Sad Day

'It's a long road and a little wheel. And it takes a lotta turns to get there. Thank you dammit.'
-Charlie Daniels


"I never thought I would see the day when the gym would close. Actually I thought it would be sooner than later but it is what it is.

But what a great day! Saturday there was Jim Cash and Joey V. (The Mole) and Brad Olson and Big Pimpin' AKA Shawn Brookszinski, The 4Board, Epstein and me all either squatting or deadlifting. Usually if there are that many guys together they are benching or doing curls in the power rack. I was squatting with Epstein. Matt was doing box squats to the left of us and Brad was squatting on the right with Jim, Joey and Shawn all pulling next to him. I looked around half way through our warmups and realized it. We didn't plan it that way but it sure was kool! I have some fond memories of days like these. I remember when we all came in shirt work and played bench fags for the day (sorry Brad). It reminds me what it was like in the early 1980s when I had just started training at the old House of Health in downtown Dayton. What a great group of guys that was! Boz, Gary, Brian, Karl (God bless him), Dave and Damon(still a friend today) and too many other faces I don't have names for. Jim and Marilyn Rainey had a GYM by God and to my young eyes these men were larger than life to my young eyes. There I fell into the arms of the Iron Maiden, where I have been ever since!

I made many acquaintances at Neon Lites and some good friends. I had some ugly days too, as an employee and a member. Cosmo Buckman and I planning our first million or our (in)famous 'discussion' wherein we both admitted that we thought each other's ideas, boss to employee, were 'stupid'. (I never had a boss I could do that with. And still have a job!).

Or when ADawg, the morning guy, challenged RE, a woman D1 basketball player to a race and nearly lost. He took a long time living that down! Actually, I always enjoyed it when the women I trained would lift and guys would ask them to stop making them look bad! (Buncha sissies. If they did a third of the crap the women did they could kick ass too.) Man, I had/ have some fantastic clients to work with. Strong women who would walk through a wall to reach their goals. They could teach the boys a thing or two about getting stronger! Or Big Shawn not wanting to become a member and paying by visit 'since I only train every two weeks or so'! Shawn taught me how to benchpress and kept me from killing myself in the process. THANKS buddy! Matt would probably rather I forget the 'old days' when we spotted him while he leg pressed a gazillion pounds. And the new nicknames I came up with for him every time we trained. Then there was the day when Matt realized that the deadlift was his lift. He continues to improve and will total Elite soon.J$ really did NOT care for the EARLY Sunday morning workouts but he showed up. And only ONCE did he throw weights at me. He taught me a lot about competition. And how rare is it to have the opportunity to train with someone like him; first class all the way. I remember when we trained together, during warmups, Matt and I would quietly go over our 'monologue'; how we were going to aggrevate Jim that day. Then play it like Abbot and Costello. And as we trained that day and coached and chided and cheered each other, I breathed it all in and inhaled deeply. I felt a little sad and a bit nostalgic. Days like these, far and in between as they seem to be anymore make me remember why I do what I do and that on days like these, there is nowhere else I would rather be. Training with these men has made me a stronger lifter and a better one. One way to get stronger is to seek out and train with others who are stronger than yourself. And once I did that, training with Shawn, then Matt, later Jim and then Epstein, we all got better. That is when my learning curve truly went up and we all were breaking PR's. Good times indeed. So all in all I have great memories from Neon Lites (that's how I would sometime answer the gym phone to aggrevate the manager and placate the occasional inquiry; 'Yeah. Y'all install neon lights?' Yup, that's us buddy, whaddaya need?!?). And no doubt, with the great friendships I have made and people I have met there, with a crew like this looking over my shoulder, the only way to get is, strong(er).

The best is yet to come,

Ed T.