As a 98-pound weakling, small and thin, the big ads on the back of practically every comic book I read kept reminding me of my condition – the Charles Atlas ads where the tall man on the beach had sand on him Skinny kicks Kid and his girlfriend, who takes pity on her skinny boyfriend but can’t resist being impressed by the muscular tyrant.
Charles Atlas promised that his exercises would make you strong enough to fight back. At the time, you couldn’t just google exercises and get a sentence right away, and I don’t think I actually sent off the atlas exercises, but I ordered a book on jiu-jitsu and learned how to use my opponent’s exercises for strength against him – by practicing on my sisters. The practice paid off one day downtown (we called it Uptown) when I met the bully who had terrorized me since first grade and found he was even easier to throw around than my sisters.
In retrospect, it’s interesting to remember that our small town had no health or fitness, no physical education except for athletes. When we first started playing high school football, basketball, and running, we trained until we dropped, which resulted in most of us giving up cigarettes and beer or anything else that could affect our survivability while exercising.
But adults didn’t exercise, or if they did they didn’t call it that. They worked in their yards and gardens. Many did physical labor at work. All of this was done by women and also the housework. But no one who could afford a car went nowhere except Elizabeth Monfort, who walked the three blocks from her house to school every morning to teach sixth grade, and Floyd Freeman, the retired tax collector, whose doctor might be over any disease … circulatory related, Freeman had ordered to walk daily, which he did, and at any time Freeman could walk anywhere for not only exercise but constant social interaction.
And, oh yes: Carey Williams, our newspaper publisher, who didn’t drive a car and could go home disheveled and ink-stained from long days at the Linotype machine.
Men and some women smoked cigarettes and ate greasy food and never heard of hydration and fell into the form heredity and environment gave them – say stocky.
And it’s sobering to look back further into the past and to see photos of people, for example on the beach in the 1930s, where everyone is slim – no big bellies, no overweight. Sure, most people couldn’t afford enough food to get fat at the time, so the general population was lean and hungry, and when the challenge of World War II emerged we had a force ready to take on the tyrants the Axis powers to proceed. It was the 50s when we started to slow down.
Fast forward all these years, and people are much more health conscious and much more likely to include better diet, more exercise, and adequate water in their everyday lives. And running: I am always amazed at all the people jogging and stunned by those who have so much fun running that they pay money to run a half marathon or a 5 km. Fortunately, here they are turning that obsession into an annual neighborhood party that brings together large sums of money for the benefit of AthFest Educates, which uses the proceeds to support music and arts education.
Personally, I’ve hated running since it was forced on me in high school. Fortunately, I enjoy walking and regularly trying to emulate Floyd Freeman and hope to get back to the gym soon. And I find that every exercise I’ve practiced over the years has a cumulative effect as I gracefully age (insert emoji). In other words, whatever you do while running, walking, exercising, or martial arts will make your body stronger in the long run. I must add, however, that if I tried to throw you over my shoulder, I would just throw my shoulder out.
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