Gym Class as a Kid

So, I was walking to work today, and I passed a pickup truck that had some sort of wheel dolly in the back of it. It reminded me of childhood gym classes. What is the connection you might ask? Well, I started to think back about this and other fond (and strange) childhood gym class memories at good ol' Morgan Township Elementary School.
Despite the fact that there is NO way in the world any of these things would pass modern safety standards, they all seemed fun at the time.
So, let's start with the dolly...We used to have these little 4-wheeled dolly/palette-like things. We had all kinds of races with these things: laying on our bellies and scooting ourselves with our hands (lots of swollen fingers from this one), laying on our bellies and having another person hold our legs and push us (again many swollen fingers), obstacle courses, scooter-style races, and many other fun things in which these fun little carts could slip out from under us or run over fingers.

Then there was "tumbling." To back up a minute, I forgot to mention that our elementary school principal was always our gym teacher. Well, during the latter half of elementary school, this was a very tall man who, coincidentally, was my mom's drivers' education instructor! "Tumbling" basically consisted of spreading out a mat and then running up and flipping over Mr. S's knee or his back, if he was on all fours. Not a lot of focus on form. Or safety (notice a theme). Yeah, so it is hard to believe that children flipping over a grown man's knee, but I promise it was totally harmless and a great deal of fun!

In fifth grade, we divided into boys and girls for basketball season. All boys played basketball, and all girls practiced cheerleading! Augh. Anyway, there were two of us girls who didn't want to cheerlead, so we would play basketball with the boys. Inevitably, Mr. S would forget and assign one of us to the "skins" team.

Dodgeball, parachutes, basketball, presidential fitness tests, basketball, kickball, lots of throwing things and running around...and oh yeah, did I mention that growing up in the Hoosier state meant lots of playing basketball? Ah, fond memories. I think gym class was a lot more fun when they weren't all concerned about safety standards and lawsuits! We all survived and have a lot of stories to look back on fondly. Good times.