To you it’s Thanksgiving, to me it’s Thursday.— Rocky Balboa.
I love that line from “Rocky 1.”
But it’s always been that way to me since I walked on the Penn State wrestling team back in the ’70s (we were practicing around Thanksgiving). Truth is, Thanksgiving was always third behind Easter and Christmas in my house. Maybe it’s because my dad was at Texas A&M from ’61 to ’65 and every Thanksgiving back then was a ritual pounding of the Aggies and the demeaning ‘Poor Aggie’ yell that came out of the Texas crowd, a reference to the fact that the Horns had more money than the Aggies. Class warfare is nothing new; it was alive and kicking in the southwest conference back in the ’60s. But God bless America and those dirt poor Aggies. Because they give so much back to their university, there’s quite a campus now. (Of course, they don’t have a wrestling team, so that is a big negative.)
Anyway, this Thursday, after setting up forecasts from 6 to 8, I left the house at around 8:30 to meet up with my training partner, assistant wrestling coach Casey Cunningham, and head coach Cael Sanderson for a Thursday morning cross-fit training. The whole coaching staff is usually there, but some went home. And in spite of my trying to convince him to deep fry his turkey, Cody Sanderson was cooking it the traditional way, so had to baste it every 10 minutes. So there were only three of us. My hotshot nephew who plays ball in Texas and is being recruited by quite a few big-name schools (he will be a senior) did not get up to work out with us. Since he likes the University of Texas, I guess I should have expected that.
I have added this type of training to my routine because I think throwing such things at me forces a reaction that is different from weights. I am by far the runt of the litter with what we do. One example: Throw a medicine ball and chase it down, then throw it again, and repeat for a minute. Then rest a minute. Ride the exercises bike all out for a minute, then rest. Do pull-ups for a minute (I am best at this), then rest a minute. Do squat thrust push-ups for a minute, rest a minute, throw a medicine ball to the ceiling, catch it, squat to a foot above the ground, then do it again for a minute, then rest a minute. You will get a two-minute rest, then do it again—and again. So it’s about a half hour to 40 minutes. But the coaches try to beat each other, and see who gets the most out in a minute. After five weeks I am still overwhelmed, not even close. Then again, it took me three years to break into the lineup here, and I am not quitting. So another nice little challenge.
Besides, there is nothing like the smell of wrestling mats in the morning.
After showering I went into work for three hours to cut videos, send out discussions to clients, and update my blog. The energy markets open Thursday evening, and I am involved in forecasts there. In addition to the U.S., Europe is a big outlet for me. Last year, before “Climate-gate,” I was involved in helping the BBC climate correspondent on some things. He published my European winter forecast in September, which was for a cold, stormy winter when the UKMET people had a warm winter. When it turned out cold, I really got quite the following. So I blog for them and answer e-mail from all the way to Turkey and Russia. It’s wild, but they are so appreciative of someone from here paying attention to them. They still haven’t gotten a sense of entitlement, or the kind of vitriol I get here when people disagree with me.
By the time I got home, it was 2 p.m. Twenty people were at the house, mostly my wife’s family. I fired up the deep fryers and our three birds went in two shifts.
Before this, I had worked out again (shoulders) at noon. I competed in the over-50 nationals in York on Nov. 13 and won my height class. Instead of “Building Up to the End of the Road” (the article I wrote about the competition), I made up my mind within two hours of the competition that there is no way this is the end.
I simply had messed up the past few years. Maybe I was listening to too many of those low testosterone commercials. (By the way, I call it getting older, and not eating or sleeping right.) I had been relaxing too much between competitions, just trying to peak for the nationals once or twice a year. Well, it hit me in training with Casey, helping out with the members of the Nittany Lion Wrestling club and being around this coaching staff here: You get sharper by competing—often.
So that is what I am doing. I have a competition on Dec. 13 and probably five or six more next year before the nationals. So I’m not eating and drinking like everyone else, and it seems like this does not sit well with some of my in-laws who think I should take a day off from working out—or working at my job.
To them it’s Thanksgiving; to me it’s Thursday.
Between 6 and 8 p.m., I go through a whole checklist globally of some things going on I have to watch, every day. In fact, I was on “The Colbert Report” back in April, and while everyone was filing into the studio, I hear this guy behind me saying, ‘Can’t you let up once and have a good time? You’re going on a comedy show for goodness sakes.’
It was Colbert, and he was watching me. Apparently he had heard that I am rather obsessive about working. He is a very funny guy, by the way, and at 7 p.m. when I went on set, I had gotten what I needed to done. So I could relax, and if you have ever seen the bit I was involved in (topic was global warming—what else?) it was a lot of fun.
But I had to get done what I was supposed to do first.
It doesn’t bother me to see people eating, drinking and being merry. I am glad they are having a good time, because in doing what I am made to do, and have to, I am, too. And you find out that it’s not about what you are giving up; it’s about what you are getting.
Some things hit me in church a few weeks ago, and they hit me again yesterday. The minister was talking about going back to Galilee in his sermon, a reference to what the angel told the disciples on Easter morning, as to where to find Christ, back where they first saw him. And he said, that is what you have to go back to and use what got you real fired up in today’s world.
Of course, he talked in much more spiritual terms, but I always see linkage in those things. And it hit me that in the set-up I have for training, I am back where I was in college. The guys I have around me, the members of the Nittany Lion Wrestling club, and the coaches are serious committed people, but the kind of fun they have is more like something you would see in “Happy Days.” The guys I hung with on the team and in the fellowship of Christian athletes here were like that. (By the way, if this is ‘Happy Days,’ I am Potsie, not The Fonz.) And so I am back in that environment where I was making my best gains, but 32 years later.
And then there is the need to constantly be challenged and, again, hooking that spiritual reach up with things that are physical and mental. But the answer is by no means a given. So basically I am a happy guy on Thanksgiving, in spite of it being a Thursday to me.
Oh, and one more thing. I did make time to watch the Aggies beat Texas. You can’t imagine what it was like growing up down there and getting the tar beat out of you every year. And my nephew kept coming up and saying this and that was going to happen. If you are an Aggie fan, there is a certain sense of dread that occurs on every snap, but in the end, it made my day—my Thursday.
I worked another hour and a half and turned in about 1 a.m. I had to get up at 5:30 a.m. Friday to start again. So at 1 a.m. when I retired (and the party was still going strong downstairs), I laid in bed and gave thanks—just like I do every Thursday and every day—for all I have around me and the chance I had to fight again one more day.
I guess, in a way, it was Thanksgiving to me.
