Outdoors Gym Class

I don't remember people going to gyms when I was growing up. Oh we had gym class in school when I hit the 7th grade. I've included a photo of what our gym suits resembled although we weren't quite as sophisticated looking in them as the mannequin with her red lipstick! I never liked gym class; especially going into the locker room and changing into my gym suit. It was embarrassing at that age to change clothes in front of your peers when you hardly knew most of them.

As far as gyms go I really don't recall any gyms where you'd join to go work out. But you never miss what you never had. Growing up in the country was like owning our own private gym open twenty four hours a day seven days a week free of charge; free of dealing with strangers in your space. There was no waiting; that is if parents allowed us being outside day and night. They most always did.

When I think about it me and my cousins and siblings  were working out all the time just by running, jumping, skating, sliding. We swing bats; climbed ladders; crawled along an old wooden bridge connecting the haymows in our grandfather's barn; held on to a rope tied to a massive tree and ran to the edge of the creek from high atop a drop-off and took a leap of faith hurling ourselves over the creek and hopefully back around to the other side of that massive tree and hopefully landing on a massive rock. We pulled wagons loaded with littler ones; climbed trees; dangled from tree limbs and finally falling to the ground. There was a pipe that transferred water from a pumphouse to the barn. We'd try to hold on tight to that pipe which was tricky to do in the summertime because the pipe sweat in the sun making it hard to hold on to but we tried with all of our might to hold on tight and shimmy along the pipe as far as we could-dropping to the ground when our arms were aching so much we had to let go. And then there were the walks we'd go on down to a river or a pine groove.

There was always something going on that required moving-running-skipping-jumping. Our gym did not require fancy machines or name brand outfits. Our gym was run by Mother Nature and our imaginations-Free of Charge!