Tuesday, January 10, 2012

Thursday, January 10th, 1974

Because of the weather again, I went to school a couple hours late today but I really didn't mind much. That meant I missed gym class.

Terry and I today began a race to see who can write down the most comic book titles by Midnight Sunday! The prize is something I have just got to win!

NOTES: I was never good at gym class. It wasn't even so much that I wasn't the athletic type. It was more the motion-sickness issue. For my entire life, I would get extremely nauseated and dizzy just from looking from side to side too fast, let alone actually moving. I couldn't ride in a bus or car without some issues and amusement park rides were out of the question. Period. 


In grade school, gym class was mostly boys and girls running around or playing silly games with only the occasional actual exercises or tumbling. Organized indoor recess.  I wasn't thrilled but I had learned to compensate. Starting with seventh grade, it was now P.E.---Physical Education. Boys only, you had to wear jock straps (which I could never figure out exactly), there were real, required exercises and play to win games of dodgeball and basketball and you had to shower naked with other boys. WHAT THE FUCK!? No one had warned super-shy me about this! 


Not only that, for all three years at that school, my PE teacher was a man who had not the slightest interest in understanding how I felt about this or about my motion sickness problem and if I got injured in a dodgeball game, he seemed to think I deserved it. I got the worst grades I had ever had in his "class." Needless to say, PE was one major reason why I no longer enjoyed school as much as I had all through the elementary years.


Any excuse to miss it and I was happy. 

1 comment:

Tom said...

When 7th grade started, a jock strap made a sudden and mysterious appearance in my dresser drawer. My mom made no mention nor offered any explanation. What was worse was it was a hand-me-down from my older brothers. Needless to say, I never used it. The first time I ever wore a jock strap was over 30 years later when I got a vasectomy!