Hippo Manchester
December 8, 2005

Cover Story: Choose your own adventure

Congratulations, you’re a grownup — now live it up

By Robert Greene  & Will Stewart

For years you dreamed of being a hero. You watched action stars on the big screen, scanned dog-eared comic books for crime-fighting tips and spent hours in the woods playing “guns” with your friends.

Then you grew up, discovered girls and got a job. Now your dreams of storming a beach, being Daniel Boone or swinging through a window to rescue the damsel have been replaced by your hopes for a promotion, giddiness over some new high-tech gadget and panic at your hair loss.

The bad news is, your childhood really is over. The good news is, your thirst for adventure need not end. And you don’t have to go too far to slake it.

Be Joe Montana

A ceiling of steel-colored clouds greeted me on the morning of my transcendence. The challenge I had imposed upon myself finally arrived and for the first time since adopting the mad notion of becoming a professional player in the Arena Football League — at age 35 no less — I was nervous.

On a recent Saturday, The Manchester Wolves, the Queen City’s very own AFL2 team, held tryouts for “prospective players” at The Rising Stars Sports Center in Bedford.  I was one of 40 candidates showing off for the coaches and current players. Former high school and college stars worked out alongside aging hacks,  running drills and catching passes. 

It had been 17 years since I had strapped on a set of football pads, and that was for only one down during my senior year of high school. That night, I was watching the last game of the season from the sidelines, as I always did. We were crushing our opponent when my coach put me into the game for some fourth-quarter scrap time. I was elated.

The moment died quickly when I committed a personal foul by jacking a player in the back. I was yanked from the game and, adding to the shame, the coaches didn’t even bother to chew me out.

For the past 17 years I’ve leaned on that bothersome image whenever a challenge was pressed upon me. Never again, I told myself, would I squander a good dare.

I was at Gold’s Gym on Canal Street when I decided to try out for the Wolves, who won their division and finished at 12-4 last year before losing in the first round of the playoffs. I was getting a splash at the bubbler when I saw a posting that read: “Open Tryouts: Manchester Wolves.” Maybe I saw redemption within the signage or maybe was I just bored of raking leaves on Saturdays.

The week leading to the tryouts was a struggle. My body was rejecting my ambitions. My body, now 60 pounds heavier than when I last played football, looked stuffed with cheese. Still, I did my running (one mile a day) and cable work (the sissy machines).

I needed some encouragement, though  I decided to call former Pats quarterback Steve Grogan. Grogan told me to “just let your natural instincts occur.”

I then phoned my old coach, Tim Morris from Melrose High School in Massachusetts. “I can’t recall your name. I’m sorry,” Morris said, laughing. “But you’ll have to work yourself into a near frenzy in order to compete with the younger guys.”

I arrived at Rising Star Sports Center about nine. I had drunk too much coffee and my stomach was kicking in. For a brief moment I considered driving home and climbing back into bed.

There were 20-odd prospects from as far away as New York milling around, filling out paperwork. Everyone paid his $50 admission fee and was given a WOLVES CAMP T-shirt. There were large, athletic-looking guys and a handful of obvious speedsters, young tikes dressed in stretch gear. Some of the gents looked much like me: puffy.

Then I was on the artificial turf, stretching out. I waited for the braggarts, the guys I remember from the locker rooms in high school, but every guy at tryouts seemed serious, kind, respectful and eager to please.

“How do you feel about today?” I asked John Ross, a strapping 23-year-old father of two from Belmont.

“I’m scared [expletive],” Ross said. Ross hasn’t done much playing since his first child was born when he was only 15 years old. “I been mostly working,” he said. But Ross, who played some in high school, was still holding onto his dream.

“I’m too small for anything besides quarterback,” Ross said. “I’ve been throwing the ball some in my backyard.”

“OK, guys! Gather around!” the coach shouted.

As I jogged toward the pile, once again I was part of a team, challenging myself. It felt great to be shouldering up with this crew of strangers.

Our first workout would be the shuttle, a side-to-side drill that checks for speed, or flab. Number 23 was called and off I went.  I crouched down, waited for the go signal and immediately felt my thighs crack wide open. My speed was 5.1, and that is nearly dreadful. Most of the guys were doing just under five. Still, I was breathing harder and living larger than I had in months. 

