Corpus Christi Caller Times Caller.com - Male joggers overdue for a dress code

Marketplace \| Services \| Contact Us \| Community \| Arts & Entertainment \| Local Guides

[an error occurred while processing this directive]

Brooks Peterson

Brooks Peterson's column is published Mondays. Brooks also sits on the Caller-Times editorial board and can be contacted at petersonb@caller.com

Monday, October 23, 2000

Male joggers overdue for a dress code

   If you've been keeping up with these weekly natterings, you'll know that for the most part we try to keep it light in this space.
   Having said that much, however, I must concede that now and again we confront issues we just can't sidestep, no matter how hard we try. And at such moments, the NewsWretch, however reluctantly, does his duty.
   OK so far?
   I have been aware of the need for me to write this particular column for some time. Up to now, however, procrastination - reinforced by a big dollop of moral cowardice - has kept me from addressing the matter.
   There are, however, some reckonings you just can't defer indefinitely. This, alas, seems to be one of them.
   There is on this great spinning blue-green orb of ours a shadowy, scary nexus where two powerful impulses in 21st-century civilization intersect, with deeply worrisome consequences for Life As We Know It. When Fitness and Fashion cross paths, the resultant fallout can be devastating.
   You see where I'm going with this? Exactly: The hour has arrived. It's time for us to engage in some straight talk about . . . jogging attire. Or, to be more accurate, the lack thereof.
   Understand at the outset that what follows applies exclusively to joggers of the male persuasion. Female joggers, it seems to me, usually manage this fashion issue quite capably; and for some reason I don't even begin to know, most of them seem to be reasonably fit. And that's all I'm going to say about that half of the equation.
   Ah, but your Joggin' Alpha Male - now, there's a spectacle to conjure with. Driving about this elegant metropolis of ours, I have noted with increasing alarm the visual blight that some of these folks inflict on the urban landscape.
   There may be some kind of subterranean, primal impulse at work in this thing. Not being a jogger myself, I can't address it. I'd love to be out there with you, my friends, dodging pickups, stumbling on cracks in the pavement and bouncing endlessly in place while waiting for the @#%$!! stoplight to change, but what with one thing and another...
   Anyway, here's the crux of the matter:
   Gentlemen, put on your T-shirts.
   Or your muscle shirts. Or your sweat shirts. Or those deplorable plastic jackets that supposedly help you sweat off those extra pounds.
   But whatever you do, put on something.
   Fact is, the incidence of shirtless male joggers in Corpus Christi is rising at an alarming rate. And this is Not A Good Thing.
   There is, to begin with, the little matter of health implications. Not even George Hamilton, the demigod and inspiration of all sun-tan aficionados, would argue that jogging sans shirt - particularly in the heat of the day, as so many do - is anything but pure folly.
   Then there's the other thing: Fellas, there are some of us who just shouldn't be appearing anywhere without benefit of shirt. Granted, I'm traversing treacherous terrain here, but the stark fact is that far too many shirtless male joggers present a downright alarming spectacle.
   How to put this? I want to be kind here (let him who is without love handles throw the first rock), but . . .
   Masculine jiggle just is not appealing. Ever. Under any conditions.
   And the handful of you who compound the felony by wearing the skimpiest of short shorts . . . what can I say? Yes, we can avert our eyes - but we still know you're out there, in all your glistening, gleaming, jiggling splendor.
   Get the point?
   But, someone out there asks, what about the guys with bodies like Greek gods?
   They present an altogether different problem, actually, generating (among us guys) a sense of shame mingled with envy - but we can handle that, especially since they're so few and far between.
   As for the rest of us, the Shirt Imperative stands: Get one - and don't leave home without it.


Brooks Peterson

| Talk about this column | Other Columns | Home |

[an error occurred while processing this directive]

[ Printer-friendly version ]
[ Subscribe to newspaper ]

SEND THIS PAGE TO A FRIEND

[an error occurred while processing this directive]