fervor resonated off the concrete walls and vaulted ceiling, or scoreboard and bleachers surrounding the battle field. The “or” which was my contribution, when handled succinctly, gave a marching cadence to the precision movements that ensured if nothing else, the perception of victory, as the faces of the opposing army were left incredulous.