Let's not even talk about dodgeball.

My trip to the gym this morning is proof that there is life after
complete and utter humiliation in grade school physical education (PE).
It took many years before I could bring myself to walk into another gym
for fear that Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome would reduce me to a
sniveling mess. Or worse yet, someone would make me climb a rope.

Students that were in band or athletics were excused from PE. I did not
belong to anything so there I was with one overweight kid and a bunch of
juvenile deliquents. The overweight kid occasionally spared me from
being the last guy picked for the team, but usually a chubby kid was
preferred over a kid who dodged fly balls instead of catching them.

In elementary school and junior high, I had a sadistic coach who seemed
to loath weak boys as much as my peers did. Once when everyone on my
basketball team fouled out but me, he made me play alone against the
five guys on the other team. By the end of the hour I was exhausted and
horrified to have been the object of catcalls and hoots like I imagine
might be heard in a coleseum in ancient Rome.

But, then came high school and my savior. I had a young, good looking,
compansionate coach who seemed to like me in spite of the fact that I
could not do a single chin-up and threw the ball like a girl. That man
saved my sanity.

I am sure that there have been countless times that a teacher like him
has saved the life of a depressed, discouraged and lonely student just
by being compassionate and understanding. I will never forget him.

As for most of those athletic guys, well by our ten-year reunion their
muscles had settled in around their midsections and their thick necks
sagged into swollen jowls.

I'm no longer bitter - just glad to be who I am, and at 50, to be in pretty
good shape for a guy who was the last guy picked for the team.


Hold that thought...
James