By BILLY MURPHY
Laugh Lines

In the continuing saga of my workout experiences at World Gym in Peachtree City, its proprietor and I added one more person to our little breakfast times at Shadow's restaurant. And then there were three. Drew Goss, a senior from McIntosh High School and also a member of World Gym, joined Dar Thompson and me for a discussion of all things macho.

Jeff Foxworthy says that you might be a redneck if you own more then two shirts without sleeves. You can bet if I had arms like Drew Goss I would have so many shirts without sleeves I would qualify to run for the South Carolina legislature. Last time out I noted how Dar resembled Arnold Schwartzenegger as much as I did Richard Simmons. Well, Drew is the Hulk. He's got more muscles than Regis has ratings.

Of course, all of us have the same amount of muscles but they can just show more on some people. I take pride in my all muscles, so much so, I keep them warm and protected by a nice thick layer of fat.

Drew joined Dar and me to tell us about his recent victory in the national bench press competition in the 227-pound weight division. NASA (Natural Athletic Strength Association) is an organization that promotes and supports proper and natural weight training without the use of performance enhancing drugs and supplements. They have often approached me as their poster boy for the terrible physical side affects of caffeine, cocoa and the near-illegal Dairy Queen Blizzard.

Drew is an obvious participant in such a program as NASA promotes. He's a teenager whom you never see in the news. He's nice, polite, reserved and nothing like the media wants to depict the youth of today.

One thing that I have been learning more and more as I overcome my insecurities about working out at a real gym is that the other people that are there are just so nice and normal. There is every level of fitness there, yet, and like so many people, I have always been nervous to even making eye contact fearing others would look down on someone less than perfect. On the contrary, World Gym is more like a team experience where even the most muscular is glad to let you on a machine, help you learn an exercise, or in my case feed me a nitroglycerin pill.

And by the way, if you are wondering what weight Drew lifted to win the national title, it was 370 pounds. Or, in layman terms, 740 Dairy Queen Blizzards.

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