One of the few good things about an all-girls high school? Everything was geared towards girls
All 3 dances. Yep. I’m so old, I don’t think rock climbing had been invented yet. The rocks were still forming ….
I was a jock, I loved PE. Got my letter sweater with all the little sports emblems to sew on it.
Took tap and ballet when I was in elementary school. I remember when I got my pointe shoes I was so proud. My mother was a seamstress and she made all my costumes, even my tutu. We didn’t have square dancing in school but we lived in a rural area and belonged to the Grange and they had Saturday night dances. Just the other day, for some strange reason, I thought about the Varsovienne, it was one of my favorite folk dances.
Boy, reading all your “fond” HS memories I am even more grateful that the German school day ends at 1pm. Sure, we had P.E., too, but I generally enjoyed it — save for circle training, which I despised. But dodgeball, volleyball, basketball, soccer, rugby, swimming?
Bring it.
I was a skinny kid, and hated dodgeball; any sports in fact. I was happier doing mathematics. One of my friends was smaller than me, and the bigger guys went after him. Poor kid was always scared and on the verge of tears.
For some reason I took German for 5 months (this was in Uganda). One of my friends was voted least likely to learn the language. He somehow ended up working in Germany (was given 6 months to learn the language, or out he went). He survived, and even made it to CFO.
Oh man. This just made me break out in a cold sweat.
The only thing that might help is if we get to do the parachute.
A lot going on my mind, worried about a lot of things. I ahve too much on my plate right now, my degree, my small business, my job which takes my 3 hours to travel for that, so it is all hectic and tiring and I just want some peace now!
Oh yes, it started in elementary school…we had a lot of fun with it. “Rhythms” was what our social/folk dancing units were in elementary school. That was a lot of fun. In 6th grade we had a private social dance class on Friday nights. 45s were given away…I won a few over the course of the class. I still have the “Incense and Peppermints” 45. Us 6th graders were right in the middle of the hippie scene and we were just an hour away from Haight-Ashbury.
I once was asked, “Mom, did they have shors when you were a kid?”
I had no idea about this history. I learned square dancing in fifth or 7th grade at my small Mid-Atlantic religious school.
I went to a school that was 90% Jewish in a large urban district. I don’t recall the teaching of square dancing raising any red flags.
ETA: As I said, we also learned the Mexican Hat dance and the Charleston
Sometimes I find it helps to come to HO!
Me too. Breaking died at the end of “Beat Street” in my mind. Cool movie, though.
Oh, hell yeah! “Go you chicken fat GO!!!”
“76 trombones led the big parade…”
The rocks were still living animals.
We had a girl in 5th grade who did 30 pull ups. Don’t mess with Judy!
Square dancing ultimately relied on one’s pardner and corner. I’ve learned over the years that my useless talents include being a fair square dance caller. “men make a left hand star…go twice 'round from where you are.”
Kids kill me. One day at lunch duty I was just chatting with a group about square dancing and terms. They were square dancing in PE. One astute girl, after my hear, asked me " does allemande have something to do with Germany? (She was in my Spanish class and noticed the Spanish word for G
German is “Alema’n.”) I looked up allemande and it was a French court dance derived from a German folk dance. Kids teach me more than a prof ever could.
Damn, nightmare fuel. Love they threw in a pocket to hold a pack of smokes while you’re climbing the feckin’ rope. I remember I really had to see a teacher quick, but he was in the lounge. I gently knocked on the door, and the smoke that rolled out of that room was a mini Mt. St. Helens. Every adult that told ya not to smoke was huffing hard.
Damn, I was kind of a manchild in 5th - junior high. I targeted assholes like that. I could just see them going for a smaller kid, or the girl they’d like to voit face into crying, and I’d try to decapitate those “tuff guys.” Dodgeball tends to bring out the pricks in PE.
I noticed that too at an event at my niece’s school.
Even worse: I worked 4 years in a hospital and was always amazed by doctors and nurses smoking. The cafeteria had a small room for non-smokers, but every now and again a smoker would light up in that room. When the hospital moved to a new facility, it was made entirely non-smoking.