Rainey Blogs on Some Days

The day I realized the chin up bars had been removed from the Mount Vernon City Park was one that broke my heart. You might not think removing a couple of old, weathered chin-up bars was a big deal, but those bars and I had a long-term relationship. Each year we went home to Mount Vernon for a visit over the last twenty-five years, I would trudge off into the park to do my chin ups. The bars were directly across from my grandparents house on 24th Street, so I often managed to do chin ups and visit them at the same time. Sometimes I visited the chin-up bars more than I visited them. The bars were on two rectangular wooden structures. One was about 6 ½ feet high. I could reach up and grab it from a standing position, but when I was doing chin ups I would have to fold my legs under me on the downward motion. The other bar was about 8 feet high, but it required me to jump up, grab on, and then maneuver my hands into the right position. When I was in my twenties, I could do sets ...

I had always wondered why God so harshly judged David after he took the census of Israel to count the fighting men. I think I understand it better now after I started counting things too—like chin-ups. A few years ago, I moved to a new job in my company, so I tried out a new gym down the street. It was a little pricey, though, even though you did get mouthwash in the locker room. So during my lunch hours, I tried going back to a Bally’s gym where I was already a member, but it was a little too far away and you can only take so many two-hour lunches before someone notices. So I started driving to a local park and doing what I had done with some guys in my department when we worked together before my move—lunchtime chin-ups at a playground. During that time, one co-worker taught me “steps” with chin-ups. Start with one chin up, and then stop. Then do two. Then three, four, five and so on until you cannot complete the number. Then you do “steps” back down from that number until you retu...