Tramampoline! Trambopoline!

In grade eight I became champion in the trampoline war that was gym class. And I almost got my ass kicked for it.

I was always more of a geek than an athlete in school so I would get teased for being a bookworm or smarty-pants & almost always got picked last in gym class. Even though I knew it was coming it was always hurtful. There’s a certain sense of shame that goes along with this that you just aren’t good enough & when you believe it I think it just becomes this perpetual cycle of sucking. If you think you can’t hit that stupid t-ball you probably won’t. Don’t think you can play floor hockey because the boys hog the puck/ball then you most likely won’t take a chance to score a goal. Trust that the volleyball is going to hurt your wrists when some athletic classmate spikes the ball in your direction & it’s gonna smart like a bitch. So you end up standing back being utterly useless & fulfilling the presumption that you are not worthy of ever being picked first.

The gym teachers I had never tried to make a difference either. Just like in the movies there was the requisite butch lesbian who made us play golf & floor hockey, dodgeball & climb the dreaded ropes. There was the super hefty jock who made us run in circles & then play that evil volleyball game where the boys thought the goal was to hit the ball at any girl as hard as they could. Sometimes our geography teacher would come in make us do calisthenics until we all wanted to puke. Those were the worst days as he was a real masochist with a very quick temper. Once he threw a desk at this sweet kid named Aaron just because he passed a note in class. Anyway needless to say they weren’t the most supportive mentors to pathetic weakling students like me.

It also didn’t help that most of the kids in my new junior high had been together since kindergarten so they had their cliques & friends firmly established. It was like trying to break into a bank with a heavy security detail. The only way I found any sense of cool was being friends with the other new girl in school who had the most perfectly feathered hair, great clothes & pretty eyes that all the boys like. Plus she had a big sister who could kick all kinds of ass if she wanted to & she smoked so that made her ultra-cool. Turns out my new best friend was pretty good in gym class too so that gave me a little protection & with that a little more confidence. This I turned into a few decent performances such as running in those stupid circles. Seems I wasn’t the fastest runner but stamina I had plenty of & ended up running more laps than anyone else. I also lasted one of the longest in the first Jump Rope for Heart contest things in the school. So I was finally good at something other than reading & it felt pretty good. It didn’t make me any higher up the echelon in the picking order but it didn’t make me any enemies either.

That is until I found what I was really, really good at in gym class.

The trampoline was something everyone looked forward to all year long. We didn’t learn anything too fancy on it though some of the boys tried to do back flips when the teacher wasn’t directly looking at them. What we did on it was play a game. A game called Competition. Two people at opposite corners would jump three times then sit on their butt & then get up to jump again. It went on like this until someone couldn’t get up again. So it was 3 jumps – seat-drop - jump - seat-drop - jump - seat-drop, etc. like getting up from a chair & sitting back down repeatedly. Sounds silly & simple but there was an art to this game & it was in the timing. And the stare down. I perfected both & started demolishing my opponents. I’d give them the eye from my corner & then somehow with my super rhythm I’d get them off balance so they could not get up again no matter how hard they tried.

This was the best gym performance of my life & even the teachers were a little surprised that this nerdy scrawny little kid was kicking some major butt. So were the cool athletic girls who were my only real competition. I think there were about 5 of them & they were pissed that I was going to take the title away from their leader Mona. She was the only one that came close to beating me & our competition lasted for almost an entire gym class. I ended up winning but in doing so I was suddenly at the top of the cool girls list of people they wanted to beat up. I was terrified. Nowadays the stuff they did to me would qualify as bullying & might get them in shit but back then it was every kid for themselves. The only protection I had was in sticking close to my best friend & at the front of the class where I had several heads between them & myself to deflect the spitballs.

For some reason we traveled to another school for our home-ec / shops classes. They’d taunt me on the bus saying they would beat the crap out of me after school or at recess. In baking class I was put into a group with two of them & we were actually buddies until the trampoline incident. After that they made me absolutely miserable so I would try to help my friend’s group instead. The teacher would always make me go back to my own kitchen area with Maria & Angela where they wouldn’t let me do anything to help like add ingredients or even stir the bowl. All I got to do was wash the dishes & then to top it all off, they wouldn’t set a place for me at our table where we were supposed to partake of our delightful banana muffins, triticale honey bread or scrumptious yet healthy date squares. One time they all cornered me in the girl’s bathroom & I thought I was a goner but all they did was threaten me some more & pull my hair.

I think it finally escalated at recess one day when we were playing in the snow outside. Somehow they got me up against the fence & started yelling at me, calling me all kinds of names I’d never heard before & shoving my face into the snow. I was soaking wet & cold by the end of it but they never actually beat me up. All these threats they didn’t make good on. I finally knew they were as chicken as I was – they just had strength in numbers & even with that they still weren’t as tough as I thought they were. I told my best friend what happened when we went to band class & I think she told her sister. Who knows, maybe she threatened them or maybe they decided I wasn’t worth the effort. In any case they dropped most of the bullying after that, though I still had to deal with dirty looks. Then I got mono & when I came back to school I had my saving grace in the form of a sick note from the doctor that excused me from gym class for the rest of the year.

At least trampoline season was over & I went out on top like a champ.

Obviously I've missed a couple of my scheduled Monday Morning Memories but one of them was a holiday & the other, well I don't remember what happened. So this is me catching up, making amends so to speak. I know it's not morning once again so perhaps I should drop that from the moniker but I still like the way it sounds & there's nothing like a little guilty prodding to make me think I'll get in in before noon the next time.