In 1974, at the age of thirteen, I began weightlifting under the guidance of Lou Kruk, my junior high P.E. teacher and Junior Olympic weightlifting coach. Lou wasn’t just teaching kids to hoist iron—he was shaping futures. He handed me a barbell and lit the fuse. Soon, I was consuming protein powders and flipping through Strength & Health and Muscle Builder, the gospel according to Bob Hoffman and Joe Weider.
From garage gyms to commercial ones, from clunky bench presses to rusted barbells, I trained. I flirted briefly with gimmicks—a Bullworker here, a Power Yoga phase there—but nothing kept me grounded like the iron. Eventually, I found kettlebells: odd, compact, brutally effective. And fifty-one years later, I’m still at it. The protein, the lifting—they’re no longer habits; they’re rituals.
I don’t work out to chase aesthetics or to stave off decay. I train because not training feels like suffocating. My routine gives shape to my days, the way grammar gives shape to language. Without it, life would collapse into chaos. I marvel at those who drift through their hours without structure, snacking at whim, binge-watching shows, darting between texts and chores like pinballs. A life without scaffolding feels not just unsatisfying—it feels dangerous.
Sometimes I wonder: what if I’d never met Lou Kruk? What if weightlifting had never entered my life? Would I have found some other sacred structure to cling to, or would I have been swallowed by drift? Yes, I play piano. Yes, I write. But I’m no professional writer unless you count me as a “professional navel-gazer.” These activities are merely sidelines—dilettante pursuits. It’s the iron that makes me whole.
Maybe weightlifting saved my life. Maybe it still does. I could psychoanalyze this, wax poetic about addiction to ritual and the fear of entropy. Or I could walk into the garage, chalk my hands, and get lost in goblet squats and Turkish Get-Ups until the world makes sense again. I think you already know what I’m going to choose.
Cinemorphosis 
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