An exercise in friendship

By MARGO HAMMOND, Times Books Editor
© St. Petersburg Times
published March 3, 2002

I met Barbara first. A black face framed by foaming white suds, she was soaking in the hot tub. It was my first time in the basement fitness area, and I was trying to figure out how the steam room worked. I was fiddling with the dials just outside the door, which was adjacent to the swirling whirlpool, when she leaped out to help me. "I'm Barbara," she said. "Margo," I replied. We didn't bother with last names. We were both stark naked.

Most of the other women I eventually met at the old YMCA in downtown St. Petersburg never bothered to give their names -- first or last. Every Tuesday and Thursday night, the only nights women were allowed in areas of the steam room, spa and sauna, we would see each other and exchange pleasantries. But mostly we just smiled and noded at each other as we took our showers, floated in the hot tub or lay beside each other, sweating in the sauna.

If we did need to ask about someone who hadn't shown up in a while, we tended to refer to her by more complicated but endearing labels. I haven't seen the old German woman (or was she French?) who brought us oranges lately, have you? How's the Asian woman who was in a car accident doing? Is the black woman who was struggling with back problems getting better? Why don't you ask the curly-haired white woman who teaches Jin Shin Jyutsu to help you -- she gives great healing advice. Even Barbara was often referred to as the woman who used sweet-smelling oils in the steam room. I often wondered what label people used for me when I wasn't there, if they referred to me at all.

I had joined the Y when a colleague at work invited me to try out her kick boxing class. A woman in her late 40s, she assured me that the pace of the class would not be too daunting for the middle-aged, out-of-shape person I had become. At 50, I was the oldest in the class, but not by much. I was inspired by the teacher's story: She had been overweight and out of shape herself, but through exercise -- begun only in her 40s -- had slimmed down to a trim, athletic figure. She gave me hope.

The old YMCA, a crumbling Spanish-style building on the corner of Fifth Street and Second Avenue S, had definitely seen better days. When my sister, who has a Y membership in Milwaukee, came to town and asked me if she could come to work out with me, I warned her that the place was substandard. "I expected the worst," she told me later, "and it was worse than I expected."

The entire building was in disrepair, but the basement area was particularly shoddy. Cockroaches, crumbling paint, bare light bulbs and rows of gray lockers gave the place at best the look of an urban school and at worst a prison. To get in, we needed a special code (so that men wouldn't accidentally wander in on Women's Night Only). We were issued thin, white towels that took on a brown stain when we lay on them in the sauna. In addition to the steam room, spa and sauna, the place had a room with a large-screen television surrounded by over-stuffed chairs. The television was always on, but I never saw anyone watch it.

When I heard that they were building a brand new Y on Central Avenue, I was thrilled. At last I could work out in clean rooms with state-of-the-art equipment. Yes, they were raising the fee, but wouldn't it be worth it? No more cockroaches. No more struggling with an exercise bike whose straps were falling apart.

The first days I went to the new Y, however, I found myself feeling a strange loneliness. I saw a few familiar faces at the front desk, but the women who gathered in the basement fitness room on Tuesdays and Thursdays were now gone. I never saw the old woman whose skin hung loosely around her body. I never crossed paths with the gregarious woman who complained about the men in her life. The woman who had passed out leaflets about her poetry reading and then spontaneously read us one of her poems was nowhere in sight.

Perhaps some of them couldn't afford the higher fees. Perhaps the new facilities were too far away for them.

At the new Y everything was different. No nights were set aside for ladies only. The sauna was co-ed. There was no steam room. We had to bring our own towels. I thought about quitting.

After a few weeks, however, I began to forget about those Tuesday and Thursday nights. The exercise bikes gleamed. I brought my own fluffy towels. All the exercise classes were free. And now I could go enjoy a sauna and whirlpool any time I wanted.

I just had to wear my bathing suit.

- Margo Hammond is the Times' book editor.

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