Bill's glory days

We were a bunch of competitive farm kids. We did combat with ornery cattle, heavy machinery, feed bags, hay bales.

One of our contests was climbing the silo ladder hand over hand - one-arm pull-ups. My friend could go the whole 60-foot silo, but I could only make it about 40. I was a wuss.

In the feedmill, we handled a steel-wheeled handtruck with twelve 100-pound bags of feed at a time.

On the farm, we were just kicked in the ass and told to get to work. If I had a more typical youth, I would not be gimping around with a cane and taking methadone to be able to sleep today. Poor kids don't get much choice.
. . .

In my 30's, I was lifting and running. At one point, I could bench more than 300 pounds and run for distance.

My partner was a marine. We would hit hill country around Robert Morris University and run up to four hours at a time. We would lift heavy three days a week and do a six-mile run. The other four days we ran 10-20 miles per day—60-70 miles a week.

A deadlift was always good for me. I was used to picking up stuff. The varsity basketball players were stunned—they struggled with the machine stack for deadlift and I did the stack, with about 450 pounds of them standing on it, for a set of 10 reps.

I did Roman chair sit-ups with 200 pounds of plates on my chest, too.

Any wonder why I have a sorry-ass back now?

It felt GOOD. I'll never have those rushes again, but it has been a good life.

(real life poetry)