Spinning Class at the Y

For over 20 years beginning when the folks were 70, they worked out every weekday at the West YMCA.  They would arrive at 5 am like clockwork.  Mom would swim and Dad would ride a stationary bike while watching TV.  After about 15 years of this, when they were about 85, Mom had had enough.  She told him "you are not working hard enough, you just sit there and go through the motions."  She was German. To her way of  thinking Dad should work harder than he did.  But the reality was,  Dad worked harder than anyone I ever knew.

So she enrolled him in a 'spinning class'.  Except this class was the advanced class and everyone in it was less than 30 or so.  All young and fit .

Dad told me about the first class.  He got there early and sat on a bike in the back.  Others arrived and looked at him but said nothing.  The instructor came in from the front and didn't see Dad.  The class started and the instructor told the class to get "up high and off the seat, let's get a good sweaty warmup started."

Dad said he was "really going" when the instructor said "Stop!"  and pointed at Dad saying "you are not supposed to be in this class".   "Are you sure you have a doctor's approval?"  Dad told her he had ridden a stationary bike for years.  He just didn't tell her it was while watching TV.  She then asked " so, no heart problems or anything?"  Dad gave her the old 'secret agent' slip...not a lie, just a sidestep;  "Not that I would say".  Truth was Dad had suffered at least three heart attacks by that point in his life.

Long story short, Dad was kicked out of the advanced spinning class.  And Mom was not happy about it.  Thereafter, any chance she got, Dad was made to shovel the driveway, rake leaves, gather firewood at  Symms, etc..  When I saw Dad shoveling the back deck one day when he was 91 I confronted Mom.

"Good lord!  Are you trying to kill the poor man?"

She replied " That's good for him".

She thought like we all did,  Herb was the toughest man in the world and nothing could hurt him.