Exercising, by Ricky

For my entire life, exercising is an exercise in futility. Futile because I never liked to “exercise”. In elementary school I enjoyed playing at recess. Even the time labeled Physical Fitness was just a fancy term for recess. 

When I arrived in High School, recess became Physical Education or PE for short. After a few pushups, sit-ups, deep knee bends, toe touching, and trunk twisting to warm up (all of which I detested), the rest of the period was nothing more than organized recess in which we played softball, football, basketball or ran laps on the track. The best part of PE recess was the mandatory gang showers at the end of the period. Apparently, most of the teachers objected to smelly adolescent boys and girls in their classrooms. Perhaps the sweat laden pheromones were too much for teachers to handle professionally by causing them too much temptation.

Another exercise in futility was resisting the temptations created by a female teacher who would wear loosely fitting low-cut blouses while sitting on the front edge of her desk lecturing and frequently leaning forward exposing the beginning of her bosoms and a bit of frilly bra or slip. My desk was directly in front of her desk. It was hard for this 14-year old to concentrate and pay attention with all that exposure staring me in the face. 

Speaking of hard, I always had to leave the room with my book binder held in front of my crotch for a few minutes. Alas poor me. It was futile to even fantasize a breach of the "look but don’t touch a teacher" rule because, she never said anything to encourage or tease out a fantasy or a grope. Alas, none of the male teachers did either. If any teacher had done so, I willingly would have given in and had real sex at a much earlier age.

Yet another reason exercise was futile became apparent as I joined the Air Force to avoid the draft when I flunked out of my first year of college. Whatever benefits I gained from all those recesses, PE classes, and basic training were completely lost when the Air Force assigned me to a desk job. At the time, there was no exercise requirement so all that “benefit” wore off and the time I spent playing at exercising was wasted on me.

© 24 August 2015

About the Author

I was born in June of 1948 in Los Angeles, living first in Lawndale and then in Redondo Beach. Just prior to turning 8 years old in 1956, I began living with my grandparents on their farm in Isanti County, Minnesota for two years during which time my parents divorced.

When united with my mother and stepfather two years later in 1958, I lived first at Emerald Bay and then at South Lake Tahoe, California, graduating from South Tahoe High School in 1966. After three tours of duty with the Air Force, I moved to Denver, Colorado where I lived with my wife and four children until her passing away from complications of breast cancer four days after the 9-11 terrorist attack.

I came out as a gay man in the summer of 2010. I find writing these memories to be therapeutic.

My story blog is TheTahoeBoy.Blogspot.com