Feeling the Burn

In bygone days, the expression "feel the burn" was just another insult hurled at poor old witches tied to a flaming stake. Today it's become a bodybuilding mantra for sweaty athletes and workout addicts. But our ancestors required no daily exercise regimen; mostly because they were either rampaging, bloodthirsty cutthroats, or were the sort of desperate, unprotected peasants always running away from rampaging, bloodthirsty cutthroats. Constant rape, pillage and bare-knuckle boxing at weekends kept their adrenalin flowing and their heart rates high. They needed no twelve-speed treadmill or tanned personal trainers in the seventeenth-century. And when not fleeing from psychotic pirates and marauding press-gangs, people were too busy collecting firewood and skinning oxen to bother about slipping into a pair of bright orange spandex pants and joining an expensive gym. The so-called "burn" was felt during their everyday activities. Life may have been, as Thomas Hobbes claimed, "nasty, brutish and short," but it was also a simpler time. Of course, maybe everyone would be dead by the age of thirty, but that's because our ancestors' idea of preventive medicine was drinking frog bile mixed with mandrake juice while chanting old wives' mumbo-jumbo.

These days, thankfully, we know better, even if only slightly so. The local witch has been replaced by the Primary Care Practitioner and frog bile is now called Lipitor. The mumbo-jumbo, unfortunately, has merely been incorporated into your Health Insurance policy, but you can't have everything. Still, on the whole, our prospects of not dying in agony and ignorance before reaching middle age have largely improved. The area in which we have not progressed, however, is our physical fitness. Modern man's sedentary lifestyle means we need far more recreational exercise than our muscular but superstitious, axe-wielding forebears did. This is especially true if you suffer from heart disease, like I do, and so I'm forced to endure something called Cardiac-Rehabilitation twice a week at seven in the morning. Cardiac Rehab, so the brochure says, is an exercise and informational program "designed to increase physical fitness, reduce cardiac symptoms, improve health and reduce the risk of future heart problems."

Like the Naked City, there are a thousand stories in Cardiac Rehab: this guy had a heart attack while collecting maple syrup sap; this guy felt chest pains while singing second tenor in an amateur production of Rigoletto; and this guy - me, for example - just thought he was going for a routine check-up, failed his stress test, and wound up staying in hospital for two weeks to undergo coronary arterial bypass surgery. And so I have to make my way to 75 New Chardon Street in Boston for my bi-weekly exercise, although, as I discovered to my cost, actually finding New Chardon Street for the first time is an exercise in itself: an exercise in extremely heart-unhealthy frustration and anxiety. Apparently, fifty percent of New Chardon Street is an architectural monstrosity called Bulfinch Place, another forty percent is a concrete wasteland named Bowdoin Square, leaving ten percent of actual street which isn't signposted. When I eventually found the place, fifteen minutes late for my appointment, I was too exhausted to jog on the treadmill and had to sit in a mechanical rowing boat for twenty minutes while a nurse lectured me on removing stress factors from my life.
"That's good," she said, as I rowed through imaginary water. "It looks like you're starting to break a sweat."
"Yeah, but I'm a naturally sweaty person," I told her. "So I wouldn't read too much into that if I were you."
"No problem. Just let me know when you're feeling the burn," she replied.

Comments

[Austen]

I come to Fez for the writing and stay for the writing.

[Laurent]

Haha, brilliant article!

[Giric]

I truly believe you have outdone yourself this time. The Tales, Trails, and Trials of S.B. should be your next book title. At least you didn't get arrested and dragged off in cuffs, like that poor couple in Honolulu who dared to eat a five dollar sandwich and forget to pay pathetic Safeway. I didn't think you could be incarcerated for five dollars in this country, but I stand corrected.
Your article triggered a thought, maybe in Salem they were burning witches as cheap fuel to warm their apple orchards?! You know much like we still smudge here in the spring. Maybe they were just using witchcraft as a cover story and they really were doing it as a source of cheap heat. Tho I've always thought the Puritans hung out around Salem and Boston because it more closely resembled the miserable weather in England. Never mind the burn, how do you stay warm in the winter?

[Giric]

I apologize to anyone who may have thought that last comment insensitive. I want to howl. Fez must range up hill and down to take care of his condition and I must sit with my foot up. For an active person such as myself this is torture. It seems I have torn a muscle, the one that runs under my right heel. How this was done, is too foolish to even tell. I will confess I did it clear back in April and have refused to see the doctor on grounds that it would mend itself, well it didn't. Now I have to spend six weeks with a nasty cludge of a brace on my leg. Fortunately I am still allowed to walk on it at work but must take breaks. The physical therapy is truly a pain. It consists of stretching exercises and running a pointed knobby ball under my foot and heel. The first time I thought I would make fingernail marks in the ceiling. I am assured this will help it heal. I wonder if medieval torturer's were really just physical therapists in training?!

[Giric]

O.K. Fez if you can confess to the lack of profundity of your case, I guess I can tell my foolish story. Here goes:
1.Airline crushes sandal in suitcase, with forklift. Internal heel support destroyed, but not detected.
2. In April wear broken sandal all day while setting up daughters yarn festival in local hotel.
3.Right heel pressed into hole in heel tears muscle.
4.Months of pain, swelling, nothing helps.
5.Finally go to doctor. Have tendinitis, true diagnosis name longer and not pronounceable,x-rays follow.
6.Hospital calls says just arthritis from my age. What the *&%#?
I feel stupid, but hey I'm not as stupid as that x-ray tech. Arthritis, really?! From a hole in your shoe?!
Moral: If you have a hole in your shoe, don't wear it, sue the airline, for damaging your luggage.

[Giric]

I'm very sorry, for what I said about the accused in Salem. They were not burned, they were hanged. I shouldn't say snarky facetious things. Did I say my foot hurts?!
Some of the witch trial testimony is really crazy. The things people believed?! How nuts was that?!

[American fez]

Many, many people believe the same sorts of things today: the nonsense spoken by politicians, for example, which often has worse consequences than a few hanged witches. I hope your foot gets better.

[Giric]

Thanks Stephen, "An ounce of sympathy is worth a pound of therapy." I hope you are feeling better as well.

[Giric]

A Ghosts Prayer by Giric
The flags flew, the crowds grew,
the soldiers marched in step.
They'd gathered there, to say a prayer,
for all of those who slept.
The honor guard, with visage hard,
fired their weapons true.
The black hard wall, reflected all,
the names as emblems do.
The music played, a chaplain prayed,
a dedication prayer.
We solemnly commemorate, the dead here in our care.
A Ghost stood by, and heaved a sigh,
his name was on the wall.
Would mankind never stop the wars,
that led up to his fall?
Stop dedicating monuments,
to all the boys who fell.
Instead take all the warmongers,
and send them all to hell!

In honor of Veterans Day

[Jahlin]

Well done arcitle that. I'll make sure to use it wisely.

[Jimmy Smith Jersey]

thanks for shriang!

[Dexter Mccluster Jersey]

Well done arcitle that. I'll make sure to use it wisely.

[Lucia]

In the olden days, people worked hard because the luxurious life was not available. Still people in the rural parts work hard to earn and fulfill their little desires. If we don't do any types of physical activities, we should go to fitness center to build up the muscles. Somehow, we need to burn the calories. Otherwise it would turn into fat.