I miss my old gym, the Granada Street Gym. Now I go to my local Planet Fitness and it is a nice place. There are plenty of treadmills and elliptical machines. You go in and you work out and rarely speak to each other. Most times the people who use the different weight machines do an exercise and then sit on the machine and look at their phone for ten minutes. For fun once I timed someone who sat for thirteen minutes looking at their phone.
Granada wasn’t flashy and it didn’t have the latest and greatest of equipment. But the Granada Street Gym is my kind of place. Like most things in life something isn’t great because of the material things but rather the intangible things.
Like Bryan who arranged for me to have my VHS wedding video put on a DVD for my wife for Christmas. Bryan is also a filmmaker and directed a movie called the “Blue Eyed Six”. You see this really is a community gym where people ask about how your family is doing and no one likes to talk more than me. This has been pointed out to me on several occasions. You see sometimes my mind really isn’t into working out so I’ve been known to talk more than work out.
That’s where my friend John comes into play. John authored a book “Condemned to Freedom”. It’s a great read and you can find it on Amazon. John and I can talk about story lines and plots the entire time I’m supposed to be working out. I enjoyed talking to him. I was happy to buy his book, hopefully he enjoyed mine as much as I enjoyed his.
Then there is Kurt who I don’t see as often but he is ex-military and really overly qualified for the job. He has a great understanding of nutrition and exercise and I love to pick his brain.
And those are only the people that work there. The people that go there are just nice and it’s a joy to sweat in a place like that.
You see Granada Street Gym is kinda like Cheers without the beer, where everyone knows your name.
Mike Settino 