A life that’s a festival of manliness

I used to be manly, but I’m not anymore. I don’t know exactly how I got this way but let me share my journey of growing up. Maybe you can find out where I went wrong.

I was brought up in a blue collar neighborhood in Troy, New York. My father was a factory worker and my mother a waitress/bartender. My friends were manly and I shared their interest in sports, fishing, and hunting. During my teen years, I drank alcohol a lot and bragged about making out with young women even though it almost never happened. I wasn’t a big fighter but was proud of breaking a grammar school’s classmate’s arm during a minor scuffle. My childhood pet was a boxer named, “Brutus.”

I think the first assault on my masculinity came when my mother bought a white upright piano. I thought my sister was going to take lessons. To my unpleasant surprise and to the horror of my friends, I was the unwilling target of the lessons. Despite my attempts to avoid weekly sessions, with my piano teacher, by ripping up some of my sheet music, I learned to play.

I served in the military for a few years then used the GI Bill for my education and moved to New York City. I believe the twelve years there led me to be the tragic androgynous girlie man I am today.

As a youth, I embraced my prejudices and disliked most people who didn’t look and act like me. I guess that I thought that this was manly. In New York, I developed friendships with Asians, Haitians, Mexicans, Muslims, Salvadorians, and homosexuals. With my weekend trips to upstate rock band bars behind me, I tragically embraced the ballet. Certainly at this point, I was already lost in unmanliness. My friend Sam from Long Island said that this ballet stuff was definitely a turning point for me.

Once in a while I went dancing in nightclubs in Manhattan. Dancing is something I would never do at home unless drunk at a wedding reception. It is odd that I envied my friends from Brooklyn whose masculinity didn’t seem to be affected by the same forces that corrupted me.

At one point during my emotional confusion, I contacted my colleague, sociologist, Dr. Paul Calarco for his input. “Yes John, you are completely lost. Zero hope like the rest of us. You will never have big enough biceps, a large enough ego or a fast enough car. We are all in the circus, walking the tightrope, hoping that no one pushes us into the abyss of the emasculated”

With my glorious days of virility long gone, I returned home to Troy. During the first few years back, I tried to recapture just a minute amount of manliness. I drove in the demolition derby twice, skied, and played racquetball with a group of guys who drank a lot after our matches. It was no use.

Despondent and alone, I remember thinking that I could never go back to my pre adult manly personality until I found an opportunity that could be my salvation. I saw an ad for a Festival of Manliness at a local pub. Yes, this was it. I would be transformed, resurrected and saved from wearing fashionable clothes, showering daily, enjoying chilled chardonnay and listening to jazz.

I contacted Brown’s Brewing Company in Troy to get more information about the event. Pearson, the Director of Marketing, said that this is the 7th annual fund raising festival for “Pints for Prostates.” This organization is a grassroots campaign designed to raise awareness among men about prostate cancer and the importance of early detection in fighting the disease. I can tell you from personal experience that their mission is extremely important. I had prostate cancer. It has been ten years since my surgery. Early intervention was most certainly responsible for my survival.

At 3 p.m. on Sunday, January 21, I will be watching football, drinking beer, eating tons of meat and smoking cigars. If I can’t order a box of steaks online after this experience, there is no hope for me.