{"id":327,"date":"2023-08-05T23:42:27","date_gmt":"2023-08-05T23:42:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/garretmathews.com\/?page_id=327"},"modified":"2023-08-05T23:57:51","modified_gmt":"2023-08-05T23:57:51","slug":"ju","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/garretmathews.com\/index.php\/ju\/","title":{"rendered":"Juggling"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t

During my retirement years, I have learned to juggle a 16-pound shot put.\u00a0<\/span>I\u2019ll take your questions.<\/span><\/p>

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

Keep three of those babies aloft at the same time? They should name a circus after you.<\/span><\/p>

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

Silly. I\u2019m 73 years old. One weighty object. Two bean bags.<\/span><\/p>

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

Why should we believe you?<\/span><\/p>

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

My wife shot a video. She caught me on a good day. I almost got to a dozen passes.<\/span><\/p>

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

What\u2019s the backstory here?<\/span><\/p>

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

I started juggling baseballs long ago when I coached my kids\u2019 teams. It was something to do in the dugout instead of watching us overthrow the cut-off man. The third-graders got a big kick out of it, so I told them I\u2019d add an eight-pound bowling ball to the act if we made the playoffs. We didn\u2019t, but I mastered the trick\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

anyway.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

What was your secret to success?<\/span><\/p>

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

Channeling my inner Paul Bunyan.<\/span><\/p>

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

And the shot put?<\/span><\/p>

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

A birthday present. I decided to stage the occasional track and field competition \u2013 well, field \u2013 with myself. And like all shot-putters worth their sinews, I had a great grunt \u2013 \u201cHARRUMGOOSBAH,\u201d just as the thing left my fingers.<\/span><\/p>

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

You threw it in the back yard?<\/span><\/p>

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

I wanted to give the neighbors something to talk about, and the mole population went down by 80 percent. They hate it when the round ball hits home.<\/span><\/p>

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

So we have a grown person devaluing his property by heaving a shot put on his lawn.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

Did I mention the boys on the team cheered me on? They especially enjoyed it when I farted trying to squeeze out those extra inches.<\/span><\/p>

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

Did your wife threaten an intervention?<\/span><\/p>

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

No, because she understood the plus side. We lived in a rural area and I don\u2019t own a gun. Any prowler would have received a face full of shot put. We agreed that would be a must-see mug shot.<\/span><\/p>

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

We conducted a Google search for Jugglers Of Ponderous Masses and your name did not come up. What happened?<\/span><\/p>

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

When I no longer had baseball kids to goof around with, I put away my bowling ball and shot put. It was like the Peter, Paul and Mary song, \u201cPuff The Magic Dragon.\u201d Dragons live forever, but not so little boys.<\/span><\/p>

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

The \u201cPuff\u201d thing. Did you inhale?<\/span><\/p>

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

Never mind that. Suffice to say the heavy stuff was relegated to the deep recesses of the basement. Decades went by. I retired from juggling except for the occasional request for a parlor trick when I\u2019d grab something like a spoon, a mustard packet and a salt shaker.<\/span><\/p>

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

So you moved on with your life and quit assassinating moles<\/span>.<\/span><\/p>

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

Yes. And then the pandemic hit. I was bored out of my mind, so I started fooling around with the shot put.<\/span><\/p>

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

Level with us. There must be another reason to toss weight.<\/span><\/p>

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

Maybe the right person will bear witness and give me money.<\/span><\/p>

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

Not very likely.<\/span><\/p>

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

Hey, maybe if I grunt loud enough.<\/span><\/p>

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

You\u2019re well into your golden years. Isn\u2019t it hard for a man your age to keep the ball of iron aloft?<\/span><\/p>

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

I can hold a plank for three minutes and do more than my share of push-ups. I engage in some kind of strength training almost every day. See earlier reference to boredom.<\/span><\/p>

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

Do you practice safe shot put?<\/span><\/p>

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

Yes. I juggle over the bed. Better to have a dent in the mattress than my foot.<\/span><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

\n\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tWATCH THE INDYSTAR INTERVIEW<\/span>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/span>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/a>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

During my retirement years, I have learned to juggle a 16-pound shot put.\u00a0I\u2019ll take your questions. \u00a0 Keep three of those babies aloft at the same time? They should name a circus after you. \u00a0 Silly. I\u2019m 73 years old. One weighty object. Two bean bags. \u00a0 Why should we believe you? \u00a0 My wife […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-327","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/garretmathews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/327","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/garretmathews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/garretmathews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/garretmathews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/garretmathews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=327"}],"version-history":[{"count":19,"href":"https:\/\/garretmathews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/327\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":348,"href":"https:\/\/garretmathews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/327\/revisions\/348"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/garretmathews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=327"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}