Over Thanksgiving I went to North Carolina, and, when I had the chance, took a swim at the YMCA in Raliegh. That sucker is huge. Not Raleigh, the YMCA. And why shouldn’t it be? The place is surrounded by football and baseball fields and a million acres of woods. Sometimes, while working out at the YMCA in Alexandria I relate to W. C. Fields, who said: “The room was so packed you couldn’t laugh ‘Ha, ha, ha.’ You had to laugh ‘Ho, ho, ho.”
While in North Carolina, I was tempted to test this theory: If I threw a rock from one end of the swimming area as hard as I could, I don’t think I could hit the wall at the other end of the room. I wanted to find out, and this is what I thought: “I’m not in Alexandria! No one knows me here and they’ll probably never see me again. But what If I break a window?”
I stood there thinking about this until I realized that I had been standing still, staring at a lifeguard but not seeing her for about five minutes. I left pretty soon after that. I should have done it. You don’t get too many of these opportunities in life. Plus, the joint was deserted. People were too busy eating leftovers covered in gravy.
