Team Stomp Wrestling: Come for the Beefcake, Stay for the....

I don't know exactly what Team Stomp Wrestling is.  Its website doesn't work, and its Facebook page is a masterpiece of lack of information.  All I've been able to discover is:

1. It's in Lima, Ohio.

2. It's not the high school wrestling team.

3, Member regularly photographed with their shirts off.

4. All ages.

5. The Facebook page contains no photographs of anyone actually wrestling, just a lot of guys hugging.

6. The address is a long, low, nondescript building next to Rex Auto Supply and Brown Supply Company.

7.  They have a dog.

8. They have golf as well as wrestling.

9.  They go on field trips to statues of buffed guys (I'm assuming Neptune).

10. Their twitter page has a post from a guy named Zach, a "rock star pro wrestler," who is proposing to his girlfriend.  He thanks her for "being my Dwayne Johnson."

The next 100 posts are of people congratulating them with memes.

I'm guessing it's some sort of wrestling club.  I just came for the beefcake, but if you are interested in attracting new members, wouldn't you, like, somewhere on your social media sites, say what the group is?

Or do you expect everyone to just come for the beefcake?

Bowling Green: Popular Culture and Beefcake

You've probably wondered through your whole life about Bowling Green State University, the only university in the U.S. where you can get a Ph.D. in Popular Culture.  I wonder about the job prospects in an academic climate where you will be ostracized for admitting that you own a television set or have heard of the X-Men.

Of course, it's not just watching tv.  The most recent issue of the Journal of Popular Culture had articles on:

"The Motion Picture Trailer and Problematic Synecdoche"
"Quilts and Community in Barbara Graham's Southern Cozies"
"The Multimodal Appeal of Instagram Poetry"
"Patrick Bateman, Donald Trump, and the Hermeneutic Maelstrom"
"Authenticating Identity Claims in the Craft Beer Inudstry"

Well, what did you expect?  Chemistry and physics have a specialized vocabulary, too.

But aside from the PhD. in pop culture, the biggest question of Bowling Green is, where did the name come from?

It was settled in 1832, named after Bowling Green, Kentucky.

Bowling Green, Kentucky, settled in 1778, was named after either Bowling Green, Virginia or Bowling Green, New York

Bowling Green, Virginia, founded in 1803 -- wait a minute -- was named after the plantation of founder John Thomas Hoomes.

Bowling Green, New York is a park built in Dutch New Amsterdam in 1733 for the purpose of outdoor bowling.

Bowling Green, Ohio is a typical college town with a depressed downtown area and a lot of brewpubs and pizza places, but only one bowling alley.  It's known for the Black Swamp Arts Festival and the National Tractor Pull Competition. 

Kurt Erichsen's gay comic strip Murphy's Manor, which is still being published online after all these years, is set in a gay neighborhood in Black Swamp, Ohio. I had no idea he was reflecting Bowling Green.



Not much beefcake in town.  Bowling Green High School offers wrestling, swimming, football, lacrosse.

And of course bowling.

There's also a swim club. 300 pictures arranged boy-girl-boy-girl.  I couldn't decide on a boy, so I just removed the girl.

But Bowling Green State University doesn't have a wrestling team, a swim team, or any powerlifters, at least none who get photographed.

For that matter, they don't have a bowling team, either.

I guess everyone is too busy studying popular culture.

See also:Gay Comix of the 1980s

Tracking Down My Jewish Cousins

When I was growing up in Rock Island, almost every kid in my class had grandparents or great-grandparents from the Old Country,  so"where you came from" was a constant classroom assignment.

"Bring some food from your country"

"Tell about how your country celebrates Christmas."

"Teach us a few words in your country's language."



In junior high the assignments became more complex: the political structure, history, and economy of your country.

By high school, we were writing histories of immigration from our country, writing reports on its literary classics, and charting its GDP.

Except for me.  My grandparents and great-grandparents, both biological and adopted, were born here, and no one remembered any farther back (even today, after 50 years and a lot of genealogical research, I can't trace the main branches of my family across any ocean.). 

 I was forced to "just pick a country" to do the assignments: Spain, Finland, the Philippines, Japan, and India spring to mind.

Being American-born-American, with no particular ethnic heritage, I've always been eager to embrace any hints of anything non-WASP-y in my family tree.  Like my Native American relatives, who turned out to be Aunt Nora's husband's family.



And...Jewish?



I have two odd memories that suggest a Jewish connection:

1. It's the summer of 1966 or 1967, when I'm five or six years old.  We're visiting our relatives in northern Indiana, and my parents decide to drive out and see "Otto."  I don't know if he's a friend or relative or what: these things are never explained to kids.

