FITNESS AUTHOR
Chad Dyer
UPRIGHT CREATURES: A DAY WITH TARZEN, THE GRAND SLACKLINER n Check out AFM intern Chad Dyer’s experience meeting Tarzen, the local celebrity slackliner.
I
arrived at the Lady Bird Lake boardwalk around 11:30 a.m. For the last two weeks, I imagined this day as bright and sunny, but now, with rolling gray clouds, it looked like a misting system spraying over the city of Austin. I prayed this wasn’t an omen. After scanning the boardwalk, I saw Tarzen waving me down, so I approached. “How you doin’ man!” I called out. “Wonderful, today is a great day,” Tarzen replied, despite the ominous weather. His blue eyes beamed as he held out a fist. Something about a fist bump felt fitting for Tarzen; it was inviting.
JUNE 2022
He wore a purple shirt, a hat and dark jean shorts. The most notable thing about him, though, was his rippling white beard. It was so long that his mouth disappeared; words seemed to simply slip through his mustache. “You ready?” I asked.
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“Follow me, I gotta grab some stuff,” he said. We came to a stone wall. My jaw dropped as Tarzen, a 60-year-old man, swung himself over the wall and started jogging. “I parked right here,” he said. He opened his trunk and started pulling out buckets of
