Chapter 5

School was a blast. As ninth graders we ruled the school. Basketball had finished for the season. Baseball and track were in full swing. It was spring and lust was in the air. I did my best to balance my social life and my school work. I had lost a couple pounds and was feeling really good. More importantly, Mom had shed about ten and was looking great. I think Dad was beginning to notice. I had gone out on a couple of group dates with Joann, her latest boyfriend and about five others. But I made no commitments to anyone. I used the excuse that my parents wouldn't let me date until I was sixteen. I did have a couple of boy "friends" who used to call me at night. We would talk about school, other kids, who was dating who, but nothing serious. I was concentrating on my grades. I was the most improved student in the ninth grade. All my teachers said so. When report cards came out for the third marking period I had four A's and two B's. I had to get my grades up if I ever wanted to get to college. I needed to qualify for scholarships and financial aid if I wanted to go.

One week end, I helped Mom bring down the laundry into the basement. That's where the washing machine and dryer were. I had never really looked in the basement when I was growing up as Jack. There was nothing down there that would interest me. Now, I was just curious. In one corner of the basement was walled off area, next to the furnace. On the door, barely legible were the words "Coal Bin." I asked Mom about it.

"That's where they used to store the coal that was delivered during the winter and burned for heat. They used to get a delivery of coal down a chute in through the window. Every day Grandpa would come down here and shovel some coal into the furnace. I remember him telling me that about thirty years ago they converted the old furnace to natural gas. I guess Grandpa never got around to taking it down."

With that she went back upstairs, and I went straight to the coal bin door. I flipped the latch, pushed the door open and peered inside. I could see that the room had been used for storage; there were still a couple of boxes on the floor, a couple of chairs sat against one wall, and something fairly big covered by an old sheet. Everything had a thick layer of dust on it. I pulled the sheet off. There before my eyes was an old weight bench, with a barbell resting on the rack, several twenty pound weights on each side and a couple of other short bars with ten pound weights. I looked around; there on the wall was an exercise chart and a progress chart. Grandpa's name was on the chart, showing how much weight he was lifting each week for about a year. Then the entries stopped.

I guess Grandpa was into weight lifting at one point in his life, and then he just gave it up. I'd have to ask Mom about it some time. Now I could really get my body into shape; but first I had a lot of cleaning to do. I thought it best to just keep this find to myself for the time being. I swept and dusted as much as I could; I opened the window to let some fresh air in and took an inventory of what I had. There were four twenty pound weights, four ten pound weights four five pound weights, a long bar and two short bars. I read the exercise chart to see what type of exercises I could do, and erased the marker writing of the progress chart. The marker was all dried out but everything else seemed to be in good working order. I even tried out the bench to make sure it was still sturdy. Now I had all I needed.