Sunday, July 24, 2011

Soon to be Crushing Coconuts and Ripping Phone Books

Back in the late '70s and early '80s, I was quite the fan of AWA Wrestling, Verne Gagne's since-defunct organization. Among the many angles and gimmicks you would see would be feats or claims of strength.

Otto Wanz would take a phone book and rip it in half with his bare hands. I can do that, too, if the phone book is that of a town of no more than 25,000 or so. Or, if it's a big town, it would have to be a progressive town, whose residents no longer use landlines, and whose businesses have switched their advertising bucks from print to the Web.

It was also claimed that Baron Von Raschke's "Claw" hold could crush coconuts. I can squish an Almond Joy candy bar barehanded, even a frozen one (I think), but that's about it.

I posted last month about my quest to bench 315 (I'm at 235 for 10 reps...getting close!), but considering my favorite recreational activities are bowling, golf, slowpitch softball, and shaking Adrian Peterson's hand, I figured it was a good idea to set some strength goals centered around my grip.

The for-pay Web site www.cyperpump.com has a bunch of information, user forums, and of course, products for sale, all around the subject of grip strength. As for the products, they include a training program and industrial-strength hand grips. These are not your run-of-the-mill squishy stress balls, or even WalMart plastic-coated grip springs.

I've long been intrigued by the real manly grips. Imagine, then, how giddy I was when I saw on display several packs of these Popeye-builders at GNC. They sold them in threes, with a retail price of $49.99, not unreasonable compared to internet prices. Better still, they were on sale for $19.99 a pack!

You could buy the "beginner" pack, which was three grips: 50#, 100#, and 150#, the numbers presumably representing the pounds of force required to close each grip. No slouch in the strength department, I of course opted for the "advanced" pack: three grips, with weights of 200#, 250#, and 300#. It ended up costing me only $9.99, either because of an additional discount, or a cashier mix-up. The extra adrenaline of getting the grips at 80 percent off retail list was surely enough to allow me to at least crush the 200# grip.

It wasn't, and don't call me Shirley. Ironically, I needed a very sharp knife to even open the package. I got the 200# grip to move OK, but nowhere near closing it altogether. Humbled, I went back to the GNC a couple days later, and laughed in self-deprication when the clerk said, "I remember you!" I explained that, yeah, I needs to eat me spinach a little more, and work on the beginner set a while before tackling the big-boy grips.

So I bought the beginner set, this time for $19.99 (still a bargain), went home and got the knife out, and prayed to the almighty forearm gods that I could handle the 50# grip. They answered, and I found the 50# grip to be somewhat easier than the typical WalMart grips, and I also succeeded in closing the 100# grip, which is a little tougher than the "WalMart."

As of today, I can almost close the 150# grip with each hand, coming up just short by a couple of millimeters. I hope the training "secrets" I'll pick up from the Cyberpump site will help hasten my progress, and while I have no grand illusions, I would like to think one day I could at least close the 200# grip. That would be significant, and hopefully, beneficial to my hobbies.

Today the Eagan white pages, tomorrow, Duluth.

Thursday, July 14, 2011

Holding Ponds, Shelley Fabares, Loose Meat Sandwiches, and Uprooted Trees

My son and I have been back from our golf/nostalgia trip to Iowa since about 5:30 Monday evening. I've been wanting to turn around and head back since 5:31.

We arrived in Carroll at a little after 10:00 AM, pulling into the Municapal Golf Course around 10:30, hoping to get a round in. The annual Men's Club Tournament was going on, so we had to wait until about 11:15.

We had a bite to eat in the clubhouse, where I told my son his mother worked in the summer of 1997. I also told him the story of how I actually played in the Men's Club Tournament, also in '97. It was memorable because after an extremely disappointing opening 9 of 42 on the easier, par-35 side, I started the turn birdie-birdie-birdie-par-birdie, which remains the only time I've ever made three straight birdies. I parred the rest until 18, where I bogeyed, for a three-under-par "in" nine of 33. It gave me a 75, to barely qualify me for the Championship Flight on the following day.

