The Campton Gym and the Virginia Reel

So in my previous blog I admitted my horror at seeing the trampoline set up in the Campton Gymnasium.  And I admitted my ineptitude and looking like a fool.  However... the boys also faced days of fear and loathing in gym class.  For making fun of poor little men on the trampoline, they met their nemesis and it was called the Virginia Reel.

Oh, what sad male faces I witnessed those days when we walked into the gym to discover the record player plugged into an electrical socket and the boys learned we weren't going to be running around the perimeter of the gym with Chicken Fat on the turntable.  Oh, no.  We were about to tackle the basics of folk dancing.   On those days the boys, forced to touch and maybe even hold hands with girls, were miserable indeed.  Ah, for me, who loved dancing, revenge was sweet.

My Name is Miss Chicken: Gym Classes in the Campton Gym (continued)

I confess I hated gym class.  If I was sent to the library instead I would have been happier.  However.  Human beings are animals and need to move.  But all those games of dodge ball in the Campton Gym?  I was soooo miserable.  But not as miserable as the days I walked into the Campton Gymnasium and sniffed the smell of dank white canvas.  Sure enough.  There was the torture rack, more commonly known as a trampoline, sitting there.  After we unlaced our tennis shoes and threw them in a pile near the door, we moved to the contraption and surrounded it.  My hands felt like I’d been throwing snowballs without wearing mittens.  My feet were cold and numb as if I’d been night skating in January.

As we stood around the circumference of the trampoline, waiting our turn, I feared for my life... and for the life of others. Mr Gere had explained we were spotters.  I quivered to think I was responsible for keep my classmates from popping off onto the gym floor and breaking their necks. I was so weak.  So puny.  I'd never be able to stop anyone hurtling toward me after a bad bounce.

The line moved me ever closer to the end of the trampoline, the end where a three-step, movable stair unit led up to the bouncy platform of peril.  Soon I would be forced onto the trampoline to demonstrate my inability to accomplish even the simplest of skills, the seat drop.

I had barely enough bend in the knees to walk myself to the middle of the canvas.  As I timidly attempted to create some air between my feet and the surface of the trampoline one of the boys noticed my feet.  “Look at her toes.  They point up.”  Someone called them Turkish toes. The laughter rippled around me.  They weren’t lying, my toes did point upwards. If my cotton socks were golden instead of white they’d have fit right into the world of Aladdin or any other story about exotic lands in the East.  But I was no Aladdin.  A more appropriate name was Miss Chicken.

The Campton Gym and Phy Ed Class

This morning's paper prompted my returning to that micro universe of my young life - the Campton Gym.  In the past I've chatted about events in that gym: a dance recital, seeing the movie Hemo the Magnificent, a shot clinic.  Today today I'll actually talk about the gym as a place for physical education classes.

In today's Los Angeles Times, page 7, I read this headline: "American just keeps getting fatter, new study says."

This is not a new concern.  In the 1950s President Eisenhower established the President's Council on American Fitness. The next president, John Kennedy, also a veteran, was a big supporter of this council. For those of you in gym class in the early 60s, you may remember a song with the lyrics, "Go Chicken Go."  Sometimes Mr. Gere our teacher would plop the Chicken Fat Song onto the turntable in the Campton Gym.  This song was written as part of the presidential program to get kids moving. Kennedy believed it American children should compete with the Soviets in physical strength as well as science.  

Above is from the cover of a booklet providing guidance for fitness. I found the picture on a website for JFK's Presidential Library.


I hope to write more about gym class in the future - the good, the bad and the ugly.  But for now, I'll leave you with lyrics from Meredith Willson's song, "Push ups, every morning.  Ten times.  Not just, now and then...  Go you chicken fat, go..."

My Poor, Lonely Violin

Last blog was about music and I'll stay with that subject today.

In fourth grade I began violin lessons.  Ah, here my memory fails.  I can't remember my string teacher's name.  But I was in Mrs. Mattson's class.  Here's a photo I posted in a previous blog.

(That's me in the middle of the first row, between Terry Skog and Harold Varney. )

My first string recital was another Campton Gym experience.  The old Campton Gym -  I realize now that in my childlife the Campton Gymnasium was a universe unto itself. There on one end of the gym was the raised stage where I saw my first play, PINOCCHIO.    And there I danced with other little girls who were students of Mrs. Baum (a topic of previous blog entry). For this string recital of beginning players I believe we joined with string students of Mary MacDonald.   I still possess music from the recital - hand-written and then run off a ditto machine.  So faded that I can't scan, still readable although about 50 years old.  The music on this sheet music includes Aunt Julida's Polka and the Merry Widow Waltz. 

My first violin was a small one, a 3/4 size.  Before long I was ready for a full-sized violin.
And here it is, my second violin, newly stringed, but lonely indeed.

