10 June 2022 / The Armory / Ta-Ha-Zouka Park
The One Armory Backblast A
bout How 43 HIM Showed Up for the 6.
Pax: Gator, Tonight Show, Chowdah, PigPen, Vandalay, Jump Street, Patton (respect), Blades of Glory, Khakis, Slow Pitch, Big Unit, Old Spice, BarnDoor, Vlasic (respect), Yodel, Mr. Miyagi, Gump, Blanks, Truly, Ozark (respect), HardHat, Griswold, Cradle, Light Bright, T Swift, Pit Stop, Slow Clap (respect), Tator Tot, Bayside, Z-Bo, Da Kine, Nelly, Retweet, Swiper (approved), Steeple, BuzzSaw, Lincoln Logs (respect, respect), Armando, Slap Shot, Schnitzel, MacaNoodle (respect), Mufasa, YHC (Tea Party)
I arrived at the AO a little early, but not too early because I didn’t want to get talked into a prerun. When I pulled in there were some familiar faces already there, HIM like Patton and Gator. And one surprise guest, my little brother and newer PAX member, Jump Street. He had convinced YHC that he wouldn’t be able to make it so his presence made a good morning better.
I quickly unloaded my diaper stash from the minivan. Patton and Cheap Seats are collecting diapers for BoysTown & it’s not too late to donate. Just ask them how.
As the clock ticked closer to 0530 , I was blown away by how many vehicles arrived and the gathering of this amount of Pax was enough to make me nearly shed a tear. But I didn’t because Mufasa was there and I didn’t want him to see me cry.
At 0530 YHC called the group to formation and reviewed the details of what makes us F3. I managed to get through the 5 Core Principles (by the way, we are Always Outside), the Creed, and disclaimer.
We then jumped straight into a surprising warm up of 35 of each of the following:
Tappy Taps
Side Straddle Hops
Merkins
Monkey Humpers
Cherry Pickers
Sun gods
By the sound of the mumble chatter, I could tell the PAX were good and warm and my position as VQ was definitely on the hot seat, so I quickly announced that we were going to mosey over the footbridge to the bleacher seats just West of where we stood.
There we split into 2 groups of 22 HIM. The first group did step ups (35) while the second group did LBCs (35). Then we switched off and repeated the exercises. Next we had one group do Dips while the other did Ranger Merkins in honor of Doppler. Then we switched again.
Once everyone had a chance to do 35 of all 4 exercises, YHC announced another short mosey West to the soccer fields. There we stuck to our assigned groups. YHC led one of the groups in a little Thing I called “Mini Merkin Big Bang”. The other group was led in the same exercise by my wingman Chowdah. The way this worked was we would start in a circle and do 5 Merkins then hop up and run 5 paces and then return to the circle. The PAX would plank while waiting for the Six and then start the process over, doing 10 then 15 then 20. At this point YHC was convinced by some of the MumbleChattering PAX that we should continue this adventure until we had reached 35 Merkins and 35 paces. So we did.
YHC then announced another short Mosey up the hill to our North. At the top of the hill was a smaller incline, so we stayed in our groups. One group would do WW1 sit ups while the other group bear crawled to the top of the incline, did 5 burpees, and lunge walked back down. We switched off with the goal of each PAX member doing 3 sets of each exercise. I had asked Gator to be my time keeper and when he announced to YHC that we were at 0605, Omaha was called.
The PAX were instructed to mosey back towards the flags along the road to the East, with the faster HIM advised to stop at the block building near the Flags and wall sit or do balls to the walls until the Six arrived.
We then all settled at the flags for a short Mary:
35 Freddy Mercury’s and American Hammers (Rancid Style).
YHC checked again and made certain that there were no FNGs. Being satisfied, we began a 2:32 minute NamoRama.
COT was centered around two New Testament verses. The first being, Hebrews 12:1 which instructs HIM to “lay aside every weight and the sin that so easily besets us” and Galatians 6:2 which says “bear one another’s burdens”. YHC shared how I have struggled in life with being too dang heavy, and how transformational F3 has been in my life since joining February 18, 2022. So much so that I lost 35lbs! But, YHC made clear that I didn’t lose the weight alone. Every pound could be represented by a HIM that carried me along the journey and continues to carry me today. I reminded the PAX that in a group as large as 44 men, someone is struggling with a weight and our job is to remove that weight from their shoulders, not to carry it for them, but to cast it at the foot of the cross where Jesus already bore the weight of the sins of this world.
PAX then made several announcements of all the good happenings in F3 Omaha, and we took some prayer requests:
Patton’s friend Christian who is battling cancer, and Christian’s son Lennox who had a bike accident and suffered a concussion, leaving both men of the house down and out.
A sweaty ball of men then joined YHC in humble prayer, asking our Heavenly Father to make us faithful HIM.
It was a true honor to lead at the Armory. I will remember this day for a long time to come. The 35 HIM mentioned in the COT in no way composes all of the members of the PAX who have impacted me, but here are the ones mentioned:
1. My brothers, Drive Thru(down range)
2. Jump Street
3. Tonight Show
4. Gator
5. Mr. Miyagi
6. Doppler
7. Blades of Glory
8. Flintstone
9. Yodel
10. Chowda
11. Sawblade
12. Lincoln Logs
13. Mufasa
14. Ketchup
15. Fine Print
16. Unicycle
17. Obi Wan
18. Rollbar
19. Barn door
20. Big Unit
21. Da Kine
22. Nelly
23. Pigpen
24. Slow Clap
25. Girl Dad
26. Band Camp
27. Crab Cakes
28. Lite Brite
29. Cheap Seats
30. Slick
31. Lemon Law
32. Ozark
33. Truly
34. Patton
35. Vandalay