Yeah, he was as excited to hear that story as you are to read it, no doubt.

The Carroll Muni, although still a bunker-less, hacker-friendly course with a rating of sixty-something, and a slope of 108 or so, is a much improved course from when I used to play it.

They did two things to make it so: 1) They started irrigating the fairways, and 2) they dug some trenches to create holding ponds, so that parts of the course susceptible to flooding would drain after heavy rainfalls.

I exaggerate very little when I say that had I known they were going to do this, I probably would not have left Carroll. Not that I wish I didn't leave...I'm just sayin'. They also remodeled the clubhouse, and added GPS to their carts - icing on the cake.

I finished with 75, the same score I shot that day in '97. Lowlights were a couple missed tap-ins. Highlights were my son birdying #2, and leading me by two shots after two holes, and my eagle on #8 after driving the par-four green.

Afterward, we checked into our Super 8, and headed over to the Carroll Country Club, a private course for the locals, but out-of-towners are welcome to pay daily greens fees. Highlights were a nice up-and-down birdie on #2, and meeting a nice young man who turned out to be the former pro at the Muni back in '97, and who, as a three-year-old, can be seen in a picture of my then-one-year-old daughter's birthday party at the Muni Clubhouse. I told him to say hi to his dad from me, but didn't remember the birthday party photo until later.

After the second round of golf, I caught up with my former radio station program director, who had just finished calling one of the local high school's girls' softball team's games, a lopsided playoff win. We chatted and he invited me to the station, where he was heading back to return the "Marti," which is the piece of equipment used to transmit the broadcast back to the station.

Seeing the new studios and equipment was cool. Seeing enough had not changed so that it felt like home was very cool, including the old, autographed Shelley Fabares picture (not THAT old - it was from her "Coach" days, not her "Johnny Angel" days).

Day two, I let my son drive the 110-or-so miles to Marshalltown. We were pretty hungry by the time we arrived, so I took him to a lunch I knew he'd never before experienced, and may not again for many years to come. I took him to Taylor's Maid Rite.

The loose meat sandwiches were as yummy as I recalled, and the malts, which were new to me there, were a nice surprise. My son enjoyed them too, much to my delight, not unlike a father first sharing a White Castle with his son, hoping his son would, to, learn to love the sliders.

As we did in Carroll, we then drove around to see the places we lived while there. It was the first year of his life, so he wouldn't remember, but he seemed interested in some of the story-telling.

Our first place of residence was humble, largely because I had driven into town after his mom and were just married, to find a place to move into quickly and that would allow pets. So humble was it, that when I pointed out the house to him, he said, "We lived in THAT?!?"

"No," I said, "That is the house our neighbors lived in. The house behind it, which was once-upon-a-time the neighbors' guest house, is where we lived. See that "203 1/2" on it? It doesn't even have a whole number for its address!" Some young woman was unloading stuff from her car, and I thought to myself of the dreams she must have about someday moving up.

We then checked into the Marshalltown Super 8, which was, curiously, about $20 cheaper. I suppose because it was Sunday. From there, I called the pro shop of the number one public golf course in Iowa, The Harvester. Harvester is located near Rhodes, which is just down the road from Carroll.
I exaggerate very little when I say that had I known they were going to build that course, I would not have left Marshalltown. OK, I'm exaggerating a little bit more this time. It's a great course to live nearby, but it's high-end price ($79 for twilight rates is what we paid, which included range balls and carts), probably would have kept me from playing it more than a couple times a year, especially on a small-town disc jockey's pay.

The course lived up to its billing. If I played it enough to learn it a little better, it could become my favorite. Highlights of the round were parring the 530-yard, par-four 16th (that is not a typo), and parring the par-five 18th after hitting my second shot into the water from 221 yards (I dropped, hit the next shot to about 10 feet, and made the putt. Dang, coulda been an eagle!) Lowlights were our scores on some of the other holes, and my forgetting to bring my SkyCaddie to the course.