Off we went to the center of the complex. We’d be doing 40-yard dashes now. I did a practice 40 for my friends outside the Derryfield Country Club a few nights before the tryouts. They mocked me with vigor when I stopped halfway through. 

I felt like I was watching myself from the stands as I plodded past the 20-yard line, lumbering to the 40.

“5.5!” exclaimed one of the coaches. Pathetic.

I did the 40 for a second time and killed three-tenths of a second off my time. I headed into the passing drills with confidence but hoped we’d be using Nerf balls. 

We lined up to take passes from an impressive line of quarterbacks, two of whom were southpaws. Warming up, I saw them snapping passes with accuracy and zip.

Wolves Coach Bill Bennett was now listing the six pass drills we’d be doing: the Hitch, Slant, Go, Post … and a couple more. About then my A.D.D kicked in and I was somewhere in Boulder, Colo., begging for a ride home.

Lining up for my first pass, I remembered how to do a hitch: quickly turn inside after 10 yards and pray the ball isn’t already up your nose. The QB snapped the ball. I ran a clean pattern and actually caught a tight pass. Not bad. We did these drills over and over for about an hour. I was feeling good, making friends, waving to my fans. 

Then my age started costing me. My body, at 35, seems to run on chains. I have zero fluidity, and two hours into the workout I was about out of gas. I was doing a post pattern, where I basically ran to the center of the field — about 30 yards out — and tried to catch a pass. The coaches implemented a defender into the scheme. I was midway into the pattern when I tripped over the defender’s feet and landed hard on my chest. I thought I tore both my nipples off.

Refusing to rub the pain out, I walked slowly back into line. I was done. Out of breath, dejected and in a fair amount of pain, I started looking for a watch.

When the final whistle blew, Coach Bennett gathered us around and spoke highly of the tryouts. He encouraged everyone to stay fit, do your drills and keep striving for that dream.

“Keep working for that contract!” he said.

The coach handed out two ready-to-be-signed contracts. One went to a big slab of a cat named Brian Gordon, 22, from New London, Conn., who played for Assumption College. Gordon has been all around the country trying out for American and Canadian teams. He’ll play both ways as a fullback and defensive back for the Wolves this season.

“Slowly my skills are coming around,” Gordon told me later.

The other contract went to quarterback Mike Abate, 27, who played for Southern Connecticut. Abate was one of the players that you knew was legit. He’s big, about 6-foot-4, and he has a sling for an arm. He tried out at 10 other camps before finally being signed by the Wolves.

“It feels really good to finally make it,”  he said.

As the castaways gathered their belongings, many of them looked content with not making the team. Others were poorly hiding their disappointment.

“I’ll probably come back in February for the final tryout,” said 26-year-ld Ryan Herlin from South Attleboro. “It’s the dream: to play and get paid for it.”

I understood my own fate. I wouldn’t be hearing back from Coach Bennett and I would never see John Ross again. But as I emerged from my awakening, I decided, maybe instead of playing for the Wolves this season, I’ll just go down to the Wild Rover and put a good snap on. — Rob Azevedo

[Editor’s note: If you missed tryouts this year, they’ll come around again in the fall of 2006. Start getting fit now and you might just be ready by then.]

Be Rambo

An M16 is a beautiful, if lethal, piece of engineering. At first it’s intimidating, but once you fire off your first three-round burst, the words “raw power” take on a whole new meaning.

And you like it.

Forget bungee jumping, skydiving and drag racing. If you really want to give yourself a rush, you’d be hard pressed to find something better than firing machine guns. Trust me — there’s nothing quite like it.

It’s loud, it’s jarring and it gives you an adrenaline rush like nobody’s business.

The problem is that, short of joining the military, it is hard to find a machine gun to shoot — legally that is. If you really want to, you can, provided you have a few thousand dollars lying around, want to go through an extensive background check and have a place to shoot the damn thing, as most law enforcement agencies are not fond of automatic weapons fire echoing across their cities’ neighborhoods.

But thankfully there’s another, much easier way, and that way is Manchester Firing Line, 50 Gay St.

Located near Manchester Airport, Firing Line will allow anyone to rent and fire one of several machine guns, letting would-be Rambos fulfill their macho dreams and desires without ending up on a government watch list.

