Preserving Marshall

I stood in the breakfast cereal aisle at Publix. I fingered a bag of Kodak multi-vitamin, hi-protein granola. Hmmm, 5 grams of protein per serving. I wanted to know how much protein I was getting per ounce so I could compare it to the bag of muesli I already had in my Publix basket. I tugged out the cell phone. Hmmm, 4.5 ounces. 2/3 of a cup is about 3 oz. So, lessee. Grams of protein per ounce equals 5/3 or 1.6. Whew. So, let’s look at the muesli ….

The hard-body wing of my family has altered my life. They observed my turkey wattle neck and the wheezes I make bending down to retrieve the glasses I dropped on the floor and concluded I am aging. Techies and engineers, they set about preserving me. My granddaughter, the fitness maven, whose habitat outside of office hours is a sweat emporium, is keen on muscle mass. She appeared one day at my condo and dragged me up to the gym. Gleaming in pink and silver spandex, she curated my gym experience. She steered me away from the torture machines that clank and thump. “Free weights are better,” she said. I hoped the word spread in the building I had a hot trainer.

Her parents hike, run, and bike. Like her, they are connoisseurs of fitness franchises that pop up next to nail salons, bank branches and urgent care centers. Her father and mother are protein pushers. They claim my aged body does not process protein like it used to. I had to up the ante by 20 grams a day to even stay in the game. They introduced me to powdered protein I could order from Amazon in tasty flavors, labelled “Earth Fed Muscle from Plants” and “Whey Protein Isolate from Grass Fed Cows.” I ordered a Blender Bottle to guzzle protein powder shakes. I was on my way to achieving an Old Testament life span. Maybe, like Abraham, I would beget more children.

Finding protein, given I am mildly lactose intolerant, is a scavenger hunt in the grocery aisles, involving squinting at labels. We have a health food market that caters to the yoga crowd. Everything is organic and comes from critters who led blameless lives before being dispatched in a loving way, or from plants cultivated by Tibetan monks, watered by the sweat of their brows. Both employees and customers are gaunt, and there is a Birkenstock vibe. Particularly missing butter and cheese, I asked the staff what I could substitute. They confidently directed me to Ghee butter and sheep cheese. A Google search contradicted them. The “substitutes” still had dreaded lactose. On the plus side, I now know how to pronounce “Ghee.”

The humanist wing of my family – the minister and the philosophy professor – is interested in preserving me in less demanding ways than the hard bodies. They are into the mens sana part of mens sana in corpore sano.  Rather than a protein shake and barbell reps, they recommend a cup of hot tea, sitting in their sheltered veranda on a rainy day, reading the Tao Te Ching of Lao Tzu.

Years ago, pre condo life, My Life’s Editor and I worked out at a Gold’s Gym, where many intense people squeezed into tight gym clothes. The weightlifters were decorated by inscrutable tattoos with threatening symbols – skulls, knives, snakes, etc. – from their bulging biceps to their wrists. Schwarzenegger-wannabees gathered around the squat rack, spotting each other, as they lifted hernia-popping weight plates. There was a lot of grunting, sounds an aged grandfather makes in the loo in the morning.

My condo gym is notably tat-free, excepting the young guy who drives a Corvette and wears a hoodie and boxing shoes and throws air punches as he shuffles his feet. The bulk of us have grandchildren and go about our business discreetly, with minimal fuss, like an Episcopalian goes to church. The treadmill, the elliptical and the indoor rower are popular. The more arcane machines – the lat pull-down, the leg extension machine and the chest press – have helpful diagrams showing the user which muscle group she will build into prodigious size.

Gym etiquette requires we do not drop weights on the floor or play loud music or podcasts without ear buds or headphones. This does not stop some users from releasing the machines with a vengeful clang.  Etiquette also requires we take a swipe at equipment handles with disposable wipes to kill cooties.

Three TV screens preside over the gym. Middle-aged white males and young blondes with hair coifed to slide down over their cleavage regard us from the televisions as we sweat, keeping us up on the Dow Jones or S & P Index. When the gym clears out, the talking heads babble on for the benefit of the machines.

Back in the cereal aisle at Publix, I decided on the muesli. On the way to the cash registers, I passed the deli counter. The smell of fried chicken wafted into the air. Mounds of crispy golden pieces called to me from the glass case, “Here I am, Marshall. Come, take me home. Consume.” I tucked into line behind two construction workers, clad in creased black work boots, Tees with company logos, yellow vests and hard hats. “Two thighs, please,” I said to the deli man in his hair net, his hand holding a set of tongs.

Back home, I plopped the breaded, fried chicken on a plate, grabbed a particularly succulent thigh, and bit deep into a juicy bit of fried breading. Grease dribbled down my chin.

Protein, shmotein.