Knowledge 2

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6. There were the assorted PE classes. I seem to remember taking swimming the first semester of my freshman year. FLHS had a great swim team that year. Went to state, as I recall. We would go to state in track that year I believe as well. The valedictorian that year was one of the swimmers that went to state.

So I learned CPR and how to fill your clothes with air if you are stuck out at sea.

It must have been second semester that I had Coach Hurley, a muscular black man who was also the track and cross country coach. Although I had planned to go out for the baseball team, he talked me into track. I had a hard time saying no to anyone unless it had to do with religion. This is a problem I would struggle with even until after I was married. My answer to anyone was almost always yes, even if I didn't want to, unless it had to do with a point of religion where I feared hell if I gave in.

So I ended up running track. Coach Hurley needed a hurdler, so a hurdler I became. Coach used to call me "the great white hope." But there wasn't much hope for me. When you put me next to the other runners, I was just average. Although I was lean by normal standards (especially compared to now!) I believe Coach used to refer to my "jelly belly," trying to motivate me to lose some weight.

I seem to remember being 128 when I started high school, but I had a spurt and was, I think, 165 at least by the end of my freshman year. About 180 when I finished high school, I think.

In my first meet, I ran the 120 and 330 hurdles. In my second race, the 330, I false started and was disqualified. From then on, my nickname was FS. :-) As I write some of this it sounds a little mean, but I remember it all with fondness.

I would run track all four years of high school. I mainly did hurdles, but coach stuck me into the two mile occasionally to help me lose weight. It didn't really work. I didn't have the killer attitude some other runners had.

Of course they could see their potential. Although I forget their names, I remember the four runners who went to state in the 400 that first year. They were spectacular runners. They could see a kind of greatness within their grasp. It drove them to push to a higher level that I could never have reached.

I remember in my second year, I think, coach had me train a new guy on the hurdles. Even with him knocking them all down, he was faster than me from the start. You really can't do anything you put your mind to. Ultimately, it comes down to the ratio of fast twitch to slow twitch fibers in your muscle and a whole lot more that is simply genetic. Anyone can improve, but in athletics you can only be born into greatness.

7. Having said that I was way faster than your average Joe. It was easy to run a quarter mile in under a minute and we ran them multiple times in a practice. The fastest mile I ever clocked was in a practice, 5.29. A life goal was to run one under 5 minutes but that was left behind about twenty-five years ago.

By the way, I forgot to mention with baseball that my dad bought me a "pitch-back" my first year playing farm league. I was a net with springs that, if you hit the target, it would bounce the ball back at you to catch. At some point, I decided that I would have to catch one more in a row than the day before. I don't know how far I got, but I spent every night in my back yard with that thing. If I missed, I had to start over.

I also had a book that was the Air Force fitness guide. Still have it somewhere. I tried to follow its regiment too with different kinds of exercises. Every day you stretched yourself a little bit further.

I remember watching the James Bond movie Skyfall at the beginning, where he is running and jumping across the rooftops of Istanbul. At any earlier point in my life I would have thought, "Man, that looks fun." But in 2012 it looked like too much for me. It's sad getting old.

I used to be able to run under 7 minute miles with no effort whatsoever. In seminary I would take the whole winter off and then jump straight into the Lexington 5K in the spring. But these last five years its been my goal to run three miles at least once each year under 30 minutes. Looks like I've failed 2019.

It seems like I have pulled something every year in the last four years. In 2016 I felt like I ripped my calf running some steep hills in Ohio at a camp meeting. In 2017 I felt like I had a minor hernia in my lower abdomen. In 2018 I pulled my calf again trying to run up a hill at my son's ROTC nationals. Then I ripped my knee this year the second week I was in Houghton. VERY annoying!

8. Coach Hurley talked me into running cross-country my sophomore year. I would run it the next three years. Again, I was not particularly competitive. I think I ran three miles in 17.39 once.

For warm ups, we would run 5 miles. We would run out to Oakland Boulevard to Federal Highway to Sunrise then back to the high school. I just remembered that my first Gatorade was a practice where, I think, we ran to Holiday Park. My first year in cross-country I think. There was a train there you could climb on that I loved as a boy. The church had a picnic there occasionally in the early days.

When it was raining outside, we trained in the high school auditorium. Coach would play Neil Diamond, "We Come to America." 1982 was the year that I really learned a lot of secular music. Chicago was my favorite, "Hard to Say I'm Sorry." But riding to meets I also learned "Eye of the Tiger," "Rio," and many other songs.

I am a child of the 80s when it comes to music. The 90s were torture as things turned lyrical. Give me a driving beat any time--"All I Need Is a Miracle," "Wang Chung." The slow, lyrical, guitar worship music that is so common right now in church kills me. Boring. I don't know how anyone with ADHD can stand most churches today.

9. While I'm on music, we had a special song in every church service in those days. From early on, I was in the rotation for special singing. My mother played the piano for me. My sisters had been the "Schenck Trio" before I was even born, singing in three part harmony as was common even in secular music in the fifties and sixties.

Over the years I did my share of duets, trios, and quartets with my family. Duet with my dad, trio with my sister Patricia or Sharon and others. My sister Sharon would be assistant pastor at Fort Lauderdale First Wesleyan for some of my high school. The pastor was Everett Putney, a school superintendent who agreed to pastor the church part time.

I'll confess that I often didn't pay attention to the words of the hymns and songs we sang in church because I was trying to sing the parts. If a hymn had four verses, I would try to sing a different part for each verse. I would develop a pretty good ear for music, although I do not have perfect pitch.

When accompaniment tapes came out, I found myself singing a lot with them. In college Steve Green was my man. I would do my best in my dorm room to hit those high notes. But I couldn't because I was a bass.