Skip to main content
Marbles are for...

Somewhere between unsuccessfully trying to suppress a few sobs at the poignancy of flawed humanity and experiencing a deeply satisfying grin as Bill Murray over-sings Bob Dylan’s “Shelter from the Storm” during the credits of my second watching of the movie “St, Vincent” on Netflix, I was hit with a memory from long ago Junior High School as Murray’s Vince, recovering from a stroke, was made to pick up marbles with his toes and deposit them into a nearby bowl.  A strange thing to associate, is it not? But that is what well-done fiction is all about: connecting us with both universal and very personal things.

Along about 1964, shortly after the assassination of JFK and still under the influence of his school- based physical education initiative, our local school officials had every student evaluated in terms of stature and other physical qualities.  I remember standing sideways in front of a graphed board set up in what doubled as the Junior High gym and lunch room.  Spinal curvature was mapped and sundry physical traits were documented.  In my case, it was determined that I had early signs of an incipient scoliosis and insufficient arch in my feet (I think they were kind to not refer to us as ‘flat footed’). There was probably some reference to mild obesity hidden somewhere in that report as well.  So, the far-sighted school and health administration of the day decreed:  Thou shalt be sentenced to a series of scientifically designed exercises every Saturday and thus shall heal thy crooked back and feet and save thy soul from pudginess. 

They succeeded in only one of these lofty goals, really:  To this day, I have well-developed arches.

And so I found myself, much to my Saturday morning thwarted play time disgust, sentenced to two hours of hanging by my hands from the gymnastic rings attached to long ropes suspended from the ceiling (spine straightening), climbing hand over hand up thick knotted ropes and generally doing a series of carefully designed exercises (obesity fighting) and, finally, what was probably the most absurd element - combatting future flat-footedness by sitting on a fold-out chair, removing my sneakers and socks, and spending 15 to 20 minutes grasping between big and second toes one of a pile of colorful glass aggies from a pile on the floor in front of me and carefully transferring it to a plastic bowl set to the side.  What concentration, what muscular command, what dexterity I projected as my somewhat blockish appendages wrapped themselves around globe after glass globe and transferred  them to the waiting receptacle.


Bring on any kind of later-year physical toe challenge, folks.  I am ready.

(P.S.  If I am to give full respect to that Junior High gym and lunch room, I would be remiss in not mentioning the bowls of Split Pea Soup.  Anyone who went through the Danville School system during that period will know what I mean.  The only thing that balances out the memory of that  horrible green mess were the hamburger pinwheels.) 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

¿Til Death do us Part

A few months ago, I entered into an online writing competition sponsored by a group call NYC Midnight (https://www.nycmidnight.com). The challenge was to write 1,000 word short story in 48 hours. Guidelines given were that the genre of the story should be "Romance", the setting for the story "A cottage") and at some point in the story a "Whisk" should appear. I didn't win anything, but got some good feedback, both positive and constructive.   ‘Til Death do us Part   There is so much more to love than simple romance. John and Stuart show us what a lifetime of commitment means to true love. I returned from my walk at around three in the afternoon. The sun cut through the trees to give the cottage a surreal glow. The sound of Puccini’s “Nessun Dorma” wafted through the windows and out into the surrounding forest. It was John’s favorite piece, and I was glad that I had bought it for him on one of our first Valentines Days together. These days, I w...
Post a Comment
Read more

READING

  Never take for granted that you are reading this.   When Sam was 14 years old, he dropped out of school and went to work in the Homestead Steel Mill in Pittsburgh. During his time in the public school system he never learned how to read. He was considered “slow”, so they just kept shuffling him from grade-to-grade. During his 30 years as a laborer in the mill, reading wasn’t that important – he was able to get along by following verbal instructions and, if unexpectedly faced with a written document, he had his tricks: casually get a co-worker to comment on the document or, if it was urgent, call his wife at home and read it out to her letter by letter so that she could read it back to him. Sometimes he would use the excuse that he had left his eyeglasses at home. Much of his energy and innate creativity went into hiding from others the fact that he didn’t know how to read.   Then, after more than 30 years of getting by, the mill shut down. Sam found...
Post a Comment
Read more

ALL THE WORLD IS KINDA LIKE A STAGE

In the summer of 1975, while pursuing a degree in Theatre Design at Penn State University, I headed to Dayton, Ohio to work as a stage carpenter at Wright State University.   The summer theatre season put on by the University included six productions:   the musical Man of La Mancha based on the story of Don Quixote; the psychological thriller Veronica's Room (by Ira Leven –author of Rosemary’s Baby); the classic black comedy “ Arsenic and Old Lace ”; “ After Magritte ”, a surreal comedy by Tom Stoppard; “ The Real Inspector Hound ”, a one-act audience participation ‘whodunit’ also by Stoppard and, finally, Shakespeare’s “ Twelfth Night”.   You can well imagine the craziness of pulling together SIX plays over a four month period, all on the same stage!   The set designer, whose name is lost both to me and the internets) was considered one of the best of his time.   In order to meet the heavy schedule, we first completed the first set – in this case for Man...
Post a Comment
Read more