Locker Room Connoisseur

My gym locker at the college where I work is nice. It's large enough in width, depth and height to easily fit all of my work clothes and run or swim gear. The door closes easily and stays closed. My old-fashioned combo lock fits on nicely. The lockers are school colors, either all black or gold and the locker room is pretty clean. The ideal situation would be to a have a locker in the separate smaller faculty room adjacent to the student room I am in. I've asked many times if one is available, but it never is. I think someone has to die before a locker becomes free.

When I was changing for a lunch time run a couple of days ago I realized how much gym lockers have meant to my life. That sounds like a ridiculous statement but I think it's true.
In elementary-high school gym we had our own skinny lockers to change clothes before and after the class. We were forced to take showers, though I vaguely remember later in high school Mr. Beaney (one of my all-time favorite teachers) wasn't quite as strict about this "policy". When you think about it, having 40 minutes or so to change into gym clothes, do the class and then shower/change back to street clothes was ridiculous. I always walked out of gym still sweating. Some things never change.

When I played on the school tennis team we used the same locker as gym class since the courts were fairly close by. Tennis team lockers are usually clean. Back then you almost always wore a white uniform. There was just a racket (or two if you were fancy), maybe a heavier shirt for cold days. No dirt, little sweat, maybe a cool 1970's headband.

During football season we had a separate locker room just for the football teams in a ground floor space near the practice and game fields at the middle school. The lockers were fairly large since they had to fit shoulder pads, a helmet, cleats, a practice uniform, game uniform and other assorted pads. The football locker room was by far the smelliest of any I have ever been in. A gross mix of sweat, grass, mud, English Leather, Brut and Old Spice. I took some measure of pride in always having one of the stinkier lockers. Hey, if you are a marginal player you need something to have pride in! Eventually the coach would come around and tell us to take stuff home and get it washed. I'm not sure my mother totally enjoyed washing my football gear.

Fast forward ten plus years and I finally got a job at Kodak where I could run at lunch. I didn't have my own locker but could use the space to at least shower and change. Many years and a career change later I worked out at a local fitness facility- really I only used the treadmill in the winter. The locker room there was kind of small and I wouldn't even shower, just change my ultra-sweaty shirt, put on sweatpants and head home. When Jan began training for triathlons and forced me to really learn how to swim we often headed to SUNY Brockport for the pool. Their locker rooms were utilitarian, tough to find an open one, but good enough.

Now Jan and I swim at Roberts Wesleyan College. The teams must have their own modern space. Most of the lockers in my area near the pool are rusted, don't shut and are small. If I won the Powerball I might donate to the college with the stipulation they put in all new lockers and showers that do more than dribble. But the pool is nice and has lots of open hours for community members (with a fee) to swim, and the locker room doesn't smell.

Really it's amazing how many times I have been naked in public places over the past 50+ years. It still seems a bit strange to stand next to a locker and just strip everything off no matter who is nearby. Fitness facilities seem to be doing a good business nowadays, but I wonder if more people would stay members longer if locker space was designed for a bit more privacy?