Open Writing

You might just remember Charles Atlas the body builder and former seven stone weakling who beefed himself up by dynamic tension after a ten stone bully kicked sand in his face at the beach and humiliated him in front of his girl friend.

My childhood was filled with references to Charles Atlas and his famous body building course, advertised in all the Sunday papers until a few years ago. "Let me make a man of you," he declared, casting aspersions about the virility and confidence of the youth of all nations whose papers carried the advertisement for his course, available on monthly payments for those who were not only pathetic weaklings, but poverty stricken to boot.

"You too can have a body like mine!" another of his proclamations read, to which we schoolboys in Form Three of Spring Grove School added, "If you starve for a year!"

In later years when my wit was honed to a sharp edge, I offered, "Take half a Charles Atlas Course for unequal development!" It sounded funnier way back then. Funny how the ludicrous appeals to young folk, and funnier still that most of it stuck with me. However, I digress.

I thought about Charles Atlas and the half course as I sat on a bench in Mesa’s Quail Run Bark Park trying to find a solution to my problem.

You see, if you had arranged to meet me underneath Rushworth’s Clock in Huddersfield, I would not have to carry a rolled up copy of "The Times" or sport a white carnation. You would identify me on sight. Not because you knew my face, but because I am the fellow with half a suntan. To be precise, the east side of my face is almost nut coloured walnut, but the west side of my face is pale knotty pine. No, I haven’t taken half a suntan course at the local tanning salon. It is all the result of my dog exercising habits.

Quail Run Bark Park is exactly seven point seven miles from our home in south east Mesa. Rising at five am, I load our two dogs, Frankie and Bell, into the SUV and head out to north Mesa’s marvellous off-lead doggy exercise grounds. This three acres patch of grass is enclosed by high walls and chain link fences, and is doggie heaven for dogs that enjoy running free for an hour or so.

Feeling the weight of my years and a sudden upsurge in my arthritis, I do not circumambulate the park while my two children are at their sport. I sit on the second series of iron benches and keep the water bowl replenished for my dogs, and for the other dogs who have become part of our family through frequent early morning meetings.

I sit facing south so that I can see where my little charges are and what they are doing, ever ready with a Mutt Mitt to collect their offerings and dump them in the oil drum Poop Bins provided at intervals for that purpose. When I arrive, dawn has broken to the east, which is on my left, but the sun has not risen quite behind Superstition Mountain range. When it does, it bursts out like a welder’s torch and the temperature rises a good ten degrees in an instant.

It also pays close attention to my face’s left side, and tans it expertly. But my right side, being in the shade, stays several shades lighter.

There, in a nutshell, is the kernel of my quandary. I could level my complexion by walking down to the other end of the field, but it is a long way to travel in pain, and so, for the time being at least, the "Half-a-Charles-Atlas-Course" syndrome continues.

So, my friend, if we do arrange to meet under Rushworth’s Clock ….