First things first. At 11:50 am yesterday, YHC hopped on the phone with Goats in the Machine. In the background, I could hear his 2.0, Sonic, playing. Or at least I thought he was playing. Goats, as the de facto PE coach, was actually running Sonic back and forth across their two acres. “Take another lab, bud. Goood. Yep. Keep going. Keep goingggg. To the tree and back…the far tree way, way over there. Good job.”
This gave us a few moments to talk. Goats had an idea to raise money from the Pax to purchase a bicycle for a child in need. Better than that, he wanted to bake it into a beatdown. Even better than that, he wanted to take over YHC’s Thursday Q and run his own. Even more betterer than that, this would be his VQ! We got off the phone at 12:03 pm. By 1 pm, he had created his plan and shared it with the Pax. By 1:15pm, he had his Venmo ready. By 1:45 pm, there were enough donations to buy one bike. By 4pm, enough for four bikes, by 7pm enough for 12 bikes, and by 5am this morning, enough for 16 bikes. Y’all when this guy gets an idea, the Southern Goats Express is rolling through and rolling fast. You better get on board or take a powder and kick rocks (aka..get the heck out of the way). After getting a glimpse of his pre-blast VQ, we are in for a deliciously brutal treat!
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That’s a tough act to follow, but on to the beatdown.
A record seven PAX showed up at the Stage. 44 degrees, but the chill factor had ebbed since the day before, so YHC was whining far less audibly. Thanksgiving is a holiday that often gets overshadowed by Christmas (the commercial, Santa version), like an underwhelming opening act to the main event. As such, we often forget to take a moment to be thankful as we head into the true season of celebrating our Savior.
As my children adorably sang Thanksgiving songs during their Pre-K performance last week, one verse stuck out to me:
“I’m a little pilgrim on the run, here is my knife and here is my gun. When I go a-hunting, hear my shout – Deer and turkey better watch out!”
Cute, if not a tad unnerving. I pondered about what the turkey thought about all this? I asked myself, who will speak for the Turkey? I’ll tell you who…the men of F3 Thibodaux. And the only way to do that is to think like a turkey, sound like a turkey, move like a turkey, and fly like a turkey.
Wait…can turkeys fly? Ahhh…and thus our beatdown was birthed.
Warmarama with the regs, followed by a bumper mosey.
Then, YHC began the beatdown with the following beatdown intro:
“Today, we’re all a bunch of turkeys. But I’m proud of that fact. There are haters everywhere. They say that we’re delicious. They mock us saying gobble gobble. Who even says that? Their kids trace their hands on construction paper and slap some feet on them and say, “Look mommy, I made a turkey.” Like it’s a genuine Turcasso. Sorry kid, your teacher found the turkey hand template online because she’s bored and doesn’t like her job. However, she is worried (or pissed) that you use so much dang Elmer’s glue when all you need is a dot. Just a dot. Seriously. But I digress.
I could deal with all of this if it weren’t for the worst thing. They say we can’t fly. Bobby Joe and Jessie Pearl call us flightless birds. Flightless! Oh yeah, Bubba Sue, how the hell did I get up in this tree? Well, I say horsefeathers. They think they’re the cat’s pajamas, drinking all that giggle juice. Well, I say they don’t know their onions. Until now, we’ve made a right pig’s ear of things. But that ends now. Today, we will show them a thing or two about a thing or two. We’re going to learn to fly. Welcome to Butterball Flight Academy.”
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Lesson 1: Arm and Leg Warm-up
To the tune of “Learning to Fly” by Tom Petty, these parakeets did:
– 1st verse – Imperial walkers; Refrain – Merkins
– 2nd verse – seal jacks; Refrain – Merkins
– Bridge – chill
– 3rd verse – squats; Extended refrain – Merkins
(potential total for 95 merkins)
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Lesson 2: Coordination and Flight Training
– Tie Fighters modified with forward arm circles through lunges
– Lunge walk to sidewalk (approx. 30 yards)
– Jungle Boi’s X20 (at this point, YHC was questioning his…well everything)
– Backward tie fighter mods – BACs during backward lunges to start point
(half way through, YHC called an audible to change Bonnie Blairs to a 1:1 ratio)
Bonnie Blairs x20
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Lesson 3: You Must Focus. You Must Think Like a Crane, not a Turkey.
