I graduated college in December 1987 (I’d started a semester late, hence my out of cycle completion). After college I worked through the spring, saved up some money, and then moved to Sacramento to once again live with my father and see if I could get something going. I rented the finished garage for $150 a month.
I had it in my mind to get into the fitness industry. At the time (1988), there was no such thing as a personal trainer. I’d been into fitness for a while, was young and lean, and looked as though I knew about exercise and nutrition. So it only took knocking on a couple of doors before I landed a spot as a Nautilus instructor at ATA Fitness for a whopping $5 an hour.
It didn’t take me long to figure out working in fitness (at least there) sucked. The instructors made squat. The money was in selling memberships and that’s where the club put its focus. It had a sales staff of around 10 people who did nothing but beat the phones all day trying to get people into the club for a “free” 2 weeks, only to hit them up and hard sell them a membership. Once the cash was in hand, the sales people — and the club — couldn’t care less if you ever came back or worked out a day in your life.
So here are the sales people earning around $100 for every member they signed while the fitness folks (me and 3 others) earned $5 an hour for actually showing people how to work out and improve their health.
ATA Fitness was on the second floor; the first floor was occupied by a Mexican restaurant and some office spaces. The Mexican place ran a special every day starting at 5:00 in the evening: $1 dollar draft beer with a basket of tortilla chips with salsa. I was so broke, that was my dinner pretty much every night.
I worked there around 3 months, but the money was too low. I left for the dreaded retail sector, to a sporting goods store, where I worked until joining the Air Force in 1989.
One wall of the workout room at ATA Fitness was all windows looking out over a busy road. I remember standing there, looking out the window, this song playing through the ceiling speakers. A college graduate at 22, I was living in a garage, making $5 an hour, and already nostalgic for the carefree life I’d just left and knew I’d never experience again.
Over winter break in January 1986, I had four wisdom teeth removed. They were all impacted, so they knocked me out with some intravenous Valium. They put the needle in and said “Now count backwards from ten.” I think I got to eight….. I woke up with four teeth sitting on the bib covering my chest.
Bruce had his wisdom teeth out the same day. They evening I went over to his house and we mixed up rum smoothies, took our Tylenol 3s, and listened to music. He’d just gotten the new Inxs album. I remember being in his basement, stretched out in a La-z-boy recliner and feeling no pain, while this song played.
Officer’s Training School for the Air Force is now located on Maxwell Air Force base in Alabama, but when I went through back in 1989, it was still in Texas, on an annex to Lackland Air Force base where they did (and still do) basic training. The name of the annex? Medina. I was there from March - June 1989. Can you guess what song hit #3 on the charts in April? I bet you can.
I’m not much of a fan of top 40s pop, not now and not in 1986,the likes of when the charts were topped by Whitney Houston, Madonna, Lionel Richie, and, yes, Samantha Fox. Nevertheless, this song holds a special place in my wetware.
Besides the main three college clubs/bars (The Phoenix, The Flying Club, and Circle Bar) there was another one on the north side of Salisbury we rarely ventured to for no other reason than it required driving. The Phoenix and Flying clubs were within walking distance, so stumbling home after a night of overindulgence was no problem. The Circle Bar, being a more laid back pool-shooting place, wasn’t somewhere we went to get hammered, so the brief three-mile drive from campus wasn’t an issue.
This last club (whose name escapes me) was about 10 minutes away. It was a big place, a kind of country and western themed hangout, which is another reason why we didn’t frequent it. But one Saturday they had a big event they promoted relentlessly on campus via fliers plastered everywhere: a group of female exotic dancers was going to perform. A five dollar cover got you in the door and two beers, so we got the group together and headed out.
Accompanying us on this trip was Jim; a tall, blond-haired, blue-eyed fellow whose only problem with the ladies was beating them off. Jim was also a bit fastidious, which, as you’ll see later, has a bearing on this tale.
The show started at 10:00. We arrived around nine and got a table. There was no stage, but a space had been cleared out against one wall to make a dance floor. By the time 10:00 rolled around, the club was pretty packed, most of them being guys (and a few ladies) from the college.
There were around eight girls or so who, after a song or two, left the dance floor and began working the crowd, grinding on people and giving lap dances. Much cheering ensued. This song was about halfway done when a cute - and totally nude - blond dancer climbed onto Jim’s lap and rode him for the whole rest of the song, seriously rubbing her naked boobs all over his face. He sat there and endured, his expression indicating he’d have rather been just about anywhere other than where he was.
When the song ended and she finally moved away, we razed him pretty good.
“How’d you like that Jim?” we asked.
Jim did not look happy. “Her boobs have been licked by at least ten guys and she just rubbed them all over my face. How would you like it?”
