Andrew’s Gym

Sometimes when I’m searching for a topic to write about I look at elements of my own life for inspiration and one place that has provided a lot of that is the gym.   When I threw my father’s seventieth birthday party, everyone there kept commenting on how much I looked like my father.  Later that evening, I looked at myself in the mirror and realized I truly did look like my seventy year old father and not in a good way.  So that week I joined a gym and began losing weight.  A side benefit of that decision is that I’ve met a number of people who’ve become good friends and I’ve also seen a number of inspirational men.  Each of my gym stories, Spot Me, Pump Me Up, Core Training, and Crunch Time and the others, is inspired by someone I’ve met or seen while working out and if that isn’t enough motivation to join a gym, I don’t know what is.

However in these stories, there is only one character that is truly based on a real person and that is Lonnie.  If you’ve ever read any of the stories than you know that Lonnie is a kind, supportive man, with a mouth the size of the grand canyon, who’ll say absolutely anything.  Lonnie is based on my workout partner.  He really exists and he’s fairly close to the way I wrote him.  For example, he has a number of nicknames for me: Cockhopper, Dances with Dick, Captain Cock.  You can tell there’s a theme.  As I said, the man will say anything to almost anyone.   The truth is that I had to tone him down for the stories because the real Lonnie is totally unbelievable.

So whether you work out, or just want to enjoy the view, stop into Andrew’s gym and check out the scenery.  Oh, and while you’re at it, you may pick up some very interesting vocabulary.