A Workout in the Woods Leads to a Revelation

When I'd played in these woods as a child, they'd always seemed larger, more dense. Back then, I knew every dirt trail and each island in the meandering stream that might as well have been the Amazon, and a good part of my youth was spent wasting time in that little chunk of nature.

I hadn't often returned when I got older, for the most part having moved on to bigger and better pieces of wilderness where I could get in real trouble.

But a workout blog I follow (rosstraining.com for those keeping track) had been making a big deal in the past several months about the concept of being able to train anywhere, anytime, regardless of the weather, and it was followed by a YouTube clip of the writer, Ross Enamait, practicing what he preached.

"It is entirely possible to receive a quality workout with little or nothing," he wrote. "You certainly do not need a state-of-the-art facility to apply yourself diligently and consistently. With creativity and effort, you can exercise almost anywhere."

The woods though? Kind of odd, I thought.

I had never worked out here before - there was something different about that, something structured, that didn't seem to have a home amongst the towering maples and patches of skunk cabbage.

But I was never much for the mayhem of commercial gyms either, what with their god-awful dance music, spiky-haired trainers, and preponderance of cellphone usage that made a 40-minute lifting session take six hours. I could never deal with them, and to be honest, I wasn't the kind they wanted there anyway.

So over the years, I gravitated toward the smaller places - the lifters' gyms, the fighters' clubs - the places filled with guys like me, who came for the workout, not the conversation, and enjoyed the hard, swear-laden rap that served as background for the clanging of metal or the sweaty whap of leather on leather.

But this was different than even those. And here I was, standing next to the Amazon, slightly confused about what to do but knowing I had to do something.

So I started to pull a rock out of the dirt. Which was harder than it looked. And much dirtier. And buggier, too.

Once it was out of the ground, I picked up the 80-pound stone and threw it a couple feet. I followed it, picked it up, and threw it back. Then once more. And I found it strangely ... satisfying.

What followed was an hour or more of no music, no trainers, and no sounds (other than the ones I was making) as I ran through a series of rock-throws, pushups, and pullups (done from a tree branch) that left the skin on my hands sore and my muscles cramping from exhaustion.

As I walked back home, I realized that Enamait was right: no equipment had been needed, and a simple thing, tweaked here and there and done repeatedly, beats whatever you can do at an LA Fitness. And it was all accomplished in the sunlight, away from the sickly masses that make the gym the germy hive it can become.

"If you put forth a true effort, you can be challenged by almost anything," he wrote. "The significance of individual effort cannot be overstated."

That's what it came down to, I thought: individual effort. Put it in, and it goes a long way. Don't, and no amount of fancy equipment is going to help.

It's a lesson that didn't come easily, but was necessary all the same.

Email: janoski@northjersey.com

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A Tree Grows in Butler

A Stiff Jab Lands...

The Case for Hard Work

It was a relatively simple task: put a couple of carriage bolts through a 2-by-4 in the ceiling to re-hang a heavy bag that my old man had put in years ago.

Well, it would have been simple for someone else. For me, the only writer in a family of the mechanically inclined and technically gifted, you may as well have been asking that I redirect the Mississippi. Don't get me wrong. I'm no wimp. But I'm not a handy guy even though I come off like I might be, and the "Things Steve is Good At" list tends to end abruptly after "punching stuff" and "writing things."

Even so, after a good bit of grimacing and a couple of curse-laden outbursts, I actually hung the thing. It was even kind of easy.

But more surprising was how I felt afterward - like I had done something, something worthwhile. Something that didn't involve fancy words or complex sentences, but that I could still look at and say, "Yup, I did that." It was actually rewarding.

So it was more than a little ironic when, shortly after this episode, I read an article in USA Today about the recently released CareerCast rankings of the 10 best and 10 worst jobs for 2014.

The company compiles its list by taking a variety of factors such as income, environment, stress levels, and future outlook into account, and sitting at the top were jobs like statistician, actuary, computer systems analyst, occupational therapist, and speech pathologist.

What made up the bottom 10? My job, of course, along with lumberjack, soldier, head cook, garbage collector, and firefighter.

So what's the takeaway? The same lesson that America has been pushing on its kids for more than a generation: a white-collar job equals success, and a blue-collar one equals failure. Why? Because when it comes down to it, if you do dirty, dangerous manual labor, and don't make hundreds of thousands of dollars doing so, you've clearly done something wrong in your life - even if you love what you do.

I think there's something wrong with that, and I'm sure there's at least one other guy who agrees: Mike Rowe, the former host of the Discovery Channel's "Dirty Jobs."

He appeared on a TED Radio Hour podcast last November that dealt with the topic of success, and it was his opinion that society needs to redefine exactly who it considers "successful." He pointed to a shabby New Englander named Rob as proof.

You see, Rob, who Rowe said looked like the sort of character you might step around and give a dollar to on the street, made his living by pulling foot-long bloodworms out of the sand during low tide and selling them for bait. The things are gross looking and have a vicious bite, and it's the kind of job you wouldn't wish on anybody - until you saw Rob's house, which he paid for in cash. Or talked to him about his summer home, which he also paid for in cash.

