In March I wrote a blog about changing fitness centers. My former gym, the recreation center on the UW-La Crosse campus, is a wonderful place, but it has limited hours when students are on break. I did switch facilities, and I am now with an organization that seems to draw me in once every couple of decades. As of June 1, I am back at the Y.
I have been associated with four different YMCA facilities, each one showing up during a different phase of my life. YMCA No. 1 was the downtown Y in Green Bay, Wisconsin. It was a classic urban 1960s Y, meaning it had yet to include adult fitness as one of its offerings. Instead it was a rooming house for single men as well as a recreation center for kids. I took swimming lessons there when I was seven, and I hated them. One of the tests to progress from “Minnow” to “Fish” was to tread water for one minute without the use of my arms. Even as a kid, I sank like a rock, and no amount of kicking was going to keep my head above water. I don’t remember how long I took lessons at the Y, but I do remember that I never made it to Fish.
YMCA No. 2 was the West YMCA in Madison, Wisconsin. I did my undergraduate internship there, which then turned into a part-time job as weekend building manager. I had a good run there, but it confirmed that my professional destiny was to work in the outdoors and not in a building.
YMCA No. 3 was the highlight of my professional career. In the early 1980s, I was a naturalist for a residential environmental education program in the redwoods of northern California. The program was run by the County of San Mateo, but the grounds were the summer camp for the San Francisco YMCA. I was employed by the County during the school year and by the Y over the summers. For a young man from the Midwest, living in a coastal redwood forest was magical. When I first interviewed for the job, I remember thinking that I’d work there as a dishwasher if it came with room and board. The only reason I left was to start my Ph.D. program.
And now I am at YMCA No. 4. Other than the fact that the pervasive smell of chlorine reminds me of my childhood swim lessons, I think that it will function well as a workout facility. The exercise machines that I use at the Y are identical to the ones I used at the university. The only difference is that the people exercising alongside me are seventy years old and not twenty. I exercise midmorning, and I assume that everyone under sixty-five years of age is at work.
I haven’t used the Y’s swimming pool yet, but I should jump in just to see if I can tread water without using my arms. I suspect that I am more buoyant now than I used to be. I’d be thrilled if I still sank.
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