… to the Men of F3 Nation of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania
The Fifth Annual Keystone Convergence
City Island, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania
28 June 2025
Photograph: Railway Bridge at the Susquehanna River, Harrisburg, PA
This world needs more men like us: strong in body, character in virtue, doing the right thing at all times, caring for family as well as strangers, deeply rooted and bearing fruit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.
I have always enjoyed my times with the F3 brothers of Pennsylvania.
- Belmar, NJ: Yes, I am starting in NJ with this. Last Saturday, June 21, 67 PAX were at the Second Annual Summer Solstice all-state NJ Convergence at the Jersey Shore. The Keystone Convergence has been an inspiration to us in NJ to have this annual event at the Jersey Shore. The Keystone Convergence is an incomparable event within F3 Nation and is a notable example of a multi-region event. The extent of planning this event with particular mindfulness is truly amazing. Dynamite of Lehigh Valley served as one of the Qs during the NJ event. He posts with regularity at F3 Atlantic City when he is there.
- Gilbertsville: On June 14, two weeks ago, It was special to be with the PAX at this newest AO in Pennsylvania in northern Montgomery County. There were 26 men present, including 4 FNGs. One pax made pastries for the event, “Bear Claws” to honor the name of this new AO.
- Snacktown: It was great to be with the brothers on Red Baron’s 70th birthday. The grand beatdown was in March. Red Baron remains an F3 Hero to me.
- Harrisburg: I have posted twice at Reservoir Park in early January in different years and gone to The Farm Show afterwards with the brothers. The first time – we had been there no more than 10 minutes – when a news photographer captures HK-Hershey Kiss downing a post-workout milk shake and potato doughnut. The photo was in a Carlisle newspaper the following week. This is also the first time I have seen rodeo, and it was not in the southwestern United States but in Pennsylvania.
- Lanco: I enjoyed the opportunities to push haybales, lug firehose, and pull a tractor with the brothers of F3 Lanco at their Farm Q beatdowns.
- Indian Valley: This was a “life is good” moment for me. Watching the sunset, sitting in Adirondack chairs on a hill side, after a Post 2 Prost workout in fellowship with the brothers of Indian Valley at a farm brewery in Bucks County.
- Philly: Besides seeing parts of the city I never would have stumbled on otherwise, the original Coffeteria stop was at Reading Terminal Market, where Dutch Eating Place does huge plate sized pancakes and huge portions of everything else.
- Valley Forge: There were moseys all through the town of Phoenixville, with much up and down a cobblestoned street, Church Alley. Coffee at Soltane Café on Bridge Street afterwards hit the spot
It was on this particular weekend, the fourth weekend in June 2018, that I posted for the first time at Valley Forge. It was only the sixth week for them, as they launched on Memorial Day weekend of that year.
My start into F3…
In May of 2018, I read a cover story in Christianity Today on “Mending Men’s Ministry.” prior to starting to read it, I asked: “How do you get men together to do anything?” My experience was that men around my area are so busy with their work lives, their family’s lives and all the activities of their children, that to get a guy or guys together for some time together was a challenging task. The magazine article focused on F3 in Franklin TN and told the story of the men and the impact F3 had on the lives of these men. The next morning, I started to investigate the F3 Nation website and was impressed by this concept of men getting together for fitness, growing in friendships and developing brotherhood through fellowship, and expressing their faith – through service in the community.
I also read articles by Billy Baker of the Boston Globe on male loneliness at middle age. He was way ahead of the curve on this issue in 2017. I thought: “It is not just me. What can I do about this for myself and for the men in my community?”
Great.
Where can I find F3 in New Jersey?
I looked at the F3 Nation map, and there was no F3 presence in New Jersey, but there were groups in Eastern Pennsylvania: Lehigh Valley, Lancaster, and Valley Forge.
On June 30th, 2018, on the fourth Saturday of June – like today, but now its seven years later – at dark-thirty, I drove the sixty miles to Reeves Park, Phoenixville. It was special to drive through the Valley Forge National Park this summer morning through the mist and the early light. Yet, my mind began to race with doubts: “Will I be able to keep up in the workout with the other men?” I had not done a workout like this in decades. It was a good workout, with a mosey to Bridge Street, a circle of pain in a grassy knoll area near to French Creek, more up and down a hill of a street, Church Alley, than I can count. It was a steep grade of a cobblestone street, and Route 66 at lampposts along Bridge Street. I had a blast – an absolute blast – and a sense of accomplishment after that workout. This FNG [Friendly New Guy] became “Dos Equis” because of the diversity of interests and things I do: The “Most Interesting Man in the World” Stuff.
I remember saying during Coffeteria that morning to some of the guys – Side Effects, the Q [the leader of the workout], Spike and Hops – “I want to bring this home.”
A few weeks after that first workout, I posted in mid-July 2018 at F3 Lehigh Valley in Emmaus and saw another expression of the F3 movement – this time the workout had coupons, weights, kettlebells, and a rope-pulled pallet. The Lehigh Valley men were as much an encouragement to me as the Valley Forge men.
