Tora Bora

The year is young and tender. The interlude that accompanies the transition from the old year to the new -- when the tide of time pauses between ebb and flow and we swirl in its restless eddy -- has passed. The clumsy stumbling of two left feet competing for the same first steps has been endured, our balance recovered. We stand before 2002, a fresh, clean and unspoiled space in our mind hosting only our plans, hopes and dreams.

At our World Gym we don't see the influx of new and returning members responding to their New Year's resolutions until the middle of January. Takes people time to unravel, rewind, locate their sneakers, consider and reconsider the possibilities and face the music. This should be reason enough not to discontinue fitness training ever again; the grief of returning to the gym is wrenching. Ah, but the relief is exhilarating.

"Plans, hopes and dreams." Is that like a cliché or something? I don't do a lot of dreaming; I have high hopes, and plans are sort of short-term notions that unfold as they come to me on occasion. It must be the high hopes that give me the latitude to de-emphasize the planning; that or Laree, whom I generously allow to do as much planning as her little heart desires, could play a minor role.

So, how are you? How's the weather where you live? Where do you live, anyway? I obviously have made no plans for this week's newsletter. My mind is a blank; too much "Straight Talk For The Overweight," which turns out to be more of a riddle each day and is not for the overweight, after all. The book is for everyone and the straight talk is summed up in five words: exercise, eat right for good. Brilliant. 65,000 words and I tell the reader to exercise, eat right for good. Try it for a year and see for yourself, I say. Original.

King Solomon, the wisest man of the ancient world, assures us "There is nothing new under the sun." My short directive intended for the obese, though universal in purpose, is just part of the ordinary, not even catchy sub-solar pulp. Yet, I insist it's wise. In fact, I'm going to make a few negligible changes in the text, use the same five-word declaration and print another book, "Straight Talk for the Underweight."

Exercise, eat right for good. The common sense simplicity of the plan and the magnitude of the payoff are exciting. We know that; we apply and we try, we succeed and we lose, victory always at hand. We're largely outnumbered; we're a major minority not seeking recognition, aid, sympathy, rights, political power or justice. Rather, we seek recruits. We are peacemakers.

Watching the news a month ago I saw, amid CNN footage of the war against terrorism, a clip of an Afghan fighter carrying a U.S.-made barbell (six-foot bar affixed with 25-pound plates) from a recently bombed, ragged hillside underground shelter. The scraggly man held the thing like it was a rocket launcher and I laughed at the incongruity of the picture. If ever there was an unlikely place for a home gym, it was the drafty and inaccessible al Queda-seized caves of Tora Bora.

I later heard, though this could be one of my melatonin dreams, that the warriors from that particular region refused to fight, exchanging their weapons for an Olympic bar, plates, squat rack, assorted benches and cans of tuna. It seems they're training three days on, one day off and incorporating a lot of supersets. "The level of stress amongst the tribesman has been favorably reduced," said one brave reporter close to the scene. "They appear relaxed, fulfilled and motivated. The novice Mr. Eastern Afghanistan is scheduled for April of this year." Rumors that Shell, Nike and McDonalds are sponsoring the show are circulating like cluster bombs.

If all I had was that single bar excavated by the Northern Alliance, I would be doing bent-over rows, curls, cleans and presses and would improvise among the rocks a place to do chins and dips. I'd run trails for aerobics.

Down with oppression in 2002. There's freedom in the iron and steel.

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