Are you tough enough?

I originally wrote this as a column about a year ago. I'm sick and don't feel like writing today..enjoy.

I like to think of myself as a little country girl from Macon. Rather, that’s what everyone else likes to think of me as, and I generally cringe when reminded of the tiny 2,000 population town in which I grew up.
However, I recognize that I didn’t exactly grow up in the throes of a cosmopolitan area, and I am slowly accepting to embrace my past rather than deny it.
However, mud-riding and creek-swimming as a child and teenager aside, there are certain things even this “country girl” isn’t prepared for – a Toughman Contest, for instance.
In case you don’t know what a Toughman Contest is, I will be happy to fill you in. Apparently, there is a national Toughman Contest in which the regional winners throughout the country compete. So, each state holds a series of local Toughman Contests, and the winners from these take their illustrious spots nationally.
I had the privilege (?) to attend one of the regional contests in Meridian recently, and I have never witnessed a more surreal experience. Roughly 10 grown men entered and after receiving a required physical from the eminent Toughman-sanctioned doctor, off they went to pair off in order to beat the tar out of each other while being cheered on by a beer-fueled crowd.
Several things struck me about this event, in no particular order – The men who had registered early walked around, shirts off (a mistake in some cases) chests puffed out, listening to music ( I like to imagine it was Helen Reddy’s “I Am Woman,” but I’m sure I’m mistaken) and giving withering looks to anyone who might challenge their manliness. A male thing, I guess, I really wouldn’t presume to know.
Secondly, there were small children at this thing. In one instance, I’m talking about near-newborns asleep on the chests of their fathers, who I feel sure probably could’ve stayed at home with a babysitter or a sane parent, but as a childless “singleton,” I suppose I have no say in such matters.
Finally, there were the “Ring Girls.” Now, I realize with the machismo of this event, I shouldn’t have been surprised by semi-scantily clad women proclaiming the beginning of each fresh round of torment for the loser, but these girls looked to be about 17 years old and were subject to the lasciviousness of men twice and three times their age, catcalling and hooting as though Pamela Anderson Lee was strutting across the stage. I found it a little sad, both for the catcallers and the “Ring Girls.”
In conclusion, I saw men who I assume have other, daytime jobs that don’t require them to beat down a co-worker do their best to at least leave them walking funny, and I admit it, by the end, I was cheering as well, caught up in all the testosterone and madness of it all. I guess it’s true; you can take the girl out of Macon, but you can’t take the Macon out of the girl.