There aren’t many things I can do better today than I could at seventeen. Crossword puzzles are one. Pull-ups are another.

Okay, I have only been able to complete one pull-up at any one time since I started going to the gym regularly last March. Maybe two. But when I was being examined, tested, poked and analyzed at Fort Dix as part of my attempt to win an appointment to West Point, I failed to complete even one.

Did that failure prevent me from becoming a West Pointer? That’s doubtful since I performed at or above average on all the other tests, physical and intellectual. At any rate, West Point has never been a point of fixation with me. Who knows, had I been appointed, I might have been sent to Vietnam, in 1970 or thereabouts.

What does my inability to do a single pull-up at seventeen or my one pull-up limit today say about me? That I’m weak in my upper body. That my body type is just not suited to that particular exercise, just as it still allows me to touch my toes with the best of them.

My new pull-up strength will not go to my head. At seventeen, I was able to touch the rim on a basketball hoop; today I barely reach the net.