School Daze

I totally loved everything about school when I was growing up.  I took my education seriously, and did my best work and made it my goal in life to shine in every subject.

 Except  ... for P.E. or phys-ed as my generation called it.  Physical education was, in my opinion, the worst waste of time and effort.  I saw early on there was no way I could excel at athletics so I went out of my way avoiding P.E. in every way possible.

In fact, looking back over my school career, I only have 3 P.E. related memories:

In Junior High, we were involved in calisthenics.  I remember our gruff mannish P. E. teacher showing us a new routine:  you held your arms, with your elbows bent in front of you with hands clenched and knuckles facing each other then thrusting your elbows back and forth from front to side chanting, "it's better, it's better, it's better for the sweater."

Umm... no.

Then I became a freshman in high school.  Now we had a very pretty P. E. teacher but she clearly did not care for me. (This was shocking to me. I had met a teacher who I could not impress enough to become "teacher's pet.")

She wanted us to run every day.  I would rather be locked in a dungeon than to run around the track.  Running caused one to sweat and I was against sweating.  I know that I probably was not the most co-operative student but did she have to scar me for life?  Because as we ran into the locker room one day, she had to announce in a voice loud enough to wake the dead,
"Jerri, you run like an elephant.  Don't run so heavy on your feet."

This was in my thin days!  I shudder to think what she might say now! How does one run lightly on your feet?

Those words still ring in my ears if I even think about breaking into a run.

And my last, and perhaps my most harrowing, memory of P.E.  Softball.  Girls' softball was the thing our teacher liked best to have us do for our P.E. classes, and the thing I hated most. It took up the whole time period and nothing was required of her other than take roll and assign the positions. Usually I was assigned outfield where I spent most of my days singing to myself or in a daze thinking all kinds of thoughts.

One day, teacher decided to change up positions.  I was assigned catcher.

Big mistake.

I don't remember any equipment available to wear for catcher; if there was any, I didn't have it on.

Obediently, I positioned myself behind home plate.  I stuck my glove up looking like I was ready for anything, but actually, my mind was checked out. A couple of batters came and went without me having to do much of anything.

photo:  wikipedia.commons

Next up was our power hitter.  I didn't even glance at her to know which kid she was.  If I had, I might have remembered that she was a batter that had a habit of taking a step backward
before she would cream an incoming ball.

Too bad I didn't remember that.  The pitcher threw a fast ball and the batter stepped back and put all her weight into connecting with that ball.  Unfortunately my hand was up in the way.

The batter made a home run, while I fell over on my side.  I have never seen the landscape look silver with neon pink outlined shapes before. 

Long story short, my hand was broken.

Yeah ... P.E. was never my favorite subject ....

This post was written in response to Writer's Workshop prompt 5.) Your least favorite subject in school.  If you'd like share about your least favorite school subject, leave a comment, or link up at Kat's blog, Mama's Losin' It.