In elementary school our PE teacher was named Mr Turner. I think he used to be in the army or something and decided that he was going to put us into boot camp! Some days we would have to climb a rope to the ceiling or use pegs to climb up the wall. Not to mention the different stations where we had to do countless pull ups, sit ups and jump rope. If we were able to climb up the rope we got our names put up on the wall. Of course I was able to do it. Once again, thank goodness I wasn't one of the weaklings that couldn't. I remember that Becca was this skinny little girl with these huge biceps in elementary school. I think she could do around 20 pull ups. She was quite the little athlete. Sometimes he would make us run around the gym in circles while he played songs from the 80's. One of them was "Ain't Nothing Gonna Hold me Down". To this day if I hear one of those songs I remember running around the gym. Other times he would make us run around while he pounded on a drumb yelling "knees up high, in the sky!" to the beat of the drum, sometimes he would use a whistle. During recess he would sometimes facilitate games of "fleeceball". Which was basically baseball played with a tennis ball and racket. This allowed us to be able to catch the ball without gloves. It was pretty fun. One of my least favorite activities in PE was running the mile. I swear he made us run it at several times a year. Sometimes he would make us walk down to the middle school, run the mile, and then walk back. Such cruelty! A few other things that I remember about Mr Turner is that his face was always red, and that he mentioned that he made his kids run several miles a day. I always thought that would suck to be one of his kids. I remember him also telling the whole class once that his daughters hips were starting to spread and how it was effecting her running. How embarrassing. Another obnoxious thing was that my best friend's name was Regan and he'd call her Ronald Reagan, and then soon afterward when George Bush was elected, he started calling me President Bush. I'm sure it annoyed her as much as it did me because half the time he wouldn't call us by our real names.
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Ah, Mr. Turner. Every time I hear "Ain't Nothing Gonna Hold me Down", I think of his red face. Besides all of the things you mentioned, I remember playing dodge ball and snake in the grass. Good times.
I was very athletic at that age. I was able to do 11 pull-ups (fingers facing forward) and I ran the mile in 6 minutes and 56 seconds. I also placed first in most of the track events I did, including the long jump. I remember getting second place in a race only once and the only person who beat me at the long jump was a foot taller than me. It's sad to think about that now that I'm slow and flabby. :(
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