All of a sudden, he didn't seem so "unsuccessful."

He saw this time and again during his 8-year tenure on the show, and he also found that the guys who did rough, dirty jobs were "happier than you think."

"As a group, they're the happiest people I know," he said. "Roadkill picker-upper whistle while they work. I swear to God, I did it with them. They've got this amazing sort of symmetry to their life."

He suggested a PR campaign to help bring the same sort of dignity to skilled manual labor that already exists for white-collar jobs, and he even started a foundation that gives scholarships to those who want to learn a trade. It can be found at the aptly named profoundlydisconnected.com.

I think he's onto something. Over the last few years, I believe there's been a kind of resurgence in the popularity of working with one's hands.

Websites like artofmanliness.com regularly post how-to articles about skills most of us have long forgotten, such as tying knots or starting a fire. Companies like New York's Best Made Company have marketed their American-made axe as not only an essential tool, but also as a window into the wilderness that can "inspire people to reconnect with their hands, craft, and nature."

The number of craft-beer brewers has increased exponentially, and it seems like the number of custom-knife-makers, metalworkers, and backyard-gardeners doing it all just for fun is increasing as regular folks figure out that creating something from nothing can be more fulfilling than assessing risk for an insurance company or doing ... whatever it is that a speech pathologist does.

As for me, I'm not going that far yet. A circular saw in my hands is still just a weapon of self-destruction, and I'm not pushing my luck.

But I am outside driving a forklift and working in the dirt on the weekends again, and I've got to say, I don't mind it. Not at all.

In fact, it kind of makes me happy.

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http://www.northjersey.com/community-news/the-case-for-hard-work-1.1017912?page=all

Fighting Out of the Red Corner ...

A Retriever in Her Paradise

The Moment of Impact

Time to ditch the Pledge of Allegiance

The concept of freedom has always been a double-edged sword, one that we hide behind and cheer when it keeps our ideological foes at bay, but curse silently when we find ourselves with its point in our chest.

It's that very irony that appears to have so many of us tied in knots over the recent lawsuit brought by an anonymous New Jersey family against the Matawan-Abderdeen Regional School District that seeks to have the state requirement that students recite the Pledge of Allegiance every morning declared unconstitutional because it features the words "under God."

The suit, which was filed in Monmouth County Superior Court by the American Humanist Association, alleges that the mere presence of the phrase discriminates against atheists by disparaging a child's belief (or lack thereof), calling their patriotism into question, and turning them into second-class citizens.

And let's be frank: they're absolutely right. Unequivocally so, to my law-degreeless mind, and I'm shocked that the federal courts, aside from the occasional rogue judge, haven't cited the First Amendment and sought to have the words removed already.

This suit doesn't challenge it on those grounds. It just seeks to have the current practice declared a violation of New Jersey's constitution, and it'll let the courts work out a solution.

But it's an important question, especially because the controversy is shrouded with misinformation. Although most folks think that "under God" is a throwback to the fervent Christianity of our eighteenth century forbears, it was actually inserted in 1954 in an attempt to distinguish our noble nation from the godless Communists who sat on the other side of the Cold War trenches.

Then there's the fact that the phrase simply isn't true. In reality, the Founding Fathers, those brilliant children of the Enlightenment, were not a particularly religious bunch, and a number of them could more easily be described as deists rather than pious Christians. This nation wasn't founded - nor does it remain - "under" a deity whose existence can never be proven. No, it was formed by men. Who (or what) inspired those men is certainly up for debate, but the time to reflect on that particular subject is not the middle of the pledge.

What is not up for debate is that this nation was founded on the unequivocal separation of church and state, and having students of all colors and creeds recite the words "under God" every morning in a publicly funded school doesn't mesh well with my personal notion of what it means for the state to not push religion on its people.

But I'll take it one step further, and offer a simple solution to the conundrum: how about we ditch the pledge altogether?

After all, there's nothing inspiring or inherently patriotic about that collection of words. Unlike our national anthem, it isn't written about a stirring moment in our history or a point of national pride, and it serves little purpose other than drilling into the heads of the children that we're supposed to be loyal to the state ... no matter what.

As a child, I thought the solemn morning recital was a just a little creepy and cultish, and now, as an adult, it reminds me more than a little of something that might be found in Orwell's "1984."

This country is a republic, true, and the ideas it was founded on are some of the finest that humanity has ever conceived of, but was it really necessary for me to affirm that before starting my daily routine? Would it make the government sleep a little easier if I had continued that tradition after I graduated, just in case I forgot where I was born and who I was loyal to?

The whole thing has never sounded very "American" to me, especially in a nation created upon the very idea that allegiance must be earned, not given. It's time to end this practice and let the classrooms be what they were intended to be: a bastion of unceasing inquiry and education - not indoctrination.

Email: janoski@northjersey.com

- See more at: http://www.northjersey.com/news/education/time-to-ditch-the-pledge-of-allegiance-1.1006199#sthash.8ZGbMM0p.dpuf

Boston Strong

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I took this photo of the Paul Revere monument just a few weeks after the bombing. You can't see the candles that were lit at the base, but it was touching nonetheless. One of my favorite spots in my favorite city.