For us, 1955 to 58, a right of passage… Hello, One of those things that just sticks in my mind during those junior high school P.E. classes. The item on the check list that all boys had to do was to climb the thick rope to the top of the Gymnastics room. Those skills are out in the PE classes now and no such thing as a “gymnastics room.” P.E. classes have come a long way from those early days. In our junior high school PE area, the specific room had a padded floor and a dock line rope going to the ceiling. But, our ropes had a thin metal plate at the top to “ding” it with your hand when close enough to say… “I made it.” Then, everyone cheered the guy on the rope. Jnaki For a long time, I was strong, but could not climb to the top of the rope. Almost all of the guys in the class could climb up and ding the plate. But, I could not. I was good in all sports, but my skills were not in the gymnastics room. The horse, the rings and the balance bar were my downfalls. Now, add the rope climb and I felt terrible. There was nothing I could do to improve my rope climbing skills. I could climb the huge trees in the neighborhood with ease and swing on a rope from one tree to the next. I could even climb up a garage stucco wall by hooking a rope around the drain pipe sticking out of the roof and using the wall to climb up and down. Where were those free climbing rope walls back then? Ha! But, I could not go up that gymnastics rope to the top. Woe is me… it had to be a growing up thing. For the two years of 7th + 8th grade, I could not do the ding. But, somehow in the first day of activity of 9th grade, I grabbed the rope and climbed to the top in record time. What??? What did I do to train for that moment? Nothing. I just grew 4 inches, added a few pounds of muscle with my mom’s great cooking and we played all day on the playground, basketball, football and climbing on the playground equipment. When I reached the top, everyone in the room stood up and clapped, cheered and I slid all the way down to a group of my friends all patting me on the back. The teacher came over and shook my hand. Now, there was nothing holding me back… I could actually climb that silly rope. What skills in the future would that help? A Mt. Everest speed climb is not in my future at the time. I liked sliding down the rope and for my future, I could be a fireman sliding down a steel pole to the delight of my fellow firemen… YRMV
The Jalopy Journal
