Gold Bond Man
Originally written on July 12th, 2025
There's a story that can't be released from my memory. I was 18 years old and a walk-on for the UW-Green Bay Men's Swimming and Diving team. Each season the team would travel to Florida over winter break to train. If I could describe the training it was like a ship going out into international waters to perform some sketchy shit, far from the governing confines of the NCAA guidelines. No one can hear you scream all the way in Florida it seemed. The training was very difficult and although we were encouraged to "enjoy" Florida, the only things we did was eat, sleep, and swim. That's no island life mantra either, the brakes were beat off us and that's all we did.
I was a freshman and a walk-on at that. To say I had a voice that could be heard was not entirely accurate. More often I was just happy to be there, and wanted to stay quiet, or as quiet as I could be in for fear that I'd be recognized and someone would remember that I really didn't belong there. Sort of stuck between that paradox as a child up past their bedtime. Does one talk to try and engage their father in conversation or do they remain silent hoping they're not spotted? Each practice I felt like Rudy Ruettiger just trying to keep up in a world I didn't truly belong, but felt like I did through shear determination. This meant NEVER being late to practice and consequently, with being paired as the lowest man on the totem pole, had to drive the van from our lodging to the pool.
One morning I was driving, and Coach Jim Merner always rode shotgun. His cottage was in a different location than his swimmers and it was probably better for plausible deniability in case we wanted to do young-person foolery. We listened to what he wanted to on the radio; not like there was any argument because everyone else was asleep in the back. I was indoctrinated to easy listening, jazz radio, and stuff, to me, what old people listened to while alone in the car. Always the radio stations in the mid 80's to 90's frequencies. The reasons why I'm thankful for Jim Merner are endless, but teaching me who Bill Withers was is a personally cherished memory. The other memory to this morning took about 20 years for me to learn its lesson.
Jim gets in the car with an old man grunt and tells me that we need to stop by the pharmacy. When I asked him why, as if I had the right to ask my coach such a question in case it didn't qualify as a valid reason, he didn't hesitate. "I have a bad case of hemorrhoids and need some Preparation H." The way he said it so matter-of-fact kind of jolted me. I didn't think of it at the time as a grown ass man comfortable with his body and speaking to the ways of getting older.
Fast forward a couple of decades, and I now openly advocate the use of Gold Bond powder. I'm a true believer and user and it has gifted me a lot of comfort in situations I would have simply suffered from not knowing any difference. I'm still younger than Jim was at the time of that conversation, but I've entered the unwritten club of beginning to be an old man. I look no further than my daily application of Gold Bond and shamelessly talk about its medicinal wonders. I chuckle to myself when young Sailors give me the same look I undoubtedly gave Jim back then.
