My Old School - IV

Let’s get physical.

The PE wing of the school was a whole ’nother world. Our budding sexuality, coupled with an imperfect understanding of basic physiology, made for some interesting times. The physical layout of the annex, with its perfect symmetry (excepting the urinals in the boys’ locker room) allowed the boys and girls to be together only during “social dancing”, when the gym’s massive dividing wall would be rolled away. We would then be together, thankfully in our street clothes, not in our gym unis. One thing I recall learning in those sessions was that girls had sweaty palms. I would explore the phenomenon of female secretions in depth at a later date.

The locker rooms offered another kind of “physical education.” After the initial problem with the showers was corrected, we showered; the nakedness of our variously developed bodies (and the occasional embarrassing boner) was something that had to be endured, as well as the welts from wet towels being snapped.

The locker rooms were dangerous places: slippery floors, crowded conditions, and, in my case, a locker door. I was reaching for my shoes and my index finger brushed against part of the door that had a razor sharp burr. I received a gash that went nearly to the bone. I went to the gym office, bleeding all the way, and received a bandage, but not much in sympathy. The gym teacher acted like it was my fault. It eventually healed, but I really should have had stitches: it is still the deepest scar I have.

The swimming pool was barely heated so all the kids who weren't fat turned purple in about five minutes. My swimming progress went backwards in those three years; the chronic ear infections I suffered from the pool didn’t help either.

Above the locker rooms were two classrooms, they were used for health and sex ed. I did get to make out with a resuscitation doll, so I guess I the class had some practical value.