“Field Day”

I was listening on Friday morning to my favorite sports talk show on the car radio. “The guys” were talking about the end of school and all of the rituals that they remembered. The topic shifted to what we called Field Day—basically a time of relay races, frisbee throws, bean bag tosses and whatever kind of competition that can be dreamed up. The three guys all talked about the shift from a time when there were only three ribbons awarded—Blue, Red, and Yellow, to “everybody gets a ribbon”. Participation trophies—yuch.

It got me thinking about my time at Ben Franklin Elementary. I had one speciality. The Softball Throw. I won it three times in a row. Mind you, I was big and slow. So anything that involved running and speed was not my thing. I do remember winning the 6th grade throw with a heave of 167 feet. Somewhere in my archives there is a certificate and a blue ribbon. That skill came in handy for teenage snowball battles. It rescued my self esteem from the humiliation of gym class when tumbling exposed that I could never do a cartwheel.

Fast forward to 1985. My son Mateo was at the very same school in the second grade. I remember watching a contest where his whole class was issued a jump rope. The goal was to be the last jumper jumping. Now Mateo often had the attention span of a puppy, so Dad figured he was toast. Not so, off they went jumping and one by one they gave up. Not Mateo. He was a machine. When everyone else was out they had to tell him he could stop. Daddy pride oozed. I remember looking back to the softball throw that was going on. I wanted to give it a chance but there was no parent competition.

This was before the day of participation ribbons so alas, I shared the joy with a seven year old and his jump rope Blue Ribbon.

Onward and Upward,

Mark