Editor’s Note: The Journal-World’s Andrew Hartsock is participating in the Breast Cancer 3-Day, a walk to raise money for research, on Sept. 15-17. He is keeping a diary of the event and preparations for LJWorld.com.

Read part one of the diary.

Read part two of the diary.

Read part three of the diary.

Two days into the Breast Cancer 3-Day, and I’m finally coming to grips with one aspect of the event for which I was not prepared.

I counted on the heat and wasn’t surprised by the wind. The tedium, camaraderie, support : check all the boxes.

But the rampant breast humor? That threw me for a loop.

OK, I know why we’re doing the 3-Day: to raise money for breast-cancer research. At its heart, then, this walk is all about, well, breasts.

But, man, there are more lighthearted references to “the girls” than in a high school football locker room.

Since I work for a family paper, and this is, I assume, a family blog or diary or whatever you call it, I’ll keep it clean.

But you can’t swing a wet bra without hitting a breast reference.

There is a team named “Walkers for (rhymes with walkers),” and one in bright-pink ballerina skirts called “Tutus for (looks a lot like tutus).”

One of our pit stops was renamed a “breast stop,” where a large man – the “(more or less rhymes with dude) Dude” – in drag, wearing a hot-pink, fur-lined bra on the outside, chanted such platitudes as,

“It’s not,

a race,

we’re walking

for second base,”

and

“Sore knees,

sore shoulders,

we’re walking

for your (rhymes with shoulders).”

The breast stop, incidentally, was festooned with bras of all sizes, and the porta-johns, for some reason, were decorated with pictures of actors, athletes and Flipper – the dolphin – sporting paste-on push-ups.

Signs proclaim, “We ‘support’ you,” and, “We raise our ‘cups’ to you.” How brasserie, er, bizarre.

And though I thought I had heard just about every synonym for “breast” by junior high, I found out I was mistaken. Big-time.

There are about 1,500 walkers in the 3-Day, and by my count there are about seven other men.

So maybe I shouldn’t be surprise that such breast banter is so, well, out in the open.

Then again, the fight against breast cancer isn’t just about finding a cure. It’s also about education, and it’s a lot easier to educate when you can talk openly about breasts without tittering. Sorry. Snickering.