Alan C. Fox

On my first trip on an airplane in the New Year I read an article about unusual workouts.  One man said that he uses a pogo stick for two to five minutes five times a day.

I remember pogo sticks from when I was a kid.  They were spring loaded and I could bounce about one foot high.  I had good balance and don’t remember ever hurting myself, but I never owned one so using a pogo stick was an infrequent treat.

You can imagine my surprise to read about the current state of the art.  Adult pogo sticks now operate with air pressure rather than a spring. One model was used to set the world record by bouncing to a height of more than eleven feet.  Yes, you can jump that high and hit your head on an overhanging branch if you’re not careful.  Or you could hit the ground pretty hard on your way down, if you’re not careful.

I am not a hard core exerciser, especially since my personal trainer of more than fifteen years moved to another state more than a year ago.  My exercise routine consists of weight training and a little yoga when I get around to it.  This morning was the first time I actually exercised in more than a month.

What the heck.  Aside from representing a return to the relatively carefree days of my youth, a pogo stick seems like a lot more fun than lifting weights or, say, using an elliptical machine for forty five minutes.

And so, I’ve ordered an adult pogo stick.  It should arrive this week.

Don’t worry.  I have also ordered a safety helmet and two ankle braces, and I do not intend to bounce more than one foot high.  Well, maybe a foot and a half high, unless I go berserk (rare, but not unknown in my life).

I’ll report back to you in a few weeks – hopefully not from a hospital bed.  By then I intend to be aerobically fit, with improved strength, and be even better looking than I am today.

I already thought of a slogan for the pogo stick company – “Put a bounce into your steps.”  No charge for that one.

Please note, this is not a New Year’s resolution.  It’s already too late for that.  But I do remember the notable quote from the Pogo comic strip (no known relationship to pogo sticks) of my youth – “We have met the enemy and he is us.”  This does not, of course, apply to you or me.

Have a great year.

Bouncy, bouncy, bouncy.

Alan

I’m on vacation, living in the moment, as I have often advocated.

I wish everyone a happy holiday season, and I’ll be back on January 2nd with a blog for the New Year.

Love to all.

Alan

Last Saturday evening I was seated in the third row center at a Broadway play, “The Band’s Visit.”  Ten minutes before curtain I was catching up on the news, courtesy of my iPhone, when I felt someone push my right elbow into my side and forcefully take sole possession of our mutual armrest.

Out of my peripheral vision, I noticed a woman had invaded my space.

I have attended hundreds of plays, but I have never discussed this situation with anyone.  Maybe I’m unusually sensitive to the art of sharing a theater armrest, which, after all, is only designed for one arm.  My wife typically sits to my left, so that side is easy.  We hold hands, usually on her lap or mine.  But occasionally, there is a problem with the stranger sitting on my right.

Before the show begins they always tell you to turn off your cell phone, but there are never any instructions on how to share your armrest.   I suppose the applicable etiquette comes under the heading of “Invisible Rules” which I wrote about in my book People Tools. Everyone knows the rule but no one talks about it.

It seems to me that there are only two possible systems.  Either you take turns, without talking about it, or the more aggressive person seizes sole possession.  That seemed to be the case here.

I prefer to avoid confrontations, but I will also defend my personal space from invasion when I feel it is necessary.  In this situation I ignored the intrusion.  Just before the show began the woman sitting to my right said, “You hit me with your elbow.”

“What?”

Louder.  “You hit me with your elbow.”

I didn’t hit her with anything, but it was easier to simply smile and say, “I’m sorry.”

I also took advantage of the opportunity to reclaim possession of the armrest.

The play was well performed, but I remained distracted.  I began to worry that after the show this woman might use her cellphone to take my photo, then circulate it on the internet with some sort of false allegation that I elbowed her.  That thought bothered me for ninety minutes, until the play ended.

While I would normally have exited to my right, after the curtain call my wife and I promptly departed to our left.

That’s where the matter ended, as far as I know.

But I wonder if this was an isolated incident. Are we all becoming more protective of our personal space, especially with strangers, as a way to carve out a zone of safety in what appears to be an increasingly contentious, neighbor against neighbor, world?  To put it another way, is there enough space for all of us?

Alan