By Edward Master
I have never considered myself as much of a hobbyist. The only reason I ever started having a “collection” of baseball cards was because my dad discovered my “old” baseball cards in an old suitcase in the attic. He had used the suitcase for traveling during WWII when on leave going back and forth from Turkey City. Somehow the cards ended up in the suitcase; I’m guessing my mom had her hand in that.
The cards were from 1959, 1960, 1961, and and 1962. They were probably 90% Topps-brand cards, meaning I left wads of pink chewing gum all over Turkey City. After I picked up the old cards and returned with them to Glassboro, NJ, I did some sorting and then traded a couple of times with dealers. I got rid of some duplicate Phillies cards for Pirates cards I didn’t have because Glassboro was a stone’s throw from Philadelphia. I bought one Roberto Clemente card in Cooperstown, NY, on a trip north to the Baseball Hall of Fame to complete a set for the 1972 Pirates following the 1971 championship season. That card was far from ‘mint.’ Over time I bought some miscellaneous sets and a couple of black-and-white prints (cards) of players from the 20s, 30s, and 40s. I stayed clear of chewing gum by that time.
I had only a couple of football cards, including an O-J Simpson from his Buffalo days. I have a few hockey cards because someone in Jersey needed money and was a friend of my wife so I bought some cards from someone’s brother. That was it for me and collecting sports cards. I saved some half-dollars when I was in a coffee club at RCA, but then RCA changed job sites and that club went kaput. The coins are in a jar.
I was never interested in overhauling/restoring automobiles like my friend/fraternity brother Gary McKinney did. I wasn’t a fisherman nor was I ever a hunter. Long ago I decided I enjoyed being warm in the winter and I took up basketball. But, the roundball business got me interested in getting stronger and eventually I took up weightlifting (I guess as a hobby of sorts).
I got my first metal weights (a 110-pound set) via S&H green stamps when I was in the 10th grade. How I talked my mother into that is beyond me. They first set in my bedroom and then were moved to the basement. Somewhere along the line, my mother complained about stubbing her toes on the weights and that probably dictated the move to the cellar. My dad made me a bench for benchpressing from wood from an old porch. He also got a mechanic at Bracken Construction to cut me four square plates from a dirt mover (they each weighed about 35 pounds). Obviously, those plates didn’t roll cause they weren’t round but square; however, they sufficed and they served a purpose—building muscle.
In Jersey, I started to add to my “weight collection.” After we bought a house and before the “gym craze” blossomed, I set up a home gym. From my Kutztown teaching days I knew of Reading Barbell. I had purchased a couple dumbbells and accompanying plates from Walter Goode, the owner and proprietor of Reading Barbell. He was a welder/machinist by trade and made/sold weightlifting equipment, including his own molds for plates. In his younger days, Walter and his brother Bill, were competitive lifters and were members of the 1936 USA olympic team.
I bought a set of (adjustable) squat racks and a curling stand from Reading Barbell and Walter Goode. I also purchased a heavy-duty bench and an “olympic” barbell set from a dealer in Glassboro. The olympic set (with revolving sleeves) was over 300 pounds in total weight. I ended up with a couple more “standard” bars and four 50-pound plates. I had more than 3000 pounds of metal plates, plus the olympic set. Most of that stuff stayed in Jersey with a friend, who had three growing boys, when we moved to Indiana, PA.
I’ve joined barbell/fitness gyms in just about every city/town where I have lived, starting in Glassboro. I once signed up for a Golds Gym in Cherry Hill, NJ, that gave me the option of going to a Golds facility in Cherry Hill, Woodbury, or nearby Sewell (just outside Glassboro). I often trained with a friend, George Sanderson, who was a fellow teacher with my wife. George was a former regional wrestling champion in high school in Southern New Jersey and a high school wrestling coach.
Sanderson wrestled for a few years at Bloomsburg (PA) University and it was George who got me on a modified powerlifting program for which I ended up bench pressing 365 pounds (for two reps). I reached a squat of just over 400 pounds and a deadlift exceeding 300 pounds. Once I hit that 1,000-pound total in the three powerlifts, I decided that was high enough for one lifetime. From then on, it was lifting for fitness. I was in my mid 30s.
I lifted at JT’s Fitness on the main drag (Philadelphia St.) in Indiana, PA, and then at a couple of places in Grove City (Your Gym and Wise’s). I truly believe that the early weight training in my life permitted/enabled me to play modified fastpitch softball into my early 50s age wise.
Another by-product of the weightlifting was a friendship with Walter Goode. His shop was in West Reading, near the Schuylkill River. He was flooded out during the 1972 flood and lost many of his momentos from the olympic games, but he relayed many of his stories to me about the olympics and weightlifting in general. I did secure a subscription to and many back issues of Iron Man magazine (out of Nebraska). Goode was still receiving the mag before it was sold to a publisher from California and went national. When I met Walter Goode in the early 1970s, he looked fit enough then still to do competitive weightlifting. I must admit that Walter Goode was probably one of the most interesting men I have had the pleasure of knowing in my lifetime.
Speaking of sports
Don’t hold too many hopes for the Pens. They got old and they look to stay that way. Hey, batter up!! O’Neil Cruz looks as if has recovered from the broken ankle and the Cutch looks ready to go too.