The Sunday Memory Drawer - Tumbling Tumult

If you have any sort of memory, you'll know that the kid in this picture ain't me.

Okay, let's review where we left off last Sunday.

I hated gym class.

Check.

I particularly hated gymnastics.

Check.

And I really, really hated one of my elementary school gym teachers, a snubnose named Seth Hicks.

Check, check, and check.

I forget what grade of school Mr. Hicks infiltrated my life, but the gym classes that year couldn't disappear quickly enough.  He had the lofty expectation that every kid in our class was as athletically gifted as he might have been during his college basketball days at Seton Hall or his one or two games playing in the NBA. 

My athletic gifts had apparently been returned to God unopened.

This was a collision course from Hell.

He'd stand in front of us all and give us some asinine instructions on what we were going to do next.  I'd immediately assume a quizzical pose.

He wants me to do what and then what and then what?

"Yes, you will participate, son."

That rankled the shit out of me.  Son?  First of all, there is no way we're related.  You're tall.  I'm not.  Yet.  You're skinny.  I'm...well, not.  And, oh, did I mention that I'm white...and you're.....?

Yeah, I couldn't possibly be your "son."

I have never hated any one teacher more.  To wit, I had completely forgotten his name until two weeks.  I obviously had blocked it from the innermost recesses of my mind.  But, when it was uttered again by one of my school chums on Faceback, all the fear and smarminess and attitude came back to me in tsunami-like waves.

I knew my problems with Mr. Hicks could only get worse as the school year plodded on.  I thought of discussing this with Mom and Dad, but, in those days,  my parents were rarely seen and virtually never heard. 

"Mind the teacher."

That's what I got.  But what if the teacher is a scummy piece of crap that needs to blow up in an explosion down at the local iron works plant.

"Mind the teacher."

Thanks.

I feared the almost inevitable battle with this jerk when that gymnastics time of year rolled around.   It was bad enough with the most gentle of gym teachers.  What would it be like with this Snidely Whiplash in shorts and a whistle?

You see, I had a particular problem when those gym mats were down and those ropes were hanging from the ceiling.

The forward roll.  Also known as the somersault.  We don't get along.   Because I have done one of these things just once in my life when I was about eight years old. And never again.  And the horror had begun not in a gym class but....well, here's the tale I have told here before.

It was during my ill-fated attempt at attending a summer day camp. The Boys Club-sponsored Camp Mohawk. I was supposed to be there all summer, but I lasted just two weeks. What was supposed to be a field trip or some great activity every day turned out to be perhaps one bus trip and nothing but a daily eight-hour-long gym class. And, on one disastrous day, there were gymnastics. Rings, the ropes, and the balance beam. To me, all crap that is better left in the backyards of China.

But, it all started with the basics. We were to learn the proper way to do a forward roll. You know. You squat into a crouch. Lock your arms around you for support, tuck your head, and over.

Except I was afraid of it. A fear of being upside down, which also means I have no future as a pineapple-adorned cake. When it was my turn to crouch, tuck, and roll, I pretty much locked into position and wouldn't move. There was no way I was going to do this. The psychopath who doubled as our loving camp counselor wanted no part of my obstinance. He grabbed my feet and flung me over.

OUCH!!!!!

I thought my neck was broken and did what any eight-year-old would do. I cried. Now, if this had happened in today's litigious society, this chowderhead would have been fired by the end of the day. But, back then, when I got home and told my parents about the inhumane treatment I had received from Attila the Hun, I got a non-reaction. And the usual command.

"Can you run to the grocery store? We're out of pickled beets."

With my back seemingly broken, there was no way I was going to run anywhere, regardless of our dire need for vacuum packed vegetables.

So, as I closed in on the forward roll that I would likely be presented with by the nastiest gym teacher in the history of the Western world, you can imagine my impending doom.  I quickly put myself into "medical excuse" overdrive.  How fast could I screw up a part of my body so that I would be a slam dunk for the sidelines?

I devoted several days to literally throwing myself onto the floor or into a wall.  I'd purposely roll out of bed.  Several times in a row.  Over and over and over.

Nothing.

While watching television at night, I would use my down time productively.  I'd grab hold of my ankle and try to twist it out of shape.  Surely, you could self inflict a sprained ankle. 

Nothing.

I finally confessed my fears to Mom and Dad. 

This time, I did get something.  As told previously...

My parents decided that you conquer fear by meeting it head on. One school year, they made it their personal mission to get me to roll forward. My mother demonstrated it, probably with a cigarette in her mouth. My father showed me several times, perhaps as a result of one too many Schaefers at the local gin mill. And then out came the piece de resistance. The deal closer.

Grandma.

She told me that, if she could do one, so could I. And, then she promised that seeing would be believing. Out into the hall she went with every single cushion from every sofa and chair in the house. Laid out from wall to wall, Grandma had constructed her own Gold's gym. And, in lickity split fashion, she bent down, tucked her head, and rolled over. Only once. That was probably all her 70-plus years could muster. I was impressed. I was nonplussed. I was ashamed for making such a fuss all these years.

Terrific, Grandma.  Thanks for the help.   Now, excuse me while I throw myself down the cellar stairs.

The day of the forward roll came all too soon.  Our stalag commandant of a gym teacher lined us up.  You'd reach the edge of the mat, squat, and turn over like an omelette.  Naturally, I kept letting my classmates go ahead of me.   Eventually, I was on the end of the line and had run out of other kids.

I stepped up to the mat and then turned to Mr. Hicks. 

"I can't do this."

There was a five second pause that lasted a decade.  I steeled myself for the verbal barrage.  Except...

"Okay."

HUH???????

You're kidding, right???  Is that all you got, Hicks???  "Okay?!!!" 

I walked away.  The fact that I had indeed bitten the bullet on this year's edition of the forward roll wound up in the back seat of my mind.  I was thinking about this gym teacher of mine.  I was shocked.  I was mystified.  And I was oddly and suddenly impressed.  Was there actually a heart inside this ogre?  Had I completely misread this guy? 

Well, the flying donkey didn't stay up in the air long.  On the very next day, we had moved onto rope climbing.  I got about three feet off the ground and pronounced my mission as "completed."  Mr. Hicks had other ideas.

"You're kidding, right???  Is that all you got, son????!!!!"

Yeah, a zebra never does change his stripes.

Dinner last night:  Turkey burger at Pig N'Whistle.