Rant 9 March 2003: Goodbye, iron men
In March, two sad things happened. First, Cable-Bar Guy JV Askem died of a brain tumour. Then, suddenly, the originator of the Supertraining group, Dr. Mel Siff, died of a heart attack. Yes, this is a site aimed primarily at women, but as I touch on in Boy Butches up Girl, there are lots of wonderful men who have been instrumental in creating a world where strength and hard work, not gender, are the primary qualities which matter in training. Askem and Siff are two of those men.
Rant 8 February 2003: Make hay while the sun shines
As I write this in mid-January 2003, my father lies in a hospital bed. At the moment, he is in no danger of dying, though one could not necessarily have said the same a few days beforehand, as he lay in bed at home, clutching the phone, waiting for the moment when the chest pressure became too much to bear and he would have to muster his strength to dial 911. He says that that night, he did not know if he was going to live to see the morning, and there is no hyperbole in this statement. I try to imagine what he must have thought about during those hours…
Rant 7 January 2003: The lady protests too much
On Jan 8, columnist Margaret Wente of the Globe and Mail had a column about what she termed “Healthism”. To illustrate this, she used the example of Jean’s Marines, a group of women attempting to run the Marine Corps marathon in 2003…