A few days ago, I began an exercise routine that I will continue for the next few months. It’s designed to gradually get me into the condition necessary to attempt some of the more challenging programs out there, and incorporates kettlebells, dumbbells, and most of all, body weight exercises.
Bodyweight exercises are an excellent way to ease back into fitness. With no weights to drop on your foot or machines to scream at in frustration, they strip away any and all excuses, and boil your failures and successes down to you and you alone. Instead of dropping hundreds of dollars on expensive gear, this program will allow me to get an excellent workout with a minimal investment. That being said, there are some essentials that I needed, which is why I was so thrilled to discover that a local park had a full body weight circuit. Free of charge and about five minutes from my house, it seemed the ideal solution.
This afternoon, I swung by the house and threw on some suitable clothing. The only thing I brought with me was my phone and some pull-up assist bands (I’ll talk more about my quest to conquer that particular exercise later). When I got there, the park was nearly deserted. The only exception was a single lone figure, trudging in circles around the body weight circuit.
As I drew closer, I saw that it was an elderly man, clad in only a pair of blue jeans. His chest was the color of burnt leather, and his head was bare save for a few wisps of hair gamely struggling to keep up the ruse. Trailing from his ears were thin beige cords that wound their way past white chest hair to an actual Sony Walkman cassette player. He didn’t say anything to me at first, just offered the friendly nod that is practically mandatory south of the Mason-Dixon line, and kept plodding around in circles around me.
I dismissed it at first, and commenced to my workout. I dropped to the rubberized pavement, and began doing pushups. I finished my first set, and glanced up. He had completed perhaps half of the circle. His head bobbed slightly, and some distant part of my brain tried to interpret his gait and his demeanor to guess what cassette tape was providing the soundtrack for his lackadaisical marathon. I sincerely hoped it was Whitesnake, simply because I want to live in a world where sun-bronzed octogenarians round another lap while David Coverdale howls, “Here I go, again, on my own…. going down the only road, I’ve ever know-e-own…”
Finishing my pushups, I moved to let-me-ups. After finishing the first set, I looked up, expecting to see my orbiting moon rounding for another pass. I didn’t see him, and was climbing to my feet when I heard a throat clear behind me. Turning, I found him there, smiling gamely at me. He apologized for interrupting, and said, “It’s not polite to just walk around someone without saying hello.” With that pronouncement, he stuck out a slightly damp hand.
His name is Gary. I had guessed his age at about 60, and was completely stunned when he informed me that he was 77 years old. Upon discovering that we both served in the Navy, he beamed at me with a smile so white and perfect that you could practically see the Fixodent logo on the bicuspid. Gary got out of the Navy when he was 38, and moved to Antioch. There, he opened up a small convenience store, which he successfully navigated through recessions and the shift of Antioch from a thriving center of commerce to a wasteland of shuttered doors and abandoned strip malls. He got married when he was 54, and he and his wife lived a quiet, happy life.
He explained that he would wake up at 7, eat his eggs, kiss his wife, and go to the store, where he would work until 10 p.m., at which point he walked home. He did this for nearly thirty years, until one morning, he woke up, ate his eggs, kissed his wife, walked to the store, and worked until about 9 p.m. It was at this point that two men walked in, shoved a pistol in his face, forced him to empty the register, and when he did what they asked, pushed him to the floor and fired two shots into his back.
Gary didn’t tell me what happened to the men who shot him. In a truly just world, they have been long since devoured by rabid possums or contracted some jungle disease that causes your spleen to slide out your bowels. Gary did explain that he spent two years in a wheelchair, a means of conveyance that the doctors at the VA hospital assured him would be a permanent situation. Telling me this, Gary shrugged and said, “I didn’t care for that idea.”
So he began walking. It took him over a year to make it to his mailbox and back. But he pushed himself in every possible way, and today, his wife (who he still kisses every morning, he assured me) drove him to this park, where he could walk on the spongy material the bodyweight circuit lies upon (it’s easier on his feet) for one hour. He has done this three days a week for nearly five years. The same 60 foot circle. The same scenery. Every day, he plods his way around that circle, and with every step, he issues a cosmic “fuck you” to the cowardly asshats that tried to put him down.
We spoke for about fifteen minutes. Finally, he shook my hand again, and said, “I guess we both better get back to it,” and resumed his walk. I stood for a moment, a bit stunned, but finally resumed my workout. But as I did my negative pull-ups, my bench dips, my box jumps, and the other exercises, they took on a different perspective. I found myself pushing harder, grinding out just one more with each set. I didn’t want to stop. Because when I let go of that bar, chest heaving and heart thudding, Gary would still be moving forward, one step after another, head still bobbing gently to whatever tune was pushing him along. Where I saw plodding and shuffling before, I now saw a juggernaut, disdaining the forces of age and infirmity. Each step was a mile long. Each step was more than most of us will accomplish in a year.
When I finished, I shook his hand, and told him I hoped to see him there again. He grinned, and said, “I sure hope so. It’ll be nice to have some company out here.” I walked away, and got in my car. The last thing I saw before I left was a tan back, puckered with two radiating scars, making its way back around the circuit.