Otto is very old, way older than my grandparents, bald with wrinkles and glasses that make his eyes look big.  His living room is heavy with thick furniture, a dark-oak piano, black-and-white pictures of dour-looking relatives, and a very nervous, trembling poodle.



One of his photos shows some guys in old-timey swim uniforms.  Otto catches me looking at it.

"That's my son, back when he was not much bigger than you," he says.  "Do you like to swim?"

"No.  I like to watch tv."

"I don't have a television, but I can give you some paper to draw on."  He goes to his desk and pulls out a black-bound day calendar for the year 1963. Blank, never used. It starts in September, not January, and has dates for "Yom Kippur," "Rosh Hashanah," "Purim," "Pesach."  I don't know what any of those words mean at the time, but later I figure out that they're Jewish holidays.  So Otto is Jewish.

2. It's two or three years later, maybe 1969 or 1970, when I'm 9 or 10 years old. Grandma Davis has taken us to Fort Wayne, the big city about 30 miles from her farm.  In the midst of doing fun grandma-and-kids things, she drives us to a ritzy neighborhood far from downtown, and says "I have to stop at this house for a minute.  You can come in, but don't make fun because they're Jewish."

I'm offended.  Does she think I'm a hick?  We have lots of Jewish kids in Rock Island.



We climb up a thick, heavy porch with granite pillars, and knock on the door.  A middle-aged man with wavy hair and a little paunch answers.

The only other thing I remember are two teenagers, a girl and a boy, sitting at the kitchen table, watching tv -- the first portable black and white tv set I had ever seen!



The boy didn't have his shirt off, sorry.  But he was still cute, with dark crewcut hair and very pale skin.  And he was very, very grown up.




The full story, with nude photos, is on Tales of West Hollywood.

Camp Toodik: Two Dicks are Better than One

I thought this had to be a joke, some gay guys having fun with a made-up sign.  Camp Toodik?

Two dicks are better than one.

Or does it mean that you can't have too much dick?

But believe it or not, it's a real place, started by Britt and Nancy Young in 1969.  Since lesbian couples didn't commonly share names back then, Britt must be either Nancy's sister or her husband, who has a girl's name.

Or maybe they were both boys with girls' names, so it was appropriate to call their camp "Two Dicks."

  Later Britt and Nancy bought a nearby canoe livery (there are such places) and named it Toodik, too.  They retired in 2007, and sold it to Bill and Brenda Lucas.

Who didn't change the name.  Maybe they were trying to draw gay campers.



No, I guess not.  Camp Two Dicks...er, I mean Toodik...emphasizes "family fun."  Husbands, wives, and kids pile into a camper or tents, or rent a cabin, and go swimming, hiking, fishing, canoeing, and kayaking.  There's a swimming pool, wagon rides, craft classes, and bingo for the grown-ups.

I don't know if single people are permitted or not.

So Bill and Brenda must just be ignorant of the sexual connotation.

It was hard finding beefcake photos of the campers.  They mostly seemed rather on the portly side, and their kids were mostly portly preteens.  I can hear a thousand variations on the complaint "Mom and Dad, Camp Toodik is lame!  Can't I stay home and text my friends instead?"

This is as muscular as it gets: two guys, either brothers or the same person photographed twice, riding a life preserver through disgusting muddy water.

Even if I liked camping, I wouldn't want to go anywhere near that mud.

It's about halfway between Columbus and Cleveland, which leads to the question, why do people go to Camp Toodick at all?  Another 1 1/2 hour drive, and they'll be in a big city.  Isn't this a lot more interesting then brown water and trees?

Maybe they come for the camp value. "I'm going to Camp Two Dicks."

The Beefcake of New Lexington

Since most of Ohio consists of suburbs of Cleveland, Dayton, Columbus, Cincinnati, Pittsburgh, and Toledo, there's always a gay neighborhood nearby.  New Lexington is about as rural as you're going to get: an hour from Cleveland, just south of the Perry State Forest, near towns named Moxahala and Alabama Hill.

It's an old city, as American cities go.  The original inhabitants were the Mound Builders, or as the village website tells us: "Far back, beyond the memory of men, and even traditions, a race of people lived here before the red man."

Wow, people living here before men and even red men!

"Men" moved to the region in 1817, and named the village after Lexington, Massachusetts.

Today New Lexington "is dedicated to the people of New Lexington."  Figures.

Its economy seems to be based mostly on agriculture, although there are a lot of vacation rentals around.

It states that there is a middle school, a high school, and a college.  The college is "Hocking College Perry Campus," which looks like a single building out by the fairgrounds.