Now – what do I do? At age 63, it is not like a lot of guys I know at my age would want to start a fitness group. So, I kept the dream and desire that started in Pennsylvania – “I want to bring this home” with no idea of how to pull it off.
Then in August 2018, a North Carolina PAX moves to greater Philly to start a new job with Amazon. It was Cspan (David Green). Cspan started to post at Valley Forge, and with Lindros, a Philly police officer who at earlier time was coached in ice hockey by Cspan, they started F3 Philly in a parking lot near the Convention Center in Center City in October of 2018.
After my first post there in week 3 of that workout, November 2018, my thoughts began to develop. This could actually happen. An AO in Princeton could actually happen.
I began to post with regularity at the Saturday workout of F3 Philly, and on one occasion after an F3 Philly beatdown, I stopped to help at the West Windsor Farmers Market at a Winter Market, where I told fellow board member Vijay about what I had been up to on Saturday mornings in going to Philadelphia.
This sparked his interest in coming, and soon afterwards he posted with me at Philly, what was the VQ of Lindros. After the workout, and the mammoth-portions breakfast at Dutch Eating Place, Vijay – now Four Seasons – says to me as we sit in the car for the trip home: “Can we do this again?” On that trip home, we stopped at the West Windsor Community Park where I thought would be the best AO location for us and I shared my dream with him. “This could actually happen.”
Four Seasons invites his good friend Uday – now WallE – to join us on our Saturday trips to F3 Philly. The three of us did this regularly in the first quarter of 2019, learning all that we can about F3.
F3 Princeton launched on April 13, 2019, with fifteen men present. At the time, we thought this was a big turnout! Cspan and his friend from The Fort in South Carolina, Geronimo, served as Qs that day. Geronimo, a veteran, did the initial planting the shovel flag on that day.
It did not take long for other men to join us. We soon added Wednesday and Monday to the workout schedule. We added a weekly Princeton stadium climb on Thursdays. F3 Princeton now has seventeen workout options during the week.
In 2022 first quarter, men from Essex County in northern New Jersey would come regularly for workouts, and F3 Essex started in March, quickly followed by F3 The Frontier (New Providence) in April 2022.
There are nine regions now in New Jersey, stretching from Atlantic City to the south to Ramsey in Bergen County in the north.
I remain amazed at how this growth happened. I remain incredibly grateful that the PAX keep showing up.
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My life story…
Born and raised in Bethesda, MD, a suburb of Washington, DC (My father was a doctor, my mother was a nurse.), I never did any team sports and was usually the last kid picked in middle school physical education classes for teams of soccer, flag football, or softball. My gym teacher saw that I was good at leading warm-up exercises, and so I often did that at that 8 am gym class.
At high school, I got involved in Key Club, a high school division of Kiwanis International, a community service organization. We would do things like usher at school events, clean up the bleachers after home football games, make Saturday visits and do creative play with homeless and abandoned children at a group home in Southeast Washington, DC. I became President of the Key Club in my senior year of high school.
It was in high school that I became a Lifeguard, Lifeguarding Instructor, and Water Safety Instructor through the American Red Cross. I still teach Lifeguarding and Swimming at a local YMCA, and provide instruction in First Aid, CPR, and use of the AED. I lifeguard annually for one week in August at an adult camp in Plymouth, Massachusetts. It remains very meaningful to me to teach and to pass on to a younger generation the skills that can save lives.
In 1993, The United States experienced its worst disaster of its time – tremendous flooding in the entire Mississippi River watershed, extending up to Illinois, and all along the Missouri River watershed, too. I saw a newspaper picture of a friend of mine in Princeton who served with the American Red Cross in providing disaster assistance in southern Illinois. This was a revelation to me about the great work of the American Red Cross in providing care and meeting personal and community needs in the wake of disaster. (Side note: Clara Barton, the Founder of the American Red Cross, was at Johnstown, about 140 miles west of here, after the floods in 1889, and at age 67, established hospitals in town and built six Red Cross hotels that would house and feed flood survivors.)
I jumped right into doing this. I received training, and my first disaster response was fires and evacuation of an apartment complex in Edison New Jersey in March 1994, because of a regional gas explosion. I continue to serve as a Disaster Assistance Supervisor in leading and conducting responses in Mercer County. Where I live the most common disaster response is the single-family house fire in the middle of the night, usually in Trenton, New Jersey. I have now been a Red Cross volunteer for 53 years and have been doing disaster assistance for 31 years.