I played violin from 4th grade until the final week of senior year.  That was it.  I stopped. Now I long to play it again.  Playing again, even minimally, will require time, practice, dedication, probably lessons and also enormous patience.   In short, it will be a challenge, and one I'm sure to write about another day.

Music Matters

I suspect this is the first of many essays about music experiences in Silver Bay. 


First of all, I'll start with the music classes we had in elementary school because the other day I found myself singing Sweet Low, Sweet Chariot while doing dishes.  No idea why that popped into my head.  But I do know when and where it came from - classes with Miss Godich (or Goddich?) at Campton Elementary School.  How lucky that we had vocal music classes in elementary school - maybe 2 or 3 sessions a week. And music books.  Besides a handful of old spirituals like Chariot I recall learning folk songs about the Erie Canal and that sweet gal Betsy from Pike.


But one of the first songs I remember learning from Miss Godich was "You'll Never Walk Alone" from the musical CAROUSEL.  "When you walk through a storm hold your head up high..."  Do you think we realized we were singing about more than a winter blizzard?  Maybe we did.  Miss G. was an awfully good teacher. About that same time she taught us a three-part round with three simple words - in Latin.  Dona Nobis Pacem. 

Until next time... give us peace.

A Bit about Julie London

So when the alarm rang a few mornings ago at 6:30A - the alarm being an I-pod set to shuffle - we woke to Holly Cole singing "Don't Smoke in Bed" from her album of the same title.  Ms. Cole is a Canadian chanteuse - kind of jazzy a times, sings with a small combo, a song stylist.

Anyway, what does Holly Cole have to do with Julie London?  Both are singers let's start with that.  Some people may only know Julie London as Dixie McCall on the TV series EMERGENCY, 1972-76.  I didn't see many episodes of that show.  As far as TV,  I remember her television commercials for cigarettes. Thanks to my 8th grade English teacher, Mr. F., I gleaned that the lady had, let us say, sex appeal!

In 1964-65, eighth grade for me, cigarettes were still advertised on TV.  Memory failure here - I recall Miss London wearing a long, satin gown and standing by a piano.  Internet research tells me she was wearing a tight sweater and standing by beside a warm, inviting fireplace.  Anyway, she was a curvaceous beauty with an ample bust line.  In a low, breathy voice she pitched the glamour of Marlboro (quite a contrast to the Marlboro man).

Now to my eighth grade English teacher.  Mr. F. was an ex-marine (a veteran of Korean war maybe?), a football coach and a very big man.  On occasion he'd reveal his softer side.  He'd perch on the front edge of his teacher's desk and, propping his feet on the seat of a chair which he'd pulled there for that reason, share anecdotes.  He was relaxed and chatted as if talking to his buddies.  Sometimes the stories were about his days as a Marine. Occasionally these stories led to him murmuring... "Julie London..." as we students of English sat there rapt and engaged.  A vibration filtered through the classroom.  "Julie London...," he'd repeat and then draw imaginary smoke into his lungs from a cigarette I could almost believe was in his hand.  "Julie London... what a babe."

At some point we had a music cassette of one of her albums.  And on it was "Don't Smoke in Bed" which always evoked the memory of Mr. F.  Alas, the cassette melted in a glove compartment.  But I learned today that the song is available for download on her album Around Midnight and feel compelled to buy it.  The song was written by Willard Robison and has been recorded by many a songstress including KD Lang, Peggy Lee, Liza Minelli and Nina Simone.

Other trivia I gleaned from internet search: 
Miss London's work included 32 albums.
She died in 2000 in Encino, northern part of Los Angeles, and is buried in Forest Lawn next to her musician husband Bobby Troup (he wrote the fabulous and famous song Route 66).  Ms. London and Troup were both cast members on EMERGENCY!  The show was produced by Jack Webb (of Dragnet fame), Julie London's first husband.

Oh, and don't smoke in bed.  Don't smoke at all!

HEMO THE MAGNIFICENT

Awhile ago I wrote about my hometown not having a movie theatre and that sometimes we watched old movies at the Kelley High auditorium on weekends - sponsored by the Letterman's club, the Science Club, Future Teachers, etc. to raise money.

Today I'll write a few words about  Hemo the Magnificent.   After a too-large meal, or when I'm over-tired by too much exercise (a rare experience), or when I'm just trying to do to many things at one time - I flash on the picture of a frantic telephone switchboard operator in my brain.  The image comes from Hemo.  Each year - 4th, 5th and 6th grades (early 1960s) we sat on the polished floor of the Campton Gym to view this movie.  For those who haven't seen it, it's a funny and educational film about the working of the human body - particularly the heart.  It's a combination of live action and animation - I would say a film way ahead of its time. 

A few years ago I put the title into the Amazon search site.  I learned it was released on videotape in 1991.   Reading some of the reviews that had been posted on the site, I  learned that  Campton was not alone in showing this movie so often - that baby boomers across the country viewed Hemo the Magnificent at their schools multiple times - and loved it.