Badger Pointe AO |Tuesday, March 5, 2024| Bennington High School | 5:30 AM | 31 degrees
PAX: Â Â Â Slow Clap, Stripes, Red Dirt, Bernie, House Party, Dinger, Snare, Break Room, Heist, Cupid, Mayday, and Sirius (FNG)
QIC: Q-Tip
YHC arrived a few minutes before 4:50 AM, for a pre-ruck. A group of runners was already gathering for a mosey around Bennington Lake. After an abbreviated ruck, I set up some cones to prepare for the Beatdown
I welcomed the PAX promptly at 5:30, and proclaimed the Mission Statement, Core Principals, Disclaimer, and Credo. Then we got to work.
WARM-O-RAMA:
We moseyed to the end of the parking lot We performed the following exercises:
Tappy Taps, Cherry Pickers, Mountain Climbers, Alt Shoulder Taps, Moroccan Night Clubs, and Raise the Roofs.
THE PRE-THANG: Motivators
Six of them.
THE THANG: 8 Rounds
I love this workout, and have led it at multiple sites, because the PAX always seem to like it as well. Acknowledgement to our brother, Ferdinand, who I took this from.
We had cones on the football practice field, 120 yards apart. We ran from one end to the other and then performed 40 reps each of the following exercises:
Merkins
LBCs
Squats
We ran back to the original cones and performed 35 reps of the same exercises. We ran once again to the far end and performed 30 reps of each exercise. We continued in this fashion, decreasing the number of reps by 5 each time.
Continued until we completed the 8th round—5 reps.
Omaha was called at 6:05
6MOM
We did 15 Flutter Kicks and then 13 American Hammers – Rancid Style
COT.
The most important job I ever had was actually while I was still in college. During the summers and weekends of my college years, I worked at a meat packing plant near my hometown, Schuyler. A meat packing plant is where cows go to become steaks and hamburger. I worked in the department known as the Kill Floor (which I noted would make an awesome FNG name.). The Kill Floor is a large room full of hydraulic equipment and conveyor belts. A cow walks in one end on 4 legs, and 30 minutes later, leaves as 2 sides of hanging beef. Everything in-between is deconstruction.
My job was called Washing Tripe. A tripe is the cow’s stomach. It is full of green, steaming manure. The man in front of me in the line would cut the tripe wide open, and I would dump the manure into a large metal pit, and then use a high-powered hose to rinse the rest of the tripe clean.
Why was such an awful job so important to me? It’s because I learned some valuable life lessons on the Kill Floor:
- I learned how had I could work. The tripe is a heavy organ, especially when its loaded with manure We killed 1700 hundred head of cattle each day. There were 2 Tripe Washers, so each of us washed 850 tripes each day. Doing anything 850 times a day will be a heck of a workout.Â
- I learned, in the most literal sense of the phrase, how much shit I was willing to put up with. I was being paid a wage that was more than 3x the then-current Minimum Wage. So the answer was, I was willing to put up with a lot of shit. I made great money, which helped me buy a car and pay for college.
- I learned I did not do that job for the rest of my life. If I flunked out of college, my options would be few and I’d likely end up back at the meat packing plant. I always got my best grades on school in the fall, when I was fresh off a summer of washing tripe. I was motivated to never return.
- Most importantly, I learned every job has dignity. The men I worked with were not there to pay for their own college. Some of them were the fathers of my high school friends. They were working to provide for their families, to put food on the table. By watching them, I learned that doing a job well, even washing tripe, provides dignity. Today, there are likely 2 men in Schuyler who are heading to work to wash tripe. Those men are doing what is needed to provide for their families. Each of us is called to do our jobs well so that that we can provide for our wives and children. There is no greater dignity.Â
Thank you all.
Aye,
Q-Tip
