These Hands Vs. Trespassing

Snow and rain hit Chicago this past Friday.  I was not surprised when the gym remained empty.  Changes in the weather always have an effect on participation.  Unfortunately, the weather doesn't keep out everybody.

A guy with a backpack walked in and asked if he could get a workout in.  Seeing the guy was an adult, I told him the cost of the boxing class for his age group.  "But there's no one in here," the guy said.  My spidey-senses went up.  "It doesn't matter.  The youths go here for free.  The adults have to pay for the class, and I have to account for the people who are in here," I answered.  The guy walked over to one of the speed bags after roaming around the room and started hitting it.  I informed the guy that until he registered, there could be no using the equipment.

The guy walked out of the gym, but went and sat on the steps leading up to the back exit door.  Another hour passed by.  The guy walked back in asking if I had punch mitts. "There is equipment here," I answered.  The guy wasn't aware that I had seen him looking inside the equipment room earlier.  When the guy started in with wanting a free workout again, I point-blank asked him, "Didn't we have this conversation an hour ago?" I repeated the cost of the class as well as the general rules and regulations surrounding it. 

The guy kept pushing.  "I'm not about to do anything that's going to get me in trouble with the supervisor.  I like to be able to keep paying my rent," I dryly said.  Then I proceeded to get an earful of how the field house is a "community building" and "people should be allowed to come in and do things," plus a sob story about being homeless.  I kept repeating the rules of the park district.  We went back and forth with temperatures rising by the minute.  The argument stopped when Rick walked in and cut it off. 

Sometimes, the youths will try to use the gym without going through the right procedures.  However, adults try to pull that more often than the youths.  I was glad no youths were in the room because I have no idea how far that guy would have gone to get what he wanted. Incidents like that point to what is lacking in terms of security measures at LaFollette Park. 

I know there were staff people sitting at the front desk counter who saw the guy walk in.  Rick had spoken to them when he arrived shortly after the guy in the gym and I got into it.  Whenever I'm up at the front desk, I'm noticing who is walking in the front entrance.  I will address people who appear to be strolling through without a real agenda.  Unfortunately, it seems that I'm one of the very few employees who are cognizant about keeping a watch out.  I guess others don't notice the news stories about shootings and other assaults that have been going on with alarming regularity in workplaces.

Security staff is not consistent nor effective at LaFollette.  I might see a security guard one day, and not see another one there for a couple of weeks.  The majority of the guards, with one or two exceptions, sit behind the front desk yakking and laughing with staff or watching the Internet on their cell phones.  I don't know of any guards who have actually stayed until the field house closes for the day.  The last time there was a shooting in the park, there was no security guard on duty.

Regardless of the fact that I'm on a cane, these hands of mine still work. I've never felt safe at my job. It concerns me that there was a real possibility that I might have had to use my hands this past Friday.  It concerns me even more that if things had become very serious that day, nothing much would have been done other than people saying, "Oh, that's too bad that happened to Hillari."

Might As Well Closed Up

I was at the field house, but I never went down to the boxing gym.  As I predicted, no one showed up for class.  On a Memorial Day weekend?  Please. The gym might as well have been closed today.

I opted to stay up at the front desk.  Good thing I did, because several people came in to sign up for the youth summer swimming classes.  Leonard, an attendant, was the only other person at the desk.  Leonard doesn't know how to sign patrons up for classes, and besides, he was busy cleaning the place.

Some teenage girl sashayed into the field house with the sole purpose of peeping out whom was there.  She asked Leonard and I where the pool was.  As she walked towards it, both of us noticed she had no swim wear with her.  She was also eating a bag of chips.  Moments later, having not found anyone she could hang out with, she came back.  "Can I work out in the fitness center?" she asked. "Patrons have to be 16 years and up, and there's a cost to use it," I informed her.  She didn't look any older than 14 years of age.  She stood at the door and peered inside, looking as if she was searching for someone.  Seeing how she wasn't going to get anywhere, she finally switched out of the field house.

This is my opinion:  moms of today don't seem to tell their daughters anything.  I know if I had a daughter that age, she'd have something to do on a Saturday other than roam the streets.  There's always house chores, homework, errands, positive activities, etc.  Too many girls find themselves in trouble with the law, in trouble with characters out on these streets, dealing with unwed pregnancies, etc., and mama and daddy are clueless as to how things got to that point.

Attendance this past week was light in all of the boxing classes.  The spring session ends next weekend.  I feel uneasy about next month's boxing show is going to turn out, and that bothers me.  It seems that I can't depend on most of the current kids to participate, and I don't want to rush the new crop of kids who'll join the summer session into competing.  The equipment I ordered a few months ago still hasn't turned up.  And I have to contend with the summer camp kids which so far, has been a low point.  Summer is always interesting.  At least I can drive back and forth to work instead of putting up with drama on public transportation.

I Have My Suspicions

Brenan was the only one who showed up for the youth class.  I ended up sparring with him because he asked me.  But I mostly did defense while allowing him to do offense.  Brenan was not turning his back as often, and he was getting out of the corners when I forced him into them.  Now if only he would do that when sparring with the boys.

Brenan and his dad had barely left for the day when Justin, Janaye's brother, strolled in.  It was two minutes before the youth class was going to end.  Justin actually thought he was going to get a workout in.  "What are you going to do in two minutes?" I asked him.  "Can I come in now?" he said.  "Your class started awhile ago.  It's over for today," I informed him.  The boy had a cell phone in his hand, and I wondered why he didn't notice the time on it.

About five to ten minutes later, Justin returned to ask if his sister had come to the gym. "I'm not her keeper," was what I wanted to say. "She hasn't been here in weeks," is what I actually told her brother.  After he left again, a red flag came up.  Surely, if he was there, his sister had to be in the field house, too.  That scenario had happened before a few weeks prior, when Janaye came in briefly.  She told Justin to make sure to call her on her cell phone at a certain time.  Then she went away, and did not come back down to the gym that day.

