Should Auld Acquaintance Be Forgot?

A Parade of Half-Eaten Memories

“Parade of Half-Eaten Memories”, Bing Image Creator, Dall.E.3

Entering 2024, thoughts naturally turn to new beginnings, the sweeping away of old detritus, resolutions and fresh impetus. It is a time of optimism. With age though, there is more to look back on, than forward to. Someone once said, ‘the older I get the better I was’.

I think that getting older comes with an appreciation of what you once were and puts into perspective the true cost of opportunities missed and risks not taken. I took some chances - some reckless with damaging consequences, but generally on point of principle. I might change some of that where it did no good but what I most regret are little things undone and unsaid, aggregated across a lifetime.

Now those things, long forgotten that meant nothing at the time, return. They pop up in dreams and haunt me in the half-awake time. It is like background noise that can be heard when the rest of life gets quieter.

People often say they don’t feel they are getting older mentally. But if your brain is degrading can you rely on your mind to let you know? The thing about ageing is different parts of you wear out at different rates so the changes are hard to pin down.

What becomes significant is the tardy rate of bodily repair. The miraculous organism that for decades, reliably maintained a process of constant cellular renewal, starts to let things slide. At some point it decided, ‘he won’t be needing that again, fucked if I’m fixing it…’

When Gym Almost Fixed It

When I was at my fittest and strongest back when my GP referred to me as an athlete with a 43 bpm resting heart rate, my confidence was also at its lowest. I didn’t want to be in any way conspicuous.

One of the many gyms I attended was the Universal Health Studios in Bristol. The main guy there was an ex-bodyguard of the Shah of Iran who tried to get me into Greek Wrestling for about a year before giving up. He was apparently an Olympian before he had to flee to the UK. It made me think about how you could be a certain person at one moment, only for some event to instantly turn you into somebody else.

And I had already changed.

I loved physical combat once but by this time my fitness regime consisted of yoga, running and pushing weights and anything else failed to interest me. Well that’s what I told myself. Although I never tried Greek wrestling I secretly longed to be backed into a corner where I had to compete - you know, like the nerd who reluctantly takes off his glasses and kicks everyone’s collective arse.

Underneath there is a desire to exceed everyone’s expectations without being immodest or setting myself up to fail. In a way it is about wanting opportunities without risking anything upfront and the movies are full of contrived scenarios where some bully goes to great pains to set themselves up for a big fall, just so the heavily contrived unlikely hero can make us feel good. Whatever that is it isn’t bravery but a popular theme in those fake internet stories that are desperately trying to go viral.

I got into rugby late but was still fast; in fact much faster than the first team-scrum half. Unfortunately I topped this off with zero talent. I enjoyed the training more than the games because in the practice drills people were obliged to pass to you, but in a game, not so much and I couldn’t blame them. Typically, after the opposing team saw me run I became a target for being clobbered - at least until they realised I rarely did anything useful with the ball. Funny how that now feels a bit like a familiar theme.

An old journeyman I knew once said in his broad Bristolian, “it’s better to be an ‘as been than a never-was-er”. I don’t know what he would make of me being a bit of both - perhaps that is what he was warning me about.

One day training alone in the gym during a quiet period, I was alternating leg extensions and presses, when a group of guys came up to use the leg press machine.

‘Want to join in?’ I asked.

‘No, we’ll wait.’ 

Super-setting between two machines couldn’t have seemed very serious at first glance.

‘OK, I got two more sets of ten.’

I could feel them recoil at the double digits.

Maybe their eyes rolled at the sight of this guy doing what they considered to be aerobics. During the ‘80s you got funny looks for getting on the exercise bike.

As I returned to leg extensions to finish with my final set, their glorious leader, pointing to the top three 55lb disks on the carriage said,

‘… take those three off - I want to warm up’. 

The minions complied and he settled under the beam, loading himself up against the weight, pausing, seemingly for dramatic effect. I zoned-out, a technique I developed in boarding school during the early 70s, to just be somewhere else. There, withdrawing was a way to survive the mental and physical brutality, but here it was just habit.

As you may surmise, it wasn’t the posh kind of boarding school that equipped someone with confidence, life hacks and social mobility. It was the sort where they used to put all the broken biscuits to be ground to crumbs. It was less about education and more about recycling.

Then he pressed, perhaps half-heartedly; I can’t tell you what the sound was like, but I heard it and looked across.

Nothing had moved.

He pressed again with more force and some agitation. The plates rattled slightly.

He whispered: ‘how much is on there…?’

It seems pathetic now but I was embarrassed for him. Even more pathetic is that now I wish I had the immodesty to have said, ‘have you guys warmed up yet?’ To have said such a thing would have felt unbelievably crass at the time but it would feel so much better thinking about it now.

Instead I lowered the plate rack in a negative rep until it silently touched down; I watched perform some silent arithmetic, unload another 165lbs and said nothing.

Why I would feel bad for someone who was trying to show off at my expense? Looking back this was a puzzle that took me a while to work out. Among my friends I had a vicious sense of humour but this was different, I did not want to humiliate him in front of his friends, because it wouldn’t be a joke and I’d feel that embarrassment too.

The leg-press incident, like many others, was nothing but now it’s something like unfinished business. It bothers me because the self-restraint felt like being in control when really it was symptomatic of me pulling my punches.

I can kid myself it was modesty but, had they asked, I would have happily told them that my repping weight was 555lbs including the carriage. Maybe I would feel better about it now if someone saw how humble I was being, or witnessed the day when I squatted pound-for-pound with Bath and England (pre-Lions) prop-forward Gareth Chilcott without mentioning it to anybody.

Now I want to prove to myself that being pathetic enough to mention it now no longer matters. As if it ever did. If that seems desperate then perhaps it is.

The cellular repair strike is ongoing and I am in certain age-related health risk groups for which I undergo regular screening. It’s hard to take past glories too seriously under such circumstances, but occasionally, I find a straw to clutch in a way I would never have dared before - like writing this.

At the end of 2023, an upbeat text from the suppliers of a diagnostic kit, brought me unexpected assurance that it was not all over quite yet.

‘… Welcome. We are excited to help you screen for colon cancer with the kit your healthcare provider ordered for you. Call us if you have any questions…’

Somebody is excited because I am going to mail them some of my shit. Don’t try to tell me I haven’t still got it.