While M16s are illegal for civilians, Manchester Firing Line offers a number of equally lethal machine guns to let you get your raw power fix. These include an MP5, a 9mm submachine gun, an Uzi and an old-school Tommy gun.

For non-members, the base cost to rent a machine gun is $35. You’ll also need to rent lane space, which for non-members goes for $14 a hour. On top of that, you’ll need eye protection ($1) and ear plugs (50 cents). As far as targets go, you could buy large bull’s-eyes (75 cents apiece), but  really what you want are large silhouettes ($1 each). After all, you want your Rambo fantasy to be as real as possible, and that means shooting at targets shaped like real people.

In all, an hour of Rambo-packed action will set you back $60.50, assuming you go through 10 large silhouettes.

Should your firearm tastes run to the less damaging, or you just want to start off slower or cheaper, you can also rent revolvers ($12), semi-automatic pistols ($12), rifles ($14) and shotguns ($14) at Manchester Firing Line. They’re cheaper than the machine guns, but you’ll still need to rent lane time and buy targets and safety equipment.

(If you’re of the female persuasion and want to experience the raw power of firearms, your best bet is go to Manchester Firing Line between 5 and 8 p.m. on Sundays — Ladies’ Night — when all women get free lane time, a savings of $14.)

If, after firing a machine gun or any other weapon, you want to purchase one of your very own, Manchester Firing Line has got you covered as they sell a range of new and used pistols, shotguns, machine guns and other weapons. They can also teach you how to use your new gun safely and how to protect yourself with it.

— Will Stewart

Be Grizzly Adams

I was one of those people who really hoped Y2K would put a speed bump in the path of civilization as we know it.

I didn’t want the world to end, banks to fail (except possibly the ones holding my debts) or cities to crumble. I just wanted circumstance to turn off our technology forQQ a time and give our heads a chance to start working. I was in Maine during the Ice Storm of 1998, when the power was knocked out for three weeks or better. Despite all the inconveniences, those three weeks were eye-opening. Neighbors actually helped each other. They checked in with elderly residents to see if they needed anything. They shared tools and skills. I grew up in farm country, but I’d never seen “community” to that degree before.

I’ve been a camper all my life but I’d hesitate to call myself an outdoorsman. In 1999, I took a step closer to that goal by signing up for a few weekend classes at a “primitive skills” survival school. With my classmates, I built emergency shelters, started fires with a fire bow, scrounged for edible plants and came away with a better understanding of my place in the food chain.

And that’s part of the point, said Tim Smith, head of the Jack Mountain Bushcraft School in Wolfeboro Falls. The school and guide service offers one-day, weekend, week and 12-week classes and seminars in outdoor survival and woodcraft.

“We get all kinds of people up here,” Smith said. “Sometimes it’s somebody who is a bit paranoid about the world coming to an end and wants to be the last man standing. Then you get your people who were maybe born 30 years too late and want to commune with nature like the flower children. Mostly it’s people who just want to challenge themselves, or feel more comfortable when they are out in the woods.”

White is a registered Master Maine Guide and licensed Master New Hampshire Guide. He said he was inspired to be a woodsman at age 8 when he read a poem about the Yukon. After hanging out in Alaska for a few years, White decided to try and make a living out of his passion and started Jack Mountain. Now, for $350 a head, he’ll take you into the woods for a weekend and teach you how to survive. You’ll learn how to make a shelter from scratch, stay warm, use an ax and saw correctly, build a fire with matches or without, and take care of your physical and mental well-being. Yes, you will sleep outside, in the snow, in the shelter you build. So you’d better do it right.

One fellow who took Smith’s class went on to the big time, a stint on this season’s Survivor: Guatemala. Yep, Rafe, the red-headed wilderness guide from Providence, R.I., took one of Smith’s weekend courses.

“If he wins I figure he owes me a couple of dollars, say $22,” Smith said.

Smith said he does not and will not promote his program as a short-cut to reality TV.

“I suppose I could do that and makes some money,” he said. “But then I’d probably be stuck out in the woods with a lot of people I wouldn’t like.”

The next weekend course is set for Dec. 9-11 and the one after that is Feb. 4-5. Starting in 2006, the three-day weekend course will be shortened to two days and cost $100 less. For more information, visit the Web site at www.jackmountainbushcraft.com.

— Robert Greene