To the tune of “You’re the Best” from Karate Kid (Part 1, of course), these flamingos did:
– 1st verse – SSH; Refrain – alternating crane kicks
– 2nd verse – SSH; Refrain – alternating crane kicks
– Bridge – chill (YHC forgot that we were supposed to be doing speed humpers); Refrain – alternating crane kicks
– 3rd verse – Arm raises; Refrain – alternating crane kicks
(By the end, it is impossible to describe whatever the hell any of us were doing. They weren’t crane kicks.)
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Intermission: You can only push a bunch of turkeys so far without giving them some reward. So, we took a break and like any good family thanksgiving, we had a pot-luck Mary session. (Poppin Dolly’s were not included.)
– Montana: V-ups
– Fence Post: LBC’s (we were all thankful)
– Kilo: Penguins
– Goats: Protractor leg raises (20, 45, and 90 degrees) – one of the many advantages of having an engineer in the PAX
– Goose: Box cutters
– Enron: I can’t remember. Maybe Big Boy’s? I’m sorry, buddy. I can be such a turkey sometimes.
– YHC: Flutter kicks – 4 COUNT – but I was actually doing a 5 count. Goose and Enron graciously corrected me. Then I graciously began planning their punishment.
The Q is not always right, but he is NEVER wrong.
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Lesson 4: We Fly!
– Sprint to sidewalk with tucked wings, intermittently screeching “gobble, gobble.”10 big boys sit ups
– Nur sprint back with tucked wings
– Sprint to farthest cone, 10 BBS, Nur sprint back
– Sprint to second farthest cone, 10 BBS, Nur sprint back
– Sprint to third farthest cone, 10 BBS, Nur sprint back
(Thank you Goats and Montana for your enthusiastic gobbling.)
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Lesson 5: Stabilizers
Our wings are curved, our tail feathers are straight up, our bones are dense. We are fluffy, not fat. As such, our last lesson dealt with an oft overlooked facet of turkey flight training…stabilizers.
To the tune of Gobble Gobble (by Matthew West…it’s a good one), these cockatoos engaged in a combination of low plank holds, J-Lo’s (low plank, alternate hips touching ground), and the newest Thibodaux Pax fad, the pickle pounder (low plank with hip thrust down and up).
Together, the J-Lo’s and the Pickle Pounder are called the ARod’s. But for obvious reasons, this name is no longer appropriate. For the consideration of F3 Thibodaux and Nation, I offer the J-Lo Pickle Gobbler. It’ll catch on.
– 1st verse – low plank
– J-Lo on gobble gobbles
– Refrain – pickle pounders
– 2nd verse – low plank
– J-Lo gobble gobbles
– Extended Refrain – pickle pounders
(By the end of the extended refrain, Montana, Kilo, and Fence Post were all calling out YHC. I was gassed, flat on the ground, moving my hips from side to side. I believe the term “wounded walrus” was suggested.
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Encore! 90 seconds remaining
YHC deliberated with great pains on which Karate Kid song to use for the Crane Kick lesson. It came down to “You’re the Best” and “Glory of Love.” The former won out by virtue of faster cadence.
So, to the tune of “Glory of Love,” we held Al Gore for the first verse (about one minute) and ended the last 30 seconds in mission impossible plank. In a vulnerable moment, Goose shared that this was the first song to bring him to tears as a child. I can tell you that YHC has never felt so seen.
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COT and YHC prayed us out. As always, I am thankful for F3, the men of the Thibodaux Pax, and most of all the values that we share and espouse to the community. Thank you Goats for bringing those values front and center as we head into this season of gratitude and humility.
SYITG and Gobble Gobble,
Turkey Joe
