Bad school memory- from light to heavy

07DAD
Fri, 14 Nov 2008 13:58:43 +0000

AH–P.E.

In 11th grade one of the P.E. teachers was a goon. On Mondays mornings he always smelled like a still. If he was hung over enough he’d make us do gymnastics inside to stay out of the weather. He’d have us do some tumbling that included doing a handspring over a rolled up mat. He’d sit on the floor and pull the rolled up mat toward the gym’s brick wall so he could rest his back on the wall. Then he would announce that we would do this exercise until all of us did it right in one run through. Yeah, right, 25 guys in public high school – there wasn’t ever going to be a time when everyone made that handspring. So, we’d have to do it over and over with the arms getting weaker and weaker until he’d start calling everyone “sissies” (it was 1967) and then go on to the next “exercise.”

Well, one Monday morning (2nd period P.E.) on about the third or fourth round through this torture, I managed to flub the handspring, come down on my ankle (which snapped so loud one of the other coaches came over to see what happened) and pitched sideways with my head smacking the brick wall. Turned out I had broken the ankle and splintered a bone in my leg. The cretin scooted on his behind over to where I lay and actually rotated my ankle. When I yelled he said go down into the gym basement and have one of the injured football guys ice it since “it was just a sprain.”

I managed to get down stairs into the basement with the help of another student and AGAINST ALL RULES used the coaches’ office phone to call my parents; Mom at home and Dad at his office. The only time I can ever remember that I couldn’t reach either one (remember 1967–no cell phones). I called a college age family friend who was home from college early for Xmas and had him come get me.

There is an O Henry twist. My Dad was an attorney. The school wanted me (I was 17) and my father to sign a release. We did but the goon was “history.” He went to TCU as a football coach and was fired shortly thereafter [brutality].