G is for Gym class

I think I mentioned gym class in a much earlier entry. If not, then I meant to. How do I know this? I know this because I saved a photo of an ugly blue girl’s gym suit to my blog photo file. Remember this:

Yes, that truly hideous creation was something that we had to wear twice each week from seventh grade on up. Remember, in those days we weren’t allowed to wear slacks, let alone jeans or shorts, to school. It was all about dresses and skirts. So of course, we wouldn’t be allowed to wear anything comfortable for physical education class — the oft-dreaded P.E. or Gym.

In some ways gym class wasn’t bad. We weren’t studying. We could walk around and get some exercise. But in others…

First of all, there was the locker room. We were each assigned a locker and given a combination lock to place on it. Each lock had a serial number inscribed on it, so if we lost the lock — which usually happened in the locker room — the gym teacher knew exactly whose it was. We still had to pay to have it “replaced” but chances are the teacher had the lost lock.

Locks were the least of our worries. In the locker room we had to undress. Yes, down to underwear in order to don that lovely blue uniform. Seriously folks, this was embarrassing. We were brought up in a modest age, well before when tweens and younger posted suggestive photos on Facebook or Instagram. We didn’t have cell phones or computers. Our cameras held film which had to be taken to a drug store to be developed and printed. We certainly weren’t posting photos anywhere.

And to undress in front of someone else? Even another girl? After all, some of them had actually breasts and others didn’t. Those who had them were embarrassed and those who didn’t were embarrassed and it make a bit of sense but everyone was uncomfortable with shedding those outer clothes. So it was done as quickly as possible, trying not to look at each other.

Then off to the gym we went.

Gym classes were segregated — boys and girls each had a half of the gym, usually divided by movable walls. We also had separate fields or areas when we went outside for class. At least, most of the time. More on that later.

Once we arrived at the gym, we milled about until the teacher arrived, blowing her whistle to signal that we had begun. This meant that we had to line up next to each other, usually along a specified line on the gym floor or field. My memory is hazy on this: Did we line up in alphabetical order or any old way? Whichever, following the whistle, we received the command, “Dress right!” At this point, each of us placed right hand on hip and looked to the right and jostled. Yep, jostled. When we finished, all of us needed to be exactly spaced, with right elbow jutting out to touch the arm of the girl to our right.

Just a moment’s digression here. We were all different sizes, so how exact could that spacing created by shoulder-elbow-hip be? And I know that the picture is military but I couldn’t find one of a gym class doing this.

However, properly spaced, I think we went into “sound off” mode, where we started at one end (probably the right, since we were all looking in that direction) and shouted our last name in turn. This was the teacher’s way of taking attendance, though how could they really keep track? Maybe we counted off? Then if we ended up with fewer than should be there, the teacher could figure it out. It’s all kind of fuzzy. Am I blocking out all of the fond memories?

Oh. I think this was also the time when we indicated if we were, “private.” Oh yeah. Is it that time of month? Make sure you let everyone else know by bellowing this out. Why? Again, more on this later.

And what did we do in gym? A little of this, a little of that, much of it disagreeable.

In junior high (what most would now call middle school), what I remember most is gymnastics. Our teacher, Mrs. Weingartner, loved gymnastics. She even started a gym team with lots of different dance and apparatus events and we put on an annual show. So yes, we all got to experience balance beam, parallel bars, and springboard and horse. That part was fun.

Our next gym teacher — 9th and 10th grade — loved field hockey.

For the first several weeks of the school year, we’d take ourselves outdoors, be given “pinnies” to indicate which team we were on, and run back and forth waving sticks. A few of us (not me) were good at this. The rest of us truly were just running back and forth waving sticks.

Spring brought an even more painful outdoor event: running the 500. We started at a designated spot in the school parking lot and had to run or walk 500 yards, while our teacher recorded our time. I think that our grade was based on the time it took us to make this circuit. Guess who always came up short?

Some of the other activities weren’t so bad. Indian clubs, for example.

I really enjoyed learning to swing them in our synchronized activities. Of course, occasionally one would get away from someone — which could be very dangerous. Odd, I can’t find any record of it online but this past week I saw a video on the news of an extreme sport using these wooden clubs. The participants juggle them, while trying to knock into the other competitors and interrupt their juggling. I think I’m glad we didn’t have to do that.

And interpretive dancing. Run-run-leap. Somehow that’s what I remember most of dance. We needed to practice that move and then split into teams and choose a song and create a dance to perform for the rest of the class. It turned out to be quite fun.

And the other dancing we did. Square dancing. I think that we all had a love-hate relationship with square dancing. Do-si-do, allemande left, and promenade.

The moves were kind of fun and led up to the annual Sadie Hawkins Dance, where the girls asked the boys and we all dressed like hillbillies. However. . .this was the one time of the year when we had mixed-gender gym class. That could have been exciting, but remember those gym suits?

Can we say embarrassing?

There were other activities as well: volleyball, basketball, softball, etc.

Time to wrap this up, which means time to discuss the end of the gym class. Remember the embarrassment of taking off our street clothes to put on the gym suit? At the end of the class we had to reverse that process.

Sort of.

At the end of class, we were all sweaty and smelly and it was time to shower. Together.

Yeah, undressing to underwear was bad enough. Now we had to strip and step into the group showers. Yes. The teacher controlled the water, turning it on and then striding through the locker room to assure that all of us were getting unsweaty. Into those group stalls we went.

Unless, of course, we had indicated “private” at the beginning of the class. If it was “that time of month,” we were entitled to a “private shower.” We had to hurry through that and the teacher kept a record of our cycles to be sure that no one was cheating.

And then we had to towel dry and dress quickly — both to keep from looking at each other and to make it to our next class on time. The result was that we were usually still damp and clothes stuck to us.

Maybe it was just me. But I still don’t like the idea of going to the gym.