2 HIMS from My Life at Mayhem

2 HIMS from My Life at Mayhem

QIC: Drama Queen

Date: 05/06/2026

PAX: Slowpitch, Zephyr, Ziffel, Zima, Dr. Toot, Wahoo, Head Hunter, Subfloor, Drama Queen

YHC volunteered for the first beatdown of the 2nd (I believe) annual MayHIM month at Mayhem.  Rollback’s challenge was to honor High Impact Men and also make the workouts push us a little harder.  Narrowing down who to honor was challenging and fitting a workout to honor these men tugged on my heart.

YHC arrived a little early to place a surprise out in the AO.  Others rolled in including a run in by Zima and we began with a fairly quick Warmorama with most of the standards except for a golden oldie of Running with Scissors that somehow popped into my head

YHC next gave a short prelude of who we would honor.  First was my Uncle Rufus – a member of the Greatest Generation serving in the Army in WWII.  He was in Patton’s 3rd Army and fought in the Battle of the Bulge.  After my father (his brother) died when I was 11, he showed up for me many times.  He would come over to the farm where we both grew up, bring his .22 and we would go hunt snakes. I can’t remember ever finding one with him but we always managed to shoot the gun if just at some old tin cans.  I loved his stories about the war and we both loved sports.

To honor Uncle Rufus we paired up and ran the Super Collider around the “bulge” of the track.  YHC joined with Head Hunter and Slowpitch for a three man team.  Upon meeting, pax performed 20 Booyah mercans, 30 WWIIs while one pax planked on others feet, and 40 squats.  We ran two laps and cut short the exercises on the last meeting.

On to one other way to honor Uncle Rufus.  He came back after the war and lived with my grandparents but still liked to go out at night and family legend has it that he would climb the side of the house to his room on the second floor when getting home late.  We bear crawled the hill below the parking lot 3 times and celebrated VE day at the top with 5 squat jumps.

We then carried our blocks and rocks to the field below the track where YHC revealed the surprise of the morning.  This portion of the workout honored another HIM in my life that filled a big hole in my teenage years.  He was the father of my best friend and his name was Bud.  I spent a lot of time in his house and he modeled what a father and husband should be. He was there for ballgames and prom nights reminding us of who we were and how to carry ourselves. Bud was connected to farming in Haywood County.  First as the manager of the Mountain Research Station (The Test Farm) and then as the manager of the local fertilizer mill.  He spent many days lifting 50lb bags of fertilizer giving him arms like steel rods well after he retired.  The surprise was a bag (unfortunately not fertilizer and unfortunately not one made for this) of ice melt wrapped in two trash bags and weighing about 40 lbs.

We lined up with the bag on one end and performed BLIMPS with a couple of twists.  B was 5 Blockees, L 10 Lunges with block, I 15 Imperial Walkers with block, M 20 Mercans on the block, P 25 Plank jacks on the block, and S – 30 Squats with the block. After each exercise we rotated one to the left and pax from far end came to the bag station.

Not quite time for 3 rounds so we did a version of Ring of Fire with the blocks and bag.  One pax military pressed the bag while others held blocks over head.  After required presses bag was passed to next pax.

Back to launch where YHC gave the final honor to these men by acknowledging they didn’t go over the top or do anything way out of the ordinary for me but their presence in my life – just showing up – made a difference.

NMM

Near Q fail when planning for the bag.  I reached out to a couple of pax including Starfish very late and couldn’t locate one of the big sandbags with the handles.  (Zima has one if anyone needs in the future) Wrapping up the ice melt worked and made for a good story (and probably wasn’t quite as heavy)

Dr Toot and Zima were doing their own cadence in warmorama which led to Dr Toot and Ziffel doing creative counting and apparently some tooting during the supercollider.  Dr Toot seems to be the common thread here but then again it was Zima and Ziffel

Zima dropped some trivia (and it checks out) Rhode Island is only state to officially celebrate VJ day

Apparently some had noticed the bag placed on the bench during supercollider and thought it was a stray bookbag.

Thanks to all who brought blocks.

Zima and Zephyr were crushing the supercollider

Another high propensity of Z pax names – where was Zesty?

YHC has mentioned Zima way too much in this backblast

Quiet assassins Wahoo and Subfloor crushed it as well – think that gets at least one shout out to all

Good to be in daylight before the end of a workout.

Glad to be able to add a little more about these men in the backblast.  Sorry not sorry for the emotions this AM.

ANNOUNCEMENTS

Samaritan Inn workouts continue Wednesdays at 3:15. Show up if your schedule allows

Several pax have upcoming Qs. Check Slack for your favorites

Watch Slack for Memorial Day convergence details

COT

Slowpitch’s coworker passed suddenly

YHC’s coworker’s father passed this week

Several pax with injuries

Rollback’s M

YHC took us out lifting up the prayer requests and the men in our lives and men we need to be for others.  I finished with a response learned in a downrange post in Greenville, SC and try to save for special occasions

DQ – there will come a day when I am not able to be out here  All Pax – But today is not that day!

Always an honor

DQ