We came back into town, drove around a bit, grabbed some KFC, and went back to our motel room. It was a strange evening in that the power in the motel went off about three times, each time being restarted quickly. The evening would become stranger.

I was awoken at about 4:25 by the most intense electrical storm of which I have ever been in the middle. For a solid half hour it was steady flashes of light, rumbling thunder, and whistling howling wind. Oddly, the power was still on throughout much of it, until finally it went out again, not to come back on until after we left the next day, and this time it was the whole town's power. Below is a screen capture I took of the storm on weather.com, just after the worst of it was over, and just before the power went out for good.

We toured the town Monday, finding at a minimum fallen branches and leaves on ever street, and at a maximum large limbs and even uprooted trees. One house I remembered from long ago, not far from the old guest-house/shack, had a tree fall right into its roof and its neighbor's roofs, causing large holes in both.

I had driven by it only out of curiosity because I remembered it was a nice, little house in a mostly-modest neighborhood, and was for sale in 1995 for $97,000, very high for a house of its size in that neighborhood back then. I was told that it was because of the immaculate condition and amount of wood in the interior that made it worth every penny. I only knew from the brief time my then-wife and I were looking at houses in Marshalltown, prior to our move to Carroll. I found it a little strange that I was so saddened to see it damaged like that, more so than I was at any of the other houses.

I could go on for much longer about every little detail, for every little detail that I can remember will be remembered with absolute fondness. But I'll just wrap up by stating the obvious: it was a terrific extended weekend of father-son bonding, and went much, much too fast. Next time I visit either or both towns (I hate when people use "either" to mean "both"), I hope to visit more of the people with whom I used to work, as many of them still work at the radio stations.

Who knows? I recently joked with my former P.D. that I hope to "retire" in about ten years, working only enough to get by, and in a job I truly love, so I might be looking for a part-time gig with him someday. It's been fourteen years since I've been in my last dream job. Perhaps it's only ten more years away.

Thursday, July 7, 2011

Better Late Than Never

I'll never be in the running for any kind of "Father of the Year" award. One small piece of evidence is the fact that the thing I am so looking forward to this weekend is something most fathers with grown sons have done many times over.

My 17-year-old son and I will be going on our first-ever extended trip together - just the two of us. By "extended," I mean "more than a long day."

What's more, we will be visiting the places he spent the first three years of his life. If all goes well, we will visit Marshalltown, Iowa (year 1), and Carroll, Iowa (years 2 & 3), and will play plenty of golf during our stays.

Carroll is where he first swung a club on a course, at age two. The beauty of a small-town municipal course is that no one discourages you from bringing a two-year-old, as long as it's during slow hours, of course.

By the time he was three, he had as sweet a swing as a certain child prodigy and eventual philanderer. That's no exaggeration. Today, his 30-or-so-handicap swing is better than my USGA-5.3-index swing. His game only suffers from a lack of playing, and a lack of watching or otherwise following golf with any real amount of interest. You can blame that on his parents' splitting up before he turned six.

If we find time, we will visit the ICU in Des Moines, where he spent the first two months of his life, having been born two months early, and at a size of a three-month premie (2 lbs., 7 oz., to be exact). Most babies born that prematurely show some physical challenges as they grow: some as minor as having to wear thick glasses at an early age, others more advanced. We got remarkably lucky with him; he has shown no physical or developmental signs ever, but for a slightly less-than-average height.

When he was born, it was a crapshoot as to whether he would survive, but I dreamed of the days we would be able to do things like this. I never would have believed that it wouldn't happen until he was 17.

Also exciting is that ever since a couple weekends ago, when we played a round together in Alexandria, Minnesota, he has taken a greater interest in golf, perhaps because he has finally realized that he may have some potential in the sport (yes, sport). It will be interesting to see how much he improves even over the three days we are together, as we will play up to five rounds, weather permitting. That's more golf than he has played in the last two-plus years combined.

But even if we only get one round in, it isn't all about that. It's about the quality time, and going back to the places we spent a lot of it, 14 years, and then some, ago.