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Thursday, June 24, 2010

The "My Favorite Class in Elementary School was Gym" Story

It was an ordinary day. We had just finished gym class. Headed down the stairs to get ready to go back to class. I'm in my final year of elementary school at Milton J. Brecht Elementary School in the Manheim Township School District. Brecht was opened in 1929 and looked like an English Manor house. Two floors of classrooms with a gym on the one end of the building. The boys' gym teacher is the principal of the school, Dr. Caleb Bucher. He is a bachelor and lives near our house on N. Queen St. My Mom invites him to supper a few times a year and we have gotten to know him pretty well over the years. Really nice guy, but a strict principal. About 40 years old. This is my second year of taking gym class and I enjoy the class since I have some athletic ability and enjoy all the games we play. Dodge ball, bombardment, baseball, football, gymnastics, .... now wait a minute, that I didn't like. Tumbling wasn't for me. The girls were usually on one side of the gym and we were on the other side. Sometimes we joined for activities such as dancing, but the boys never cared much for that. Well, we're headed down the steps to get showers and get dressed. Dr. Bucher always came down into the locker room and made sure everyone showered. Then, as soon as the showers were turned off, he would head upstairs to wait for us. And ...... we would head to the door which connected the boy's locker room to the girl's locker room. The door was a wooden door that had panels on the top and bottom that over the years had shrunk with all the moisture that was created from the showers and you could just barely see into the girl's locker room. There was also a small keyhole that allowed a slight view. Every guy would have about 10 to 15 seconds to try and look through the cracks and keyhole and if you were lucky someone would be on the other side getting dressed. We all agreed that you would never say anything to anyone about the cracks. Now these features of the locker rooms started sometime in the early 50s and when they started renovations to the building in the early 1990s, the crack was still in place. My lifetime friend Jerry was the head of school grounds for the district and after renovations he took me on a tour of the building and naturally we had to go check on the locker room. And .... they replaced the door! We learned many things during our elementary gym classes. Many things!! It was another extraordinary day in the life of an ordinary guy.

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