Rant #3,643: Jump

Now, there is some thought here on Long Island on not making physical education--namely gym class--mandatory for most students.

I have kind of mixed feelings about this proposal.

Physical activity is good for the mind, soul and body--

To a degree.

I love sports, but I was a lousy athlete.

Gym class simply amplified my deficiencies, and I really never did well in gym class, in junior high school and through high school.

Students like me were marginalized--in particular in high school, where it was clear who the haves and haves not were.

Our lockers told the true story.

My locker, and others like me, were seemingly in the bowels of the gym, while the athletes' lockers were right on floor level. And they were bigger and nicer than the constantly broken and vandalized lockers that we non-athletes were forced to use.

In junior high, I even failed gym during one semester.

At I.S. 72 in Rochdale Village, Queens, I could not climb the rope like more athletic boys could, and the gym teacher failed me.

I was in an honors class, so that didn't sit too well with myself or my mom, who went up to school about this.

They told me that not only couldn't I climb the rope, but I didn't seem to be fully engaged in the class, no doubt due to the fact that the gym teachers had their favorites, and never chose me to do anything in the class.

The teachers shrugged off my ineptitude to my mother, and they told her that they would try to engage me more on their end.

They made me one of the boys that was in the Leaders Club, but they still never chose me to do anything.

So I was turned off by gym class forever, and since I wasn't an athlete, once I got to high school--i was on Long Island now at Massapequa High School--gym class became a place where I made my own fun, and since I wasn't an athlete, the teachers didn't seem to care one bit.

I know things have changed during the past 50 years, and gym class is more inclusive, and it isn't just athletics, good health is also taught in these classes, and there is more bookwork than when I was a student.

But you know what?

I really could have lived without the class.

It was a good break from regular studies, it gave me something of a break during the day, but if I never took gym, I don't think I would have suffered too much.

And unlike so many others in my situation, I never cut the class, I was always there, but to the gym teachers, I was probably invisible.

I say make gym class an elective, except for athletes.

If you aren't an athlete, you don't have to take gym ... but you can if you want to.

I think that would solve the problem of the "Larrys" of the world, who won't ever get the full effect of gym class--

Not because they don't want to get the full effect, but there are forces that simply won't allow for this to happen.

Problem solved ... and it is funny--and really sad at the same time-- how the sting still exists, 50 or more years after the fact.

Maybe I should do some push-ups to get my mind, and body, on straight again.