YMCA

I am 15 working at
The Sunshine Ranch
Road YMCA as a gym
Instructor and tending
The concession stand,
Awkward but oblivious.
I try to show the younger
Kids how to safely use
The big trampoline as
They will likely injure
Themselves getting on
Or off or being silly,
I also teach the game
Tables upstairs and
Lift weights with the
Older teens and adults.
I meet an old masseuse
Who rode with the cavalry
In Pershing’s 1916 invasion
Of northern Mexico
And soldiered around,
A gnarled, pugilistic but
Short-tempered YMCA
Employee in the weight
Lifting room giving other
Elder gentlemen back rubs.
As we leave the YMCA building
At 5 pm walking toward the
Parking lot I tell him he’s got
Something I want,
He looks at me holding up
One fist and says,
“I ain’t a-gonna give it to yeh!”
I smile and reply that at 15
I am about as tall and strong as
I am going to get but I lack
His experience of life in which
I am sadly lacking in practice.
He looks me in the eye saying,
“You ain’t as dumb as you look.”
We laugh as he goes to his car
And I to my bike to go home,
He is a fierce old man but
Fair and amused seldom.
But I think of his laugh
Over the five decades
I teach and guide
College students
And my own
Three sons,
How to
Deal
With someone
From another world
Of experience,
Another era,
Like I have
Become.