Yep, I go to school with my grandpa

As my grandfather, heretofore referred to as 'Gramps,' will tell anyone, he started taking courses five years ago after watching a special on television. This special said that older people should turn off their televisions and go back to school, because if you're super old, you can go for free. So Gramps got off the couch and asked his school, Hendrix, about it. They weren't interested. However, UCA was. So he signed up for courses, to audit them.

I started attending UCA the next year. Gramps takes classes every semester; he's taking two courses this time, and they always fall at the same time. Lunchtime, afterward, so he can pig out in the cafeteria. He likes taking the history courses. He excels in them, even sometimes adding information the professor didn't know. He spends hours a day in the library reading and researching about what he's learning in class. Being unable to even turn on a computer, he reads books, and a lot of them.

Gramps lives across the street from the campus, so he walks here every day. He goes to the cafeteria and reads newspapers as he eats, then goes to class, then researches. When I can, I join him in the cafeteria, and tell all my friends about him to say hi. He's quite an open book. Friendly and talks to everyone. His peers in class call him 'Jim' and when they call him 'sir', he tells them if they're to call him sir, that they should instead refer to him as 'Your Excellency." And they call him that.

When the professor assigns partners, they all fight to be with him. He knows his stuff, and he's funny. Pretty absurd, too. I sat in on a class that he was in once for a non-fiction assignment, and he was so proud to introduce his granddaughter to the class. He brags to everyone that he attends university with me. The cafeteria ladies all know him. Students say hi to him on the sidewalk.

I'm so amazed at him, at his commitment to school. He never misses a day, not ever. I mean, who all can say they're going to the same college their gramps is going to?  I do what he does and we brag on each other often. As my last semester here, I'm trying to take every second in and enjoy it, knowing this is something to tell my kids and their kids one day. And who knows? Maybe I'll even go to school with my grandkids.

Stages of Going (back) To The Gym

The Stages of Going (back) To The Gym

                It’s after the new year started. People have that idea in their heads that in order to make the new year awesome they need to work out. Inevitably, those people may start, but many will not make it to February. It’s a popular wish. And going there, it really does make you feel better. So why do people stop? Well…

1.     You can’t do anything longer than five minutes (without sounding like a squeaker toy)

Walk into the gym. You have the sweats that your stomach is sort of falling out of, a shirt you found in the back of your closet with stains from God-knows-what, and you are determined. You’ve got your blinders on and head to an empty treadmill. You’ve been on one before, you know how to work it. You clip it to your shirt and click start. You start speed-walking, feeling great.

                Then, you hear fast, hammering steps. You look to your left, and there’s a guy with earbuds in, running like the Flash without panting like a Labrador. 

Sexy.

Instantly, you feel less confident. Next to this guy, you’re a clueless first-timer. Oh well, ignore him. But then you have to speed up, so you feel a little better. So you run, and you feel great, but then you start breathing so fast the music can’t mask it. If you aren’t careful, someone is going to come by and ask if they need to call 911. So you slow down, but dear God, you’re breathing like a dog with its last breaths. The guy next to you is still sprinting.

2.       People accomplish the impossible.

So you leave the treadmill, try to steady your breaths, and walk with jelly legs to the weight room. It’s five, so the gym is crowded with good looking people with tans. You ignore them. There are so many machines, and they all look like well-made medieval torture machines. You go to one with a rotating chair that works your abs. You don’t want to look clueless, so you read the chart and then discover it’s written in some indecipherable version of English. Well, you got the gist from the pictures, so you go ahead and start. It’s on the lowest setting, thank God, and you start going, feeling like a regular.

You know what happens next? You know what happens next. You turn your head because you’re bored and you see some Adonis on a slanted board that only supports him from the waist down, and then, with sheer willpower (and great abs), bends his body downward in a perfectly straight spinal line and picks up a heavy disk. He then proceeds to lift himself up and lower himself down, like a graceful dolphin doing tricks at SeaWorld. You gape. That isn’t natural. People aren’t supposed to have to do that kind of thing. But there’s some buff guy, showing everyone up in the gym with his impossible feats. And he’s not the only one.

Every person who looks like they have just enough muscle to lift a sandwich starts lifting weights. Not the teeny ones, not even the 20 pounders. They’re carrying around the heaviest weights in the room like they’re waiters. Now your rotating chair doesn’t seem so impressive.

3.       You didn’t think you’d care, but you do care. You care too much.

You may be saying (as you sit at your computer or chair with a smart phone or hologram or whatever) that it’s a gym, and everyone is going there to get in better shape. That’s the core of it all, sure, and you wouldn't think you’d care what other sweaty strangers think of your decade old Duran Duran T-shirt.

Face it. You care, Ralph.

The problem is, there are too many beautiful people you want to bone in the gym, and some horrible part of your brain is making you uncomfortable so you don’t lose any chance you have to get some. You tell yourself that this is a place to better yourself. Your brain (or genitals?) tells you the guy doing crunches looks lonely. You can no longer appear weak to him. So your mind psyches you out and makes you self-conscious, because that’s a real turn-on (good job, brain). But then again, what if you run into…

4.       Your elementary school crush - he is gorgeous and on the rowing machine

You should have known this would happen, really. You went to a gym in the state! Of course you’ll run into that guy you were in love with all throughout your childhood. In your worst sweats (the absolute worst ones, the ones that were totally black but have faded into dark gray, and show your big honkin' pantyline) you see him, using those beautiful, toned arms to lift heavy things above his head. You’re on your own elliptical, trying to go fast enough that people won’t think you’re a pansy but slow enough that you don’t turn into a soaking red mess, and you keep looking at him.

In a dream world, you’d walk past with your butt in nice leggings, walking like it’s no big deal, and you’re listening to music. He would touch your arm, and you’d turn to him with a sweat-free face, and he’d say, “Hi.” But in the gym, he turns and sees you and you wave. You’re like a puppy that was left in the rain, your belly pudge has peeked from its cave, and you're too out of breath to mumble back a reply. For the rest of the day, you imagine being fucked right in that gym by him. And no one can work out when they feel like that.

Through it all, you still went to the gym. The first time is always the worst (if that's not true, totally tell me horror stories!). You got off your ass, and now you can rub in it people's faces when you mention it offhandedly during a conversation. "Yeah, I worked out last night," never fails to impress. 

Good job, dude. Now shut up about it and go to work.