Sunday musings 2/3/13
1) Mantei. New nickname for a buddy whose girlfriend no one’s ever met.
2) Dr. Pepper. Some things are not meant to go together. Like cherry juice in beer. From Germany. Or wherever. Bleh.
3) Community. 105 CrossFitters of all shapes and sizes came together for a CrossFit competition yesterday. Pretty high quality stuff, too (3 sub-3:00 “Frans” for example). Even more impressive was the spectator turn-out, some 300 non-competitors crammed into the Box.
The provenance of this particular event actually traces back to a large commercial gym on the West Side of Cleveland where a young personal trainer was intrigued/amused by the antics of a skinny middle-aged guy who was doing crazy stuff like jumping on stuff and banging weights. Seems this old guy had discovered a new fitness program on the internet, CrossFit. The young trainer did one, precisely one workout with the old guy and decided that he’d had enough.
Except he hadn’t. He couldn’t get enough, actually. Hours upon end spent on the computer watching videos, reading the Forum, trying out WOD’s. From there it was a straight line to an L1 with a Box to follow.
The rest is history.
4) Shoot. I am about to shoot a gun for the first time since age 7. My very good friend is taking “The Heir” and me on a hunt later today. It’s funny…I’ve been kinda nervous about guns, about handling them. I’m not really sure how I feel about the whole thing.
I have no gun bias, yea or nay. They’ve just not been a part of my life. I have no hunting bias, yea or nay. Again, just not a part of my upbringing, not something anyone in my family has ever done. The “Great Outdoors” for us growing up was a golf course or a tennis court, for my own family it meant a mountain with ski lifts.
Grampbingo fought in Korea and said he’d never touch a gun again after mustering out. Fair enough. That certainly didn’t translate into an anti-gun household, though; we played Cowboys and Indians and War with all kinds of toy firearms growing up. Every Christmas tree had a gun of some sort underneath.
So why now? On Super Bowl Sunday no less. Well, “The Heir” is accomplished at sporting clays and skeet, and he has been itching to try his hand in the field. As a Dad I’m always interested in activities that draw us together.My friend has been bugging me to shoot with him ever since my golfing days ended. Seems that this shooting thing can be rather social, not unlike golf in that respect. In truth, nothing has replaced the golf course for me when it comes to the camaraderie of a slower paced sport experienced in the company of friends.
Will I like it? Will I form an opinion about the larger, louder gun topics of the day because I went? Will I experience some kind of deep insight into a world about which I’ve only read, maybe somehow better understand the mindset of a very good friend who was recently arrested for a gun law violation?
Probably not. Likely what I will experience is nothing more of less than a very pleasant, hopefully not too cold afternoon in the company of a good friend who really wants to spend some time, and a son who has asked the same. Company far from the hue and cry and hysteria.
I’ll likely enjoy it very much.
I’ll see you next week…
Posted by bingo at February 3, 2013 7:14 AM
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