Just before leaving for the day, one of the attendants told me they spied a teenage couple looking very cozy on the back stairwell leading up to the basketball gyms. I was asked had I seen the teens. "I'm in the basement," I told the attendant, "and I can't hear if anyone is up on the second landing."  "Those two were whispering to each other," the attendant said with a tone that suggested the teens were having an inappropriate conversation.

I walked to the nearest bus stop after leaving the field house for the day, and there was Janaye, Justin, and some boy whom I had never seen before. She said hi to me, but gave no explanation as to why she hasn't been in boxing class for weeks.  Janaye seemed very comfortable with the boy, however.  Now I'm wondering if Janaye and that boy were the couple that the attendant saw on the back stairs.

A relative of mine, one of my older nieces, once used me a shield to cover up the fact that she had a secret boyfriend.  My grandmother and oldest half-sister had practically imprisoned her in the house one summer, not letting her go anywhere. The smarter thing to have done was to talk to my niece, who was 14 at the time, and lay down rules and expectations.  As hot as that summer was, it would have also been a good idea to let her go outside with her friends from time to time. But nooooo, as the late John Belushi used to say.  That would have been too much like having common sense on my grandmother and half-sister's part.  So one day, she told them she needed to go to the library.  She couldn't go unless someone went with her.  I happened to be at my grandmother's house that day, so I was pressed into service into being my niece's chaperon.  The next thing I knew, I was being dragged around the neighborhood by my niece so she could steal some giggling and goo-goo eye time with some pock-faced boy she liked.  That was the first and last time I allowed her to do that to me.

If I'm being used as a alibi in this current situation, I'm shutting it down with a quickness.  I've already had to deal with a situation where another teen girl who was in the gym in the past was assaulted.  She was telling her mother she was going to boxing class.  I found out she was lying to her mama when her mama showed up one day to ask how her daughter was doing in class.  The girl hadn't been there for two weeks.  Not long after that, the girl was assaulted while hanging somewhere else when she was supposed to be in the gym.  She only got slapped.  But it could have been a lot worse.

Looks like I'm going to have to talk to Janaye's parents.  She hasn't been in regular attendance for the past couple of sessions she's been signed up for.  Her parents, particularly her dad, will probably want to sign her up for the summer session.  Better for me to voice my suspicions now, than to be silent and wished I had said something sooner.

Loyola Park's Winning Night

As promised some time ago, here is a photo of me wearing the lovely coach's jacket that Amy gave me a few months ago.  There was no fight for me at this year's boxing show down at the field house, so I helped out everyone else in my assistant coach role.

I got to the field house a bit late.  I saw Rob, a pastor who used to train at the gym.  His sons, both heavyweights, had fights.  Rob's sons didn't win, but according to their father, they put on a good showing.

Gabriel's fight came up not long after I showed up.  The announcer got Gabriel's last name correct, but kept messing up on his first name, which I found amusing.  Usually people have problems pronouncing the last name.  Gabriel was backed up into corners and the ropes a few times, but then he used his long reach to keep the other guy from coming in on him.  The other guy took some hard straight punches and hooks from Gabriel, especially in the last round.  Gabriel was the victor.

James, or Professor, as we commonly know him, was up next in a 168 pound match.  Throughout the fast three rounds, the other boxer never got one significant hit on Professor.  Professor was clocking the guy left and right. Professor had said all day long on his Facebook page that he was going to win his fight, and true to his word, he did.

Andres was in a super heavyweight fight.  Arnold and I kept yelling from the sides, "Hit the body!"  At the end of the second round, Andres' opponent was tired, and it showed.  Andres delivered some straight shots to the guy's mid-section, and threw some hooks in that direction as well.  Andres' hand was raised in victory after it was all over.

Of the adult boxers, Matthew was the last to have a bout.  From ringside, Alan instructed Matthew to relax. Matthew was aggressive enough to back the other person up into a corner at one point.  But after Matthew was backed into a corner, the referee stopped the fight.  Confused, I asked, "What happened?"  Matthew had raised up his knee -- the same thing he did the other night when Alan had him up against the ropes while they sparred.  I heard Alan telling him, "I should have reminded you not to do that," as he took off Matthew's gloves and headgear.   The decision went to the other boxer.

Arnold took a video of me on his cell phone interviewing Professor and Andre about their fights afterwards.

Barry's fighters didn't do bad, either.  The last fight of the evening was between Dominick, and another kid. Dominick was getting the best of the kid most of the time.  The other kid got two eight counts.  Dominick won.

Arnold (who looks very good with a beard, by the way), a friend of Andres, and Andres pose with Alan right after Andres' fight.

Andres goes in for a hook to the other boxer's body.

Arnold holds the pads to help Matthew warm up for his bout.

Eric and Barry with Dominick in the corner.

Matthew (in the middle) talks to Gabriel and Nina (Matthew's girlfriend) after the fight.

Professor and Andres after Professor's fight.

Professor and Oscar.

The champions:  Professor, Andres, and Gabriel.

It was a good night.  I saw Bill, the coach at Hamlin, and he told me there's six women in his gym.  I need to get over there and get some sparring in.  I also saw Sean, who was the referee during some of the matches. Rico, who I hadn't seen since the cops vs fire fighters match a few months ago, was there, too.

Tall John was disappointed that I didn't get a fight.  He was ready to take pictures.  Gabriel wanted to see me fight, too.  "I wanted to see you throw that overhand right on someone!" he grinned.  But there are still several more tournaments to go before mid-December, and I believe I will get at least one fight at one of those shows.