According to Trip Advisor, its best restaurant is named "Pizza Place and Restaurant."  A reviewer eloquently describes the food as "yummy."

Its motto is "stuff your face."

There's a bowling alley and a swimming pool.

The news for New Lexington:
New Aldi store opens
Mayor appeals impeachment
Wrestlers win tournament.

Sounds terrible.

But there's one thing that makes New Lexington stand out: a website with gigantic photos of everyone on the high school wrestling team.

I had to shrink them down to 25% to make them small enough to post.

This guy is especially well represented.  His mother, who teaches in the school system, has a display of 20 photos of him on her class website.  Come for the homework assignment, stay for the beefcake.

They really like their wrestling in New Lex.  They start in 5th grade.

And never stop.

Almost makes up for the lack of a swim team, a theater, a used bookstore, or...well just about everything else.

The Top 10 Physiques at a Travel Plaza on the Toll Road

In Illinois and Iowa, highway rest stops have trees and grass, and sometimes hiking trails. In Indiana and Ohio, they have a different idea: travel plazas.  No trees, no grass, nowhere to walk except on hot concrete parking lots, but lots of things to spend money on

There are four travel plazas on the I-90 in Indiana, and seven in Ohio.  The architecture is identical: a court with bathrooms and travel information, a convenience store, a travel souvenir store, and three fast-food restaurants, where you may be able to get a salad.

They are all bright and airy, rather pleasant except for having no trees or grass, and since everyone stops there, they are  perfect for physique watching.  Nobody takes their shirts off, but there are plenty of handsome faces, hard pecs and shoulders, and bulges on display.

Here are the top 10 physiques I found on my last crosscountry trip:

1. A muscle dad texting by the soda machines, his preteen daughters in tow.

2. It's hard to tell in a small photo, but this guy sipping a soda outside the Starbucks was breathtaking.

3. Blond wearing pink sunglasses and a tight black t-shirt, strutting around, aware that he's making everyone's jaw drop.

4. Cute nerd dad with an unshaven face eating burgers with his wife and toddlers.  

5.  This guy with his hands covering his crotch was applying for a job.  He was asked "Why do you want to work here?" and replied "It would be interesting to meet people from all over the world."  More likely it's the only job available in a small town in Indiana?

6. A very friendly high school senior from a suburb of Chicago, eating at Burger King with his father and little brother.

7.  This guy isn't quite old enough to be of beefcake interest, but what's with the chicken hat?

8.  He was at a table with three older, fatter guys.  When he stood up, I was blinded by the bulge.  

9.  An employee of the Ohio Toll Road Authority, chatting up one of the clerks at the convenience store.  A female clerk, unfortunately.

10.  A suspicious guy in a cut-off t-shirt, with his male friend and two girls.  They must be locals hanging out.

I only had a conversation with one of these guys; the others came and went quickly.  But that's the fun part: a glimpse of beauty that you will never see again.

Massillon: The Bodybuilding Capital of the World

Massillon, Ohio is a suburb of Canton, which is a suburb of Akron, which is in the metropolitan area of Cleveland:  it's at the end of an urban sprawl of Targets, Wal-Marts, McDonalds, and little houses made of ticky-tacky that began at Lake Erie, fifty miles away.

 Massillon itself,  population of 32,000,  is notable for the Jackson Bog State Nature Preserve (that's right, a bog), and the Ideal Department Store Building (an 8-story skyscraper built in 1918), and for being the birthplace of silent film great Lillian Gish.  It's a rust belt town struggling to find a new identity after the steel mills closed. Nothing to do but work out and drive into Canton.

Let's hear more about that working out.

As far as I can tell, Massillon has twelve gyms and fitness centers, including Cross-Fit, The Fitness Boot Camp, and Bodybuilders, Inc.  Massillon men regularly win regional bodybuilding competitions.

I found the obituary of Devin Dearth, a bodybuilder who grew up in Massillon and went on to win many competitions, including Mr. Kentucky.  He suffered a paralyzing stroke at the age of 40 (not related to drug misuse).  His attempt to recover was the subject of a documentary, 9,000 Needles.

Massillon has two high schools, with the usual swim teams lifting fingers to indicate that they have won some sort of competition.









Plus powerlifting.  The Massillon Tigers hold a Lift-A-Thon annually in memory of Steve Studer, the Strength and Conditioning Coach who died in 2004.

They have wrestling, too.

Zion Shaver, born in Columbus, Ohio, was adopted by a woman in Massillon.  Although he lacks legs, he went out for wrestling.  He weighed only 88 pounds, so he was placed in the lightest weight category, and got an amazing 33/15 wins his senior year.

He graduated in 2016.

Almost makes you want to go visit that bog.