September 22, 2004
Sweat

Unfair.  Each of us is born with a talent, an ability so unique we excel above all others.   Some people are more intelligent than others.  They win the Nobel Prize for Physics.  Other folks can jump higher or longer, they go to the Olympics to win gold, silver or bronze. 

I too have a unique talent, an area where my talent is unequalled.  I can really sweat.  Anywhere, anytime, any temperature finds my own personal thermostat red lining and water pouring forth.  It’s really unfortunate there’s no outlet for a great sweater.  Like a Professional Perspiration Tour offering multi-million dollar prizes.  Pro football careers usually cease in the late twenties and baseball players flame out near forty but here I am at sixty-four, yet when it comes to sweating I could still compete at the highest level.  If, of course, perspiration had a highest level.  

Alas, sweaters get no respect from their fellow man.  Sure Winston Churchill intoned to the world, “All we have to offer are blood, sweat and tears.”  Most writers wax with eloquence about blood and tears but the sweaters among us are treated with all the respect accorded a zit.  Well some of us are more than squeamish when it comes to sharing the red liquid surging through our veins as extraction tends to sting. Tears way to metro-sexual.  The only option left for the masculine, yet chicken individual is sweat.  

In matters literary we sweaters get the short end of the stick.  When it comes to perspiration all writers, from great to mundane, seem stuck on “sweat of their brow”.  If only it was possible to limit the ever present trickle to the forehead. Or the upper lip.  We never read about the pioneers of our land turning the heartland prairie into the nation’s breadbasket by the “sweat of their pits” or the industrial revolution being achieved by laborers in “perspiration soaked pants” yet all proficient perspirers know when the temperature is above seventy it’s more than your forehead in “cooling” mode. 

With the recent success of the USA female Olympic athletes much credit has gone to Title IX for our country’s dominance in ladies sports.  While it is impossible to argue with that logic the greatest contribution to society made by Title IX is the fact it’s now socially acceptable for ladies to perspire.  They are no longer required to just “glow”.  Run a marathon, hit the jump shot, paint the living room, no matter the activity it is now perfectly acceptable for the ladies of the world to view their accomplishment while sweat drips from their nose and their jersey or work shirt is soaked from the day’s effort. 

With the rest of society claiming to be victims of discrimination we heavy sweaters are no exception.  Dan Reeves is on a TV commercial telling one and all, “And never let ‘em see you sweat.”  Do you know how hard that is when your personal swamp cooler is continually on “max”?  And when there’s finally a comfortable single digit January day and you forget about the fact you’re wearing shorts and a t-shirt and stumble into Mesa Mall all the parka clad shoppers stare like you have three heads.  In addition to our clammy shirts we sweaters have feelings too.  Usually they’re very wet clingy feelings but feelings nonetheless.