Keeping Records

EXHIBIT A.

Whenever I get to the end of a month I find myself sorting through the multiple written summaries of my accomplishments and failures. They are all written down in my own handwriting in tidy journals and several very old school three ring binders complete with those reinforced plastic hole protectors. Pam thinks it quaint and slightly unsettling that I still refuse to use her much more efficient Google Doc system, especially when it comes to keeping my calendar—which I’m sure you’ve already guessed is of the sturdy black Week-at-a-Glance variety. This guy…

There’s no better feeling that first week of January than when you realize that you won’t have to worry about ink bleed for the rest of the year. But, I have gotten side tracked from the point I was trying to make—that I have a decades long habit of keeping score. My fitness journal above is just one of many examples of this genre. I have one for investing, budgeting, reading, and personal goals for everything you can think of, even my squirrel-kill count. (Partially kidding about the squirrel thing). Why do I do this? I have no rational answer to this question. The more difficult question would be, Why do I keep these records from twenty-five years ago?

Take EXHIBIT A. For example. I have a routine of physical fitness that goes back at least a decade or two. For years most all of this routine was accomplished at American Family Fitness, but then COVID came and they closed down and I dropped my membership. Since then it all gets done at home. I get up in the morning every other day and do a series of exercises which include things like push-ups, sit-ups, and curls with 15 pound dumbbells. In addition, I mix in a variety of road work which include walking and running and on bad weather days, a stationary bike. Many years ago I started jotting down a record of it all, Over the years I have perfected the record keeping to the place where I can fit an entire month of such exercises on one freaking page of a journal!! How’s that for efficiency, Google?

So, as you can see, I have so far in 2024 performed 2005 reps of each of these exercises, along with 171 miles of roadwork. But what does it all mean? None of it has kept me from several health setbacks in recent years. Despite all of this sweating and grinding I am still 15 pounds heavier than I was from the day I got married until the day I turned 55. Once I hit my late 50’s and early 60’s, all the exercising in the world has not been able to compensate for the discombobulating metabolism of late middle age. Yet, here I am still keeping painstaking records of my feeble attempts to turn back the clock.

Now that I think about it, what is this blog if not yet another record keeping scheme? Isn’t The Tempest merely an eleven year record of my thoughts and feelings about stuff? Maybe it will come in handy one day long after I’m dead and gone. Maybe one of my grandchildren will ask their parents a question like, I wonder what Pops thought about COVID? Wonder what his view of the pitch clock rule in baseball? What did he think of Bill Clinton, Barack Obama, or Donald Trump? Then my kids will answer, “Are you kidding? You don’t ever have to wonder what Pops thought about anything, cause he wrote down every spare scrap of an idea that ever came into his head back in the day in this crazy blog.” Of course, then the grandchildren will ask, “What the heck is a blog?”