“STRICTLY PERSONAL

GENERALLY SPEAKING,
I can spot the athletic types
in any crowd.

‘They're the ones with the ban-
dages, casts and crutches. What
_ with crashing down moutainsides,
we falling off their bikes, or landing
" on their butts on the ice,”

’ Lunderstaad their motivation,
even appreciate it'in a theoretical
way..And pzaple being in good
physical shape probably keeps my
taxes down, at least so long as

.. they remain out of hospital.

But excessive physical activity of
~ the sport-oriented variety has
a never been my bag.

It might have had something to
do with the fact that, as a kid in
Winnipeg, Twas obliged to get up
at seven inthe morning every
Saturday to play hockey.

You have to understand that it
might have been 40-below, and we
would still have had to play
hockey.

As fate would have it, | had
poor circulation in my feet, so my
toes froze quickly.

Likewise, ] had weak ankles,
and | foathed being slammed
against the boards and
bodychecked.

Naturally, | wound up being the
goalie, It turned out I didn't like
pucks flying at me ata million
miles an hour either.

What | really wanted to do
was lie curled up in my bed,
reading books.

A bookish kid misses out on the
joys of team activities. Somehow,
1 didn’t miss them. ..

But school being school, there
were always phys-ed teachers for-
cing me to play one game or
another.

1 was no good at baseball, from
lack of hand-eye coordination. It
didn’t help that one day, during a

‘ game, one of the kids in class

dropped dead at third base. |
never quite got over that.

If he could drop dead, what
guarantee was there that it
wouldn’t happen to me?

To this day, 1 maintain a stance

Climbing the Stairmaster to athletic success |

of uncompromising incompetence.

Recently, | got railroaded into
playing baseball at a fundraiser,
By sheer accident | managed to hit
the ball and make it to first base.

When the next batter came up
and also hit the ball, f fingered at
first for the longest time. not sure
that | wanted to risk trying for
second.

I have so far not been invited
back.

The only baseball game ['ve
watched in my entire adult life
was the final game of the World
Series last year, and then only
because | was beginning to worry
that my wife, who knows all the
names of the players and even
what size of jockstraps they wear,

“might run away with a Blue Jay.

Football? Well, being skinny (as
well as having lousy coordination,
poor circulation and weak: ankles)
was a definite disadvantage.

My one glorious moment came
during a game when | actually
succeeded in tackling the class
bully and bringing him down.
Needless to say, he spent the rest
of the year crunching over me like
a tank at every opportunity.

I was tall, so wher. all else fail-
ed, I was inducted into the
basketball team. Basketball, as we
all know, was a Canadian inven-
tion, so there was even an element
of patriotism involved,

Alas, I couldn’t run, fumbled a
lot, couldn’t dribble, and couldn't

| The sound of crunching army boots

Dear Editor: .

oy IE you . listen carefully to. that
crunching ‘sound blowing in from
he politically correct..winds you

will.. recognize: the sound: of
feminist : army boots trampling on

he: heads of anyone who stands in
“their way..’°'

“Ef you’ ‘listen , carefully when .
“Blizabeth' Aird declares that “only ~
one ‘group of creatures murders

the vast majority of women,”’ you
ill. also hear. the shrill. call to
arms and the marching drum beat
‘accompanying «the. ever-present
‘crunching army boots. When you
hear. Karen Duthie accuse. Trevor
-Lautens. ‘of being fearful of social
'; change and fearing for: his own
loss of privilege you : can .almost
» see, if you loox: carefully, : ithe
Straining neck muscles, ‘the bulging
, eyes, and the clenched fists as the
-- femi-Nazis goose-step their’ way
- over the opposing views. '
“~ Make no’ mistake about it; ‘to
the radical ‘feminists of this town
: Jits a war out there.
Not a war for gender cquality.
No, something quite different.
“It’s a war based on anger, bit-

‘and what is right.

‘just society,”

terness, and revenge. | .

Never mind that less than one
per cent of one per cent of the
female population represents rad-
ical feminist views. ;

Never mind that this small, bit-
ter group takes it upon themselves
to -inform the’ rest of us
unenlightened ones what is wrong

Never. mind. that. erecting
monuments that ridicule and hu-
miliate men only serves io perpet-
uate guilt and erode gender rela-
tions. '

“* Never you mind. The world will

.soon be in good hands. I have a

vision for a kinder, gentler, more
she croaks with
trembling lips and clenched fists.

I too have had a vision.

In. a small park, two..women
with their son silently look up at a
huge monument.

The little boy turns and faces

- his mother and says, ‘tis it true

that there is. really only one
creature in the world that murders
women, and am I that creature?’’
Looking down at their beloved
child, the two women momentarily

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hesitate and ‘then smile knowingly
at each other.

One mother finally answers,

*“Do not worry, my son, your in-

herent evil will always be tempered
by women’s ‘inherent good...just
listen. to. your mothers and
everything will be OK.”

The ‘silence of the park is then
broken by the sound of crunching
army boots.

Craig Binion
North Burnaby

Somebody
Cares!

Cares if you are new in town
and feel kind of fost; If you've
just added a new’son or
daughter to your family; If
HE has finally asked you to
become his wife; If you or
someone in your family is:
celebrating a very special oc-
casion...

Cg v/

‘feta Mig.

SINCE 1930 WON

980-0330

vet the ball through the houp to
save my life.

Height alone was useless,
especially since there were all these
other guys competing for the ball,

Thus, my life since school has
been a relatively peaceful,
sports-free experience, unless you
count running with the bulls in
Pamplona, which I did once, as a
sport, or parachuting, which | also
did once, landing badly and fusing
the two bottom vertebrae of my
spine — which at least had the
salutory effect inthe long run of
giving me a good chiropractic
reason for not taking up jogging.

However, there comes a point in
all our lives where, like it or not,
we jave to put some effort into
“getting in shape,”’ if for no other
reason than to stop our hearts
from atrophying prematurely.

It was my wife, bless her, who
came up with the Perfect Solution.
It’s called a Stairmaster,

Stairmaster. The very name
conjures images of something out
of Dungeons and Dragons, of
some sort of kinky S&M domi-
nance thing.

The idea was supposed to be
that you get the advantages of
jogging, but without the shock of
your heels pounding on pavement
and jarring your spine.

The trick, the beloved one ex-
plained, is to have the TV on as
you stand there, going up and
down on the pedals, so that your

mind doesn't atrophy while you
(une up your heart,

I guess she doesn't watch much
TY. Talk about an invitation to
mind-decay!

Although my day job involves
gathering news for a television
station, | almost never stare at the
idiot box unless we've rented a
video.

Since taking up the Stairmaster,
I have had to watch possibly hun-
dreds of hours of mid-morning
programming. Ye gods!

Between the religious programs
and the soap operas and talk show
freak circuses and kids’ cartoons
and music videos, there's not
much to stir the frontal lobes,
baby. :

Nevertheless, it does distract
you from the ennui of riding up
and down on an infernal machine,
straining your little muscles, Be-
tween that and bench presses and
situps and stomach crunches, |
was Starting to feel kind of, well,
you know, almost Sylvester ~
Stallone-like.

That's when | managed to twist
an ankle. Yes, on the Stairmaster.
1 believe 1 may be the first person
in history to twist an ankle on
such a foolproof, essentially
benign exercising device. .

So now I’ve got my ankle ail
wrapped up in a bandage.

Wow, I must be an athlete,’
after all

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