“The letters in ‘INDEPENDENT LIFE’ are two stories high!”
This is a fact that stays in my brain from my middle-school days. My memory is a little fuzzy regarding whether the prospect of seeing the huge letters was dangled in front of my classmates and me as an incentive to make good grades, or if the students who went on the field trip came back chattering about the letters, or both.
All I know is that I never saw for myself. (To be clear, I lived near Jacksonville, so I did SEE the letters when my family and I would drive past the building, but I never got the deluxe tour that my classmates got.)
Why did I, a future high school valedictorian, not get to go see the huge letters for myself?
I didn’t get to go on these trips because I never made an A in PE in middle school.
And without straight A’s, there was no a field trip to the Independent Life Building (now the Wells Fargo Center).
I tried to act pleased for my friends who got to go on this trip, to act happy enough when I had to stay behind and attend class as usual, to convince my middle-school, awkward, nonathletic self that it wasn’t a personal failing to miss out on this field trip.
The Presidential Physical Fitness Test factors largely into my bad PE memories. I don’t think I even managed ONE pull-up (I think you had to do 20 to pass). I would stand there watching the athletic kids ace each of the activities, knowing I would never measure up. Seventies-era PE activities that involved picking sides (always last here!) and sports I had no aptitude for (hello, softball) were also challenges. Square dancing wasn’t the end of the world, at least.
Although the trips to the Independent Life Building ended after middle school, my rocky relationship with PE didn’t. I would have had a 4.0 in high school had I not made a B+ in summer school PE, which I took the summer before 9th grade even started so I could compress the PE experience I was dreading.) I made A’s the rest of the time (including summer PE at Union County High School — let’s just say the standards there were a little more lax).
I have a better relationship with fitness as an adult, since I can choose the activities I want to do.
However, 10-year-old me still looks back on those missed trips to the Independent Life Building and wishes PE grades had been exempt from the calculations of who got to go and who didn’t.
This is a response to the Kat Bouska prompt, “Write about something you felt was unfair as a child.”
Wife of one, Mom of two, Friend of many. My pronouns are she/her/hers.
OMG that fitness test. How well I remember it. You really brought back memories, Paula.
Right?! It was the worst. I forgot to add that it was discontinued in 2012, thank goodness.
Paula, I went to a private school where I was only, like Janis Ian, picked last for the basket ball teams. But I was pretty much a straight A student and that was the lane I belonged in. I can walk!! LOL. And I loved doing Jazzercize, but I was never into sports. MAJOR EXAMPLE: John took all of us to a White Sox game. I brought my New Yorker Magazine.
HA! I love that last line. I think/hope PE has gotten a little more humane — give me credit for taking an aerobics class or whatever and I’m fine.
Ohmyword, this struck a nerve! We had very few field trips. The one I remember was the one I didn’t get to go on as well. McGavin’s bakery. Sadly, it wasn’t grades that held me back but a nasty ol’ wart growing on the big toe of my right foot. Mom had forgotten my field trip and made the doctor’s appointment at PRECISELY THE SAME TIME. I was heartbroken. She promised she would take me by myself, but, of course with her busy life, that never happened. Sigh.
P.S. The pain went on. My teacher–a rather unkind individual by the name of Mrs. Selzer–called me ‘Toe’ for months afterwards.
OH NO, Diane! This is a problem on multiple levels! How interesting is it that missing field trips so many years ago still is a “thing” for us?!
I remember that stupid test! I could NEVER do a pullup and I couldn’t climb that damn rope either. I didn’t have to miss a field trip because of it though.
It really was a horrible model (except for the athletic kids). This field trip was a “reward” thing, for the Straight A kids, and an A in PE just wasn’t ever going to happen for me (until summer PE at Union County High, bless them).