Getting Visceral

I was at the Y yesterday when the Silver Sneakers class started up.  There were three rows of chairs lined up on the basketball court with about 30 folks in my age range sitting there ready to go through their paces.  I couldn't help but notice their first exercise involved sitting in chairs with fists clenched and held in front of their bodies.  The instructor led them through a series of punching exercises to warm them up.  Some of the participants led with their left, others with their right.  One lady in the front row wasn't really able to lead with either hand.  Just the effort expended holding her hands up was enough to do her in.  At least she is trying to keep moving.  Give her credit for that.

But I am haunted by the boxing warm-up.  On the track above the basketball court, there is an alcove holding a punching bag and a body bag for anyone who would like to use them.  The only folks I have ever seen at the bags have been old men in ill fitting baseball hats busily punching out imaginary foes.  I'm sure a lot of the men at the bags are imagining they are beating the shit out of Muslims, or Democrats.

My mother bought me a punching bag when I was eleven years old in Estes Park.  My brother in law mounted it in the basement for me.  I was never quite sure why she gave me the bag.  I didn't ask for it.  I guess she thought that since I had no masculine influence in the house, a punching bag would help train me how to defend myself if the need ever arrived.

To this day, that need has yet to arrive.

When the bag first went up and I was presented with a brand new pair of boxing gloves, I went downstairs and gave a few tentative swings at the thing.  It was pretty easy and the bag did in fact bounce off the rim and make the kind of staccato pulse that pugilists in sweaty gyms would create, but after that there wasn't much else to recommend it.  The punching bag remained idle in my basement through my high school years.

And the thing is that I feel a little guilty about that.  I didn't do the manly thing and rise to the occasion with my punching bag.  And by extension, I have to believe there have been plenty other occasions where I haven't risen to the "man challenge."

Do you remember the Andy Griffith episode where Opie has entered all of the events at Field Day, to take place the end of the school year?  He can't sleep the night before, dreaming of all the first place ribbons he was going to win.  Of course, Field Day arrived and Opie doesn't  win a single ribbon, not even third place.  He is devastated and goes home to pout in his room.

Andy goes up to talk to him and lets him know that Opie's poor sportsmanship won't fly in the Taylor household.  "I'm disappointed in you," Andy says as he walks out of the room.

But it all turns out okay, because Opie shows up at the jail and lets Andy know that he has learned his lesson.  Andy gives him a huge hug as the show breaks for commercial.

I've never had a "man lesson" like that, at least not one from a real live man.  I've never been on the  son side of a father/son relationship.  If I went fishing, it was with my grandmother.  If I learned to shoot, it was . . .well, I never learned to shoot.  If I learned to own my behavior, it was from my mother, or aunt, or sisters, or grandmother.

I never learned to place a value on being tough.  That's why all the commotion over the drone attack on the Iranian general is so hard for me to take.

Should I be like a FoxNews sycophant and glory in my visceral reaction to a murder.  Should I get orgasmic over the prospect of destroying cultural sites in Iran?

Should I be proud that my country is getting Medieval on countries we don't like?

In a recent ATLANTIC the cover story was lamenting the state of American boys.  What kinds of things are we teaching them?  What kind of values are we inculcating?  The answers are not pretty.

I'm glad, I think, that I don't salivate over the prospect of beating up on another country.  I'm glad I weep when I read about what is happening at our border.

But I still feel inadequate when confronted by a bunch of guys my age at the Y who stand around belly to belly getting visceral rushes at the thought of taking someone out!  I'm supposed to pump my fist and be happy about some, by all accounts, incompetent general getting splattered all  over the tarmac of some distant airport.  Or shake my head knowing it serves them right, when I hear about another child's death at the border, when I hear about  a child screaming and hyperventilating when he gets pulled out of his mother's arms.

Sorry.  I just can't do that.