On the eve of my 50th birthday year in 2005, I received the Every Day Hero Award from the American Red Cross of Central New Jersey for my volunteer service. At the end of my 50th birthday year in 2006, I received a Jefferson Award for Public Service by the Trenton Times newspaper and was named that year as a Finalist for a Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis Award for Public Service Benefitting Local Communities. The Jefferson Awards were started in 1972 by Senator Robert Taft of Ohio; Sam Beard, a protégé of Robert Kennedy; and by former First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis to recognize the community service work of volunteers. When I got home from the Capitol Hill recognition events of that occasion, I was honored with proclamations at the State Senate and Assembly and by Mercer County. The recognition that meant the most to me was from my hometown West Windsor Township, and I was blown away when my friends filled the Township Hall for the recognition.
After this, I joined up as a volunteer at my local Farmers Market, the West Windsor Community Farmers Market, and have served on its Board for almost 20 years. This involves help with setting up, taking down, staffing the information table, connecting with the farmers and the vendors and connecting with the customers of the market.
Then, with Jefferson Award recognition, my Township, West Windsor, acted quickly to get me on the Zoning Board. In 2018, I also became part of the Planning Board. I now serve as Vice Chair of both the Zoning Board and the Planning Board.
Why am I telling you all this?
It comes down to this:
I see a need and I try to respond to meet the need.
The mission of F3 is to plant grow and serve small workout groups for the invigoration of male community leadership.
You know this. You are reminded of this at every workout.
My encouragement to you this day is “community leadership,” the end goal of what we are all about in F3 Nation. If a guy can Q a workout and lead a group of guys before the sun comes up, what is stopping him from further community leadership and engagement? It really is “See a need. Respond to meet that need.”
In New Jersey and Pennsylvania, I have seen firsthand the love and care the brothers have within their own regions, the engagement of the brothers to help their communities, with efforts like fund-raising to give gift cards from local restaurants to feed frontline responders during the Covid pandemic, helping at school events, organizing a youth running program or in leading an element of a local Lions Chicken BBQ fundraiser. The stories and creativity of the PAX regarding community service are endless.
In the book “Bowling Alone,” Robert Putnam argues that Americans are increasingly disconnecting from social and civic groups, leading to a decline in social capital, which is the networks and trust that facilitate cooperation and collective action. He uses the example of fewer people joining bowling leagues (bowling alone) to illustrate this trend of diminished community engagement. Putnam argues that this decline has negative consequences for individuals and society, including reduced well-being, increased social isolation, and weaker democratic institutions.
This book, mentioned by one of the F3 Nation Founders, OBT, in the Art of Manliness podcast, remains influential on me regarding community engagement. I build social capital one conversation at a time.
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I want to end with a quote that I am sure you already know. “The Man in the Arena” by Theodore Roosevelt. I credit former Northeast Sector Q and Founder of F3 The Capital (Greater DC area), Major Payne, for making me familiar with it.
It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.
I am now entering a new decade of life.
My internal odometer made two clicks on May 28th – the tens and the ones.
This XX is now in his LXX decade.
This quote is very meaningful to me at this time.
So, what’s my response…
As Roosevelt said: Strive valiantly. Dare greatly.
Take risks in doing what you believe is the right thing to do, despite what others may think or do.
Find a need in your community and respond to it.
Plant, grow and serve.
Get it.
Leave no man behind.
Give it away.
And something we say a lot at F3 Princeton: Keep Showing Up
- Keep Showing Up to get in the best physical shape you can
- Keep Showing Up to care for your brothers in the gloom who can use and benefit from your encouragement.
- Keep Showing Up to grow in your expression of faith, becoming a virtuous man for your family, your workplace, and your community, recognizing and responding to needs as you see them.
Building community is about showing up. We do not have a downtown or walkable business district in our town. With the Saturday Farmers Market, we try to create community every Saturday morning. Each F3 workout is about community building, too – the group effort to complete the workout of the day, leaving no man behind; the camaraderie and joy that comes with fellowship in this brotherhood; and bothers joined in service and care to improve their communities by giving back.
With F3, the threads of my life came together
- Fitness: getting 1% better with every workout.
- Fellowship: Not going through life alone, but in and through fellowship and encouragement we have as brothers.
- Faith: For me, it is as a Christian. Living it out the best I can.
This world needs more men like us: strong in body, character in virtue, doing the right thing at all times, caring for family as well as strangers, deeply rooted and bearing fruit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.
I carry in my heart the valiant men of F3 Nation in the Keystone State.
Thank you.
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I am grateful to Red Baron for the opportunity to speak.
I am grateful to Slogger for the introduction.
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End Notes and Links.
Dutch Eating Place at Reading Terminal Market, Philadelphia
West Windsor Community Farmers Market
American Red Cross – Volunteer Opportunities
Join or Die – A movie on the work of Robert Putnam, available for community presentation.
The Art of Manliness Podcast #324
The Man in the Arena – Wikipedia entry
The Kingsessing Morris Men – My morris dance team
Reach out to me for PDFs of the Christianity Today article “Mending Men’s Ministry” and The Boston Globe Billy Baker articles on male loneliness at middle age.
Honored to serve,
Dos Equis
Curtis Hoberman
curtish222@cs.com
