Dishonesty of Those Who Profess to be Anti-Athletic

When I reflect on the peak emotional experiences of my own life so far, I find that pursuit of an athletic activity or outdoor recreation figured prominently in many of those peak experiences.

Inevitably I find myself questioning the honest of the millions of Americans who profess to not enjoy athletic activities or exercise or outdoor recreational activities.

Among my own all-time favorite "peak emotional" experiences were:

--riding an inner tube along the Guadalupe River near New Braunfels, Texas, during my youth, which was an exhilarating adventure for me.

--paddle-boating on the Colorado River at Big Spring, Texas.

---playing tennis on a clay tennis court for the first time in my entire life, a milestone for myself that I achieved in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, at the Holiday Park Tennis Center in the summer of 1979.

---eating wonderfully delicious nectarines dispensed from the fruit machine at a public swimming pool at Strawberry Canyon in Berkeley, California, during my second-grade year of elementary school.

---camping with my childhood family at Cripple Creek, Colorado, and chatting during my youth with a fellow camper at our campground who was herself a divorced single mother from Wisconsin s raising her two daughters on her own.

---thrilling during my youth to the delicious taste of eating fried abalone outoodrs while camping with my childhood family at Mendocino State Park in Mendocino County, California.

---delighting in the beautiful natural outdoor spring swimming pool at Colorado Springs, Colorado, during a childhood visit to Colorado Springs.

---delighting in the beauty of Ash Springs, a natural outdoor swimming pool in Nevada that was ecstasy-inducing for me.