The Gymkana Try-outs!

Hello kids!

Ready for another bedtime story?? Okay, well here goes:

I think about this story because the little brother of one of my classmates passed away a couple weeks ago. I don't remember Sandy's brother, Billy, very well. I will always remember Sandy, though. Sandy was kind of pretty, and she was a blonde which made her beautiful to all the boys I knew even though they may not have felt they stood a chance with her! Sandy carried a comb with her everywhere she went and combed her hair frequently at least whenever I was in her company. My hair was ash blonde and short like Twiggy's! I didn't have to comb mine!

Sandy and our mutual friend, Julie, decided we were going to try out for the Gymkana team. Now this word, "Gymkana" may be foreign to some of you who were born in the 1970's. You are more familiar with the term, "gymnastic". I looked like a stick with decent legs back in high school. Sandy and Julie were much more limber than I, however. We would be judged on two maneuvers: Hand springs and back bends. We practiced for a week in Sandy's front yard doing cartwheels, back-bends, and hand-springs. Hand-stands when done correctly look quite graceful and easily done. It was a matter of bending over forward and quickly, touching your hands to the ground, letting your hands bear your weight, and making your body erect with your feet straight up in the air! Next, you must gracefully right yourself by doing a back-bend. That was Maneuver #1. Now for Maneuver #2+! You could get into a back-bend two different ways. You could do the handspring maneuver and go backwards placing your feet firmly on the ground then righting yourself - or - you could just bend over backwards until your hands touched the ground in back of you. In order to pass this test your back had to be perfectly arched. As hard as I practiced with Sandy and Julie I could never master the hand springs gracefully! I could get upside down in the right position, buy my "righting myself" style needed work. I didn't trust my own hands to find the ground in back of me when I was doing back-bends. Sandy and Julie looked like a garden archway. I knew they would probably gain a place on the team. I didn't know what the outcome would be for me, but I just had to try.

Finally the big day came for the Gymkana try-outs. The girls competed in one half of the gym while the boys were in the other. Gymkana was a co-ed operation. The gym was alive with the sounds of the voices of countless candidates. Ms. Field was the Girl's Gym teacher who would determine which girls would make the cut.

I watched as Sandy and Julie tried out. It was finally my turn. I did the back-bend perfectly for the first and last time!! My back was aching, but what's a little pain in the heat of competition?? Next, I was to do the hand spring while Mrs. Field looked on with her clip-board. I lined up, got my body upside down with my hands on the floor, and my feet high in the air. What happened next is something I'll never forget even though everybody else who was there probably has (at least I hope so)! My back went straight. My feet hit the gym floor with a splat. I had landed like a living room table that gets put down roughly on a wooden floor then the legs fall off leaving the table flat! I closed my eyes. When I opened them Ms. Field and the other girls had formed a circle around me. Next, Ms. Field said, "Are you alright"? I wanted to put my hands over my eyes and make myself disappear! My back hurt for a week after the tryouts.

Julie made the Gymkana team! Sandy and I didn't! Thank God there weren't any camcorders back then. I would be the example of how not to do a hand spring for eternity in the film archives at South High!