3November2007
Untitled from Jeff Ahlstad
Posted under places beginning with: E; Erie; Pennsylvania.
After a lull in submissions, we’ve received this wonderfully intimate short piece from Jeff Ahlstad, Erie, Pennsylvania, remembering tales told by his father. Please keep the submissions coming folks, this is great!
That’s my dad supporting Marvin Kennedy in the gymnastic group photo, Sam was his name. God bless his soul. I’m pretty sure it was taken in 1946. He told me all about the stories when I was boy. The group in the picture looks perfect, but he’d say the reality was just fall after fall and bruise after bruise. He told me once about the rides home in the coach’s pick up. Jake Turnbull, I believe he was called, not sure about the spelling though.
Dad said they’d all be packed in the back, bodies in pain, wondering why they’d gotten themselves into the whole thing. He told me that it often felt like they were in France. Many of those men had served together in Europe you see, and while some of the gym members would come and go, the core group was strong, they were brothers.
He said that on the surface they all complained about the hard training, the aches and pains, and Jake was certainly no walk in the park, an ex-drill sergeant truth be told, but deep down they needed the rigor, they needed something to keep them occupied, otherwise it might have been the bottle…or worse.
