Diary of a Would-Be Athlete

Last summer I went to the Olympics. No, not as a participant but as a spectator. And no, not the Olympics but an Olympics event sponsored by a sports training and conditioning camp for kids in Vermont.

But even if it had been the real thing, I could not have been more impressed with the courage and prowess of the young athletes. They scampered up rope ladders whose heights rivaled the nearby mountains … they climbed indoor rock walls with pebble-sized hand and toe holds … they raced, skidded and slipped around slalom poles on the steep sides of a deep sand pit … they maneuvered skillfully over, under, and around obstacles of varying shapes and sizes at dizzying speed …

It all brought back memories of my own childhood when I performed equally fearless feats. One of the sports in which I excelled was Radical Ring-Around-the-Rosie. This version was far different from standard Ring-Around-The-Rosie in that at the phrase “We all fall down,” we really did fall down — hard! No baby maneuvers like just sitting down on the floor gently. And we did it without body padding and helmets.

We also played Intense Hide & Seek: The person who was “It” didn’t count to a hundred, but to only fifty — giving us very little time to find a good hiding place. Talk about tension and pressure! Not for the faint-hearted, I tell you.

Another challenging competition was “Budget Barbies” where the rules prohibited us from spending more than 10 percent of our weekly 50-cent allowances on supplementing Barbie’s wardrobe. And Ken was not allowed to give her any gifts. This game really strained our creativity. I won one bout by pilfering an apron from my Mom’s kitchen and using it to snip and stitch a magnificent ball gown for my Barbie. The carving knife motif of the fabric lent a certain edginess to the design; and the excruciating suspense of waiting for the moment Mom would realize an apron was missing added an exciting element of danger to the game. Furthermore, we celebrated all our Barbie fashion shows with a tea party, but not just a sissy tea party — we never washed the cups!

We also played intense Tiddlywinks, show-no-mercy Simon Says, extreme Mother May I?, hazardous hopscotch, and death-defying musical chairs (where we would actually remove two chairs instead of one!), among other daring competitions. It’s amazing that so many of us survived to senior-citizenhood.

Many of my contemporaries are still rocking but, sadly, now in chairs in their parlors and porches. I, however, have refused to give up the active, challenging lifestyle of my youth. I just joined a spinning class for seniors (spinning wool, that is); I’ve become a surfing enthusiast (TV channels and the Internet); I cycle every day (actually, recycle); and last week during a trip to Vermont, I participated in chair lifting — not lifting chairs, but riding in one up a mountainside. I also rode it back down after reluctantly declining the dirt bike option they offered since I’m sure they would have insisted that I wear a helmet. I couldn’t do that. Helmets give me hat hair.

Also, I have to be realistic. Biking down that rocky trail would probably have been a tad too risky without some prior training, even for someone with my impressive athletic background. But you should have seen how agilely I got off that chair lift! I needed only two people to help me.

It just goes to prove — once an athlete, always an athlete!

Photo: Boston's Latin School hopscotch court, from Wikipedia.

Also, see Amazon.com for her books, If These Are Laugh Lines, I’m Having Way Too Much Fun and The Beautiful People and Other Aggravations.

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Diary of a Would-Be Athlete

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