Four Rounds

Hattie came in to the gym tonight, along with J.R., another new person. J.R. is a nicely built young man who moved into the city from the suburbs recently. He and Junior sparred tonight, and he looked good. That's not easy against Junior, who has the fastest hands in the gym.

Hattie worked on the punch mitts with Steve. She was tired, but she hung in there. She told me that she also takes kickboxing classes and yoga. Still hard to believe that she is a grandmother to two kids. Hattie doesn't make it into the gym regularly, but when she is there, she is eager to learn.

Can't say the same for Cassandra, who followed her regular pattern of showing up on Wednesday and skipping Friday. Normally, I'm very helpful to others in the gym, but I wasn't interested in dealing with her that night. I've never felt comfortable around her, and that was long before I got the full low-down on her shaky life. I spy her on the streets around the neighborhood often, and she's usually mumbling to herself. She showed up 30 or 40 minutes late, poked around without a purpose, then asked me, "What did I miss the last time?" Steve had taught the new people the day she went missing, so I told her what he covered. I did not offer to show her anything like I normally would do. Cassandra poked around a little more, then I noticed a couple of the guys attempted to give her advice about the speed bag. I was glad the place a bit full on Wednesday, because she couldn't monopolize the speed bag. Once she gets on that bag, she gets fixated on it and doesn't touch any of the other gym equipment.

Steve commented that he saw Josh once since he won his match at the fieldhouse's boxing show in September. "Some people are like that," Steve said, "They have one fight and that's it." Steve has a drawer full of boxing license books belonging to guys who had few to no fights. A drawer full of guys who apparently showed interest in the sport but dropped off, never to reach for the golden ring again.

Every so often I look at my boxing license book, and I have no fights listed. It is not for lack of trying. If I didn't spar or work the punch mitts, I wouldn't see any action at all. I spent four rounds in the ring today working with Steve on the mitts, and I felt like a turtle. I'm too heavy and too slow. Some of the slowness I can't do much about--that's due to age. My weight loss is at a glacial pace. I can't seem to get beyond losing three to four pounds, and they seem to come back as soon as they are gone.

I saw myself on a videotape of the fieldhouse's boxing show and I thought, "Man, I'm built like my father." He was a husky man. I've only seen one picture of him when he was thin, and that was a picture taken of him when he was in the Air Force during the Korean War. Every picture after that shows a solid guy who just got bigger as the pounds piled on over the years. My mother comes from a family of short curvy women. Mom is petite; she's not more than 110 pounds. I often wish I had inherited more of the genes from her side of the family. Sure would help me be lighter on my feet.