PAX: Goose, Paradox, Enron, Yankee Joe, Popeye, Cardinal, Percleator, Safety Valve, America’s Best, Maneater, Teravanilli, Brass Monkey, Smooth Operator, Mom Jeans, Pope, Point Break, Coyote, Bam-Bam, Duke, Jack-be-Nimble, Tractor, Jackknife, Geronimo, Lil’ Papi
AO: The Peltch
By: Goose
YHC couldn’t wait to celebrate five years of F3 Thibodaux, and each HC that came through was confirmation that this would be a morning to remember. With the old guard repping strong through Cardinal and Perc to an FNG who had no idea the deep waters he was stepping into, the Pax truly showed up. And to those of you who had to work extra hard to get there this morning, your presence was truly appreciated.
The warmup started with an unexpectedly appropriate disclaimer for the FNG (soon to be Point Break), and we were off to the Thunderdome to frolic through the past five years at the mercy of each Pax in turn. Starting with the Pax who had been there the longest, each man was given 2 to 30 minutes to share a highlight of their F3 career and lead an exercise appropriate to it. About 40% of them involved Yankee Jeaux. Here’s what I remember—may or may not be accurate:
Cardinal: philosophical crab walk dilemma—set the tone for showing no mercy on the exercise and finished 10 minutes ahead of everyone.
Enron: YJ trying to convince him that his own last name, Lillich, is Spanish, not German, and that his whole family’s been pronouncing it wrong for generations.
Percleator: trying to lift YJ on his back and almost getting puked on
Popeye: avoiding surgery all his life, through 8 wars, only to have to have a surgery every six months since starting F3.
Paradox: tried to fit half a beatdown and a YJ soliloquy into two minutes, including a jab at May challenge cheaters (YJ), and a ride down to that parking spot where we all love to try to follow the assigned exercises (all kinds of legs flying every which way).
Yankee Joe: started by trying to keep that that non-PG-13 story about Kilmer age-sensitive, but gradually stopped trying about 45 seconds in.
Smooth Operator: YJ’s infamous bear beatdown where shoulders were slaughtered by the thousands; focused on the Boo-Boo one-legged bear crawl of death.
Safety Valve: Swallowed a recent jab and spit it back out at the perpetrator with a blaring rendition of “Platinum Life” directed from the barrel of Turtle Box straight toward Dox’s head.
America’s Best: recalled how deeply his naming process cut, and how that name/identity found root down in that cut and has grown into a beautiful, electric, Weezy Jefferson-loving tree. He worked in his much loved/feared “Free Solo” routine and his lose-lose trivia trap.
Pope: YHC squeezed him in since he rides the 2.0 line, but he’s been there, more or less willingly, since the beginning. He shared how scandalized he originally was as a 12-year-old at the level of locker room talk enjoyed by seemingly good men, but he’s since learned to tolerate it now that he’s a full-fledged gangster (an educated fool with money on his mind).
Maneater: fondly recalled, in an Aussie accent, all the injuries sustained from pushing too hard on these old, dry bones, leaving us broken and lonely together….happy manniversary.
Mom Jeans: amazingly showed up in his trademark jeans and kept them on for the duration, and then wondered why he struggled to beat a teenager in a shuttle run.
Brass Monkey: fond memories of bruising his own face with a ball and then trying to explain to his wife that this is the group he now wants to hang out with, as well as Daisy Duke’s VQ circle of pain, which YHC had, until this morning, successfully erased from his memory. Violent crab walking ensued.
TeraVanilli: one more surfacing of YJ’s foot-mouth syndrome–the victim this time was Safety Valve and apparently his entire family and their family business. Moseyed us back to the flag with an appropriate soundtrack touting healthy male relationships.
After picking up the sixes, time was up, so YHC shared what he’s seen that makes F3 Thibodaux truly unique and how much these men truly care about each other. Then, we unveiled a new 5-Year Manniversary t-shirt design built around a lot of the memories and the men that have made these past five years such a gift.
As it turns out, it’s amazing to suffer through tough stuff with other men who care about you, who know that you’re irreplaceable, and who want you there to go through stupid, fun, challenging, memorable experiences with them, to feel fully alive with them, and then to support each other when things aren’t so fun. And, thankfully, it’s really not that complicated. You just gotta get out of the fartsack and show up, and the rest will take care of itself. We were made for this.
SYITG,
Goose