Early morning society

Our social life takes place from six in the morning until nine at the YMCA at Broadway and Mineral. It has been thus since Franny was still in junior high school. When we were still teaching, we got out of bed at twenty past four every weekday morning and made it to the Y by five so we could finish our workout and be at school by seven. We tried a couple of times to save the workout until after school, but it never worked. There was always some reason not to go and when we did, we were just too beat from a day of teaching to settle into aerobics, or weight-lifting, so we reconciled ourselves to kind of a backwards schedule. We hung out with our friends at the Y for two or three hours every morning and became recluses at night, hitting the sack at nine every evening.



We follow Bill Phillips' Body for Life regimen minus the dietary supplements. For instance, today we did lower body weights. Tomorrow we will do aerobics. Friday we will do upper body weights. Saturday and Sunday we will abstain, but then Monday we will back at it doing aerobics. We've been alternating like that for at least fifteen years. Our bodies have not become olympian by any stretch of the imagination, but they have held their own. Our goal is to live forever and we figure that a combination of exercise, good food, Bandaloop breathing and lots of sex will do the trick. At least that is the plan.



I have to admit that we are terrible party poopers when the clock gets much past eight in the evening and people probably think and say lots of disparaging things about our lack of late night stamina, but in the morning just as the sun is coming up we are a couple of live wires.



And the people at the Y seem to like us. Of course that is because we are all in the same boat where none of us can remember when we last stayed up late enough to watch The Tonight Show. Is Johnny Carson still the host? And the only reason we might stay up to toast in the new year is because the Y is closed on New Year's Day.



I like the people at the Y a lot more than I like most other people, even though it often seems like a nest of rabid republicans and devoted Rush Limbaugh listeners. There are very few Tea Partiers there probably because Tea Partiers have to stay up relatively late making plans to combat the lastest conspiracies and communist plots exposed by Glen Beck. When you are up by five in the morning to take a step class, you have better things to worry about.



Paul lockers right next to me in the 50s and 60s section of the dressing room. We share books and snowshoeing destinations and studiously avoid talking politics. Paul teaches geology at Mines every second semester, but most of the time he is a geology Ph.D. working at the Fed Center in Lakewood.



Huns lockers in that section as well. Huns' wife is Sheri Kretch who has the distinction of being the most annoyingly upbeat high school counselor I ever worked with. I asked Huns once if Sheri was always that positive. He wearily shook his head yes. The man was just beat down by all the enthusiasm. I remember once when we were doing impromptu counseling sessions for all our classes in response to the Columbine shootings, Sheri came into my classroom to offer her expertise. As she walked in I declared to my students that "Ms. Kretch's husband and I take showers together every morning!" I thought it was a funny comment. Sheri quickly explained that we actually used different shower stalls at the Y. Another viscious rumor dispelled.



Next to Huns is Curt, a finance banker in downtown Denver. We talk a lot about restaurants; never about finance. Jim lockers next to Curt. Jim is a contract lawyer whose daughter is the head staffer for the Senate Finance Committee, so we talk a lot about how our respective daughters are doing in D.C. We also share books and are surprisingly able to talk about politics. There are lots of other lawyers at the Y who I avoid politics with because they are, well, lawyers. But Jim is the most reasonable and mellow lawyer I have ever known. He doesn't go out of his way to cut you off at the knees during an exchange.



Vern is a lawyer who loves nothing more than knee cutting. He is a large, exceedingly hairy Viet Nam veteran who still hasn't gotten over the fact that his commanding general in Nam was one of the military brass that assembled on the stage at Invesco to support Obama the night he accepted the democratic nomination. Vern is a friendly guy, especially when I play teacher and ask drawing out questions, but when I'm around he generally shuts up about politics. I think I'm the only person at the Y who is well informed and obnoxious enough to argue back and he is always a little surprised when I call him on something.



There is also Irv. Irv and Vern kind of fit into the same ideological bag, meaning Fox News Republicans. In other words, they have lots of loud and strong opinions and almost no facts to support them. They are easy to argue with, even though they refuse to hear a word anyone might say to disagree with them. Irv once loudly proclaimed that schools should be forced to teach creationism along with evolution because they were both just theories. I, of couse, said that evolution was hardly theoretical in the same sense that creationism is. He shot back, and I quote, "Oh yes it is BUCKO!" No one had ever called me Bucko before, so I decided to go lift something.



Jack and Katherine are two terrific people who share a lot of our interests. They snowshoe, hike, love to eat at great restaurants, and like expensive wines. We spent a showshoeing weekend in Winter Park with them a couple of years ago and always have lots to talk about every morning. Jack and I usually end up talking about his disillusionment over the Catholic Church. Katherine and Katherine usually talk about different stretches to eliminate achy body parts.



Let us not forget the Bobs. There is grumpy Bob and nice Bob and they are inseparable. Grumpy Bob is a retired school teacher who is used a lot as an expert witness in court cases about mineral rights throughout the region. It is interesting that he grew up in Girard, Kansas where he was best friends with my sister Jeri's second husband, Terry Glad.



Nice Bob used to be the sales manager at Publication Printers when I was the newspaper sponsor at GMHS. I didn't really get to know him until I started working out, but we now have lots of old printer stories to tell each other about the good old days at Pub Printers. Bob is a devout Christian who actually conducts his life with Christian Charity instead of just loudly proselytizing every chance he gets. When Sammi had her brain surgery, Bob couldn't ask enough about how she was doing. Same thing when Kathie's cancer recurred. I think he is one of my all time favorite people.



Bud and I did some work for Keith, another very visible member of the Y. Keith is quietly conservative, but open to new ideas. I turned him onto Tom's Home Cooking and now I think he might be their most regular customer. If you haven't been to Tom's Home Cooking, you need to know that it is not usually a place where Tea Partiers might gather, which is one of the many problems with Tea Partiers. Sneaking up behind you and tapping you on the opposite shoulder is Keith's idea of a good joke that never fails.



Louis is my hero. When I grow up I want to look like Louis, only taller. He is eighty or so with six pack abs and a wicked racket ball game that absolutely gives no quarter to whichever hapless opponent he happens to solicit. I played him weekly for awhile until I got tired of being humiliated by a man twenty years older than me.



I want to end this by talking about Norm and his daughter Linda. Norm is in his mid-eighties and has recently undergone some serious heart (I think) surgery which has left him moored to an oxygen tank and a chrome walker. Linda has the same reddish blond hair as her father and takes whichever step class is being offered on any given day. They come in every day and Linda spends her mornings helping her dad walk around the track, reminding him to stand up straight, admonishing him to try harder. Then she sets him up on a bike as she goes off to do her exercises.

I'm not sure who I admire more. Linda is dedicated enough to her father's health that she is willing to be tough with him to get him on the road to recovery. Norm is comfortable enough to be bossed around by his little girl. It is a wonderful thing to see. I think when Charlie was still alive and struggling Kathie would have been more than willing to get him to the Y every morning. She might even have been able to show a little tough love. I just can't imagine Charlie allowing his daughter to boss him around like that, even if it was for his own good. Too bad. He might have lived longer.

I of course will never need anyone to bully me into walking, breathing, and standing up straight, but if I do I want my kids to know that I will be happy to do as I am told.