Fit to Print Volume 23 Issue 1: March 2014 | Page 7

Interview

by Paul Smith

Back to the Future
Reeling In The Years...
Cor with Lisa and John Bachety, circa 1985

T

o consider the story of Fitness
Incentive is to consider the history
of the fitness industry taken as a
whole. There had been a void followed
by progressive development, the source
of which was a few pioneers. Bursting
with energy and creativity, they
essentially invented the business as they
went along.
As we enter our thirtieth year of
operation at Fitness Incentive, we who
have been with it from the beginning are
having a lot of fun reminiscing about the
“Olden Days.” The thread that runs from
Grove Place to Main Street to Deer Park
Avenue is a binding one, one that is
expressive of benefit and of purpose;
that unites a fitness community
composed both of devoted veterans and
dedicated newcomers. It isn't merely
nostalgia, IMHO. The glance back
reminds us of the role the amazing
journey plays in conferring meaning and
value to the present.
One recent evening Cor, Ken, and
Jourdie hosted a get-together attended
by Cathy and Steve Peacock and their
daughter Kelsey, along with John and
Lisa Bachety. I was privileged to be there
also, recorder in hand. Lots of memories
were exchanged, lots of laughter was
heard.
Lisa: I remember sitting on the floor in
Grove Place with Debbie Delaney, and we
were there because we couldn't go to
Hammerheads anymore. We had been
taking aerobics classes at
Hammerheads...
Cathy: And then Cor and I started taking

classes at Hammerheads to get ideas.
Hammerheads was a bar that stank,
and you stuck to the floor because it
was so disgustingly sticky with beer
from the night before.
Lisa: They were Funky Fitness classes,
and because it was a bar, you would
have pieces of beer bottles and broken
glass to watch out for when you were
working out on the floor. We got into
trouble a few nights because by the
time you came out of the class, and
came out of the bathrooms after
cleaning up it would be Ladies' Night...
John: And they'd come home bombed.
Lisa: We were already there of
course, without having paid a cover
charge, and naturally we thought, "You
might as well stay for a drink or two."
We were still in our body suits... And
Debbie, Peggy and I came home from
working out and we were smashed. In
our body suits.
That's when we found Fitness
Incentive. Debbie had been working
out at the old Amritrage in Bayshore.
And one day she said, "I heard about
this place in Babylon that's amazing.”
John: This is pretty soon after you'd
just opened.
Cathy: That's right. We all started
going right around the same time, and
we were all hungry for great routines
and great ideas. Everybody knew that
Funky Fitness had always been cliqueish and snobby, including me because
I'd gone there first, before Fitness
Incentive. We all had the same
Hammerheads-Funky Fitness
experience, and it had been fun
mostly because it always ended in a
get-together with our own group. So it
was always going to be good—we're
going to exercise and afterwards do
something together.
Steve: Cor, what was the Grove Place
location before it became Fitness
Incentive?
Cor: It had been a furniture store,
then it was a church, then a soda
shop...
Steve: So the nursery there was what,
an office?
Cor: I think it was just a closet or
something. Actually whole place was
gross! The previous tenant was
disgusting. He had a dog living in
there. It smelled like a toilet...
Ken: When I pulled the rug out of
there it was July and 97 degrees. I had
Spring 2014 FIT to Print

to carry it out in big pieces that stank
and were covered in dog hair...I lost 10
pounds those two weeks—two weeks
which was my vacation that year—even
though I was eating Gino’s pizza every
day for lunch.
Cor: We'd leave every night at 12:30 AM,
and then I'd get up at 4:00 AM and do it
all over again.
John: I remember when you put in the
back bar with the free weights.
Ken: That was the Main Street location.
Maybe about four years into our time at
that location.
John: That's right, you put the weights in
and then built the Spin Pit. That was a
nice room! The free weights were a
pretty forward-looking move, though,
because there weren't very many guys in
the gym at that time.
Ken: We had maybe four male members
at the time.
Lisa: I'd love to go back to Grove Place
just to see the kids. Remember how
they would all be lined up at that gate?
Cathy: Like they were in jail!
Lisa: And they'd all be screaming, and all
the moms would be completely oblivious
to their wailing kids!
Cathy: The room is jumping up and down
to a Madonna record—an LP, on a record
player that was not stereo—as loud as we
could possibly play it and with no sense
of hearing your