BASKETBALL SEASON IN JUNIOR HIGH

When my daughter Susan entered seventh grade I found out that Junior High School would be an exercise in problem solving.  Take, for instance, basketball season.

Even though Wisconsin is known to be a bit cold in the winter (ya think?!), the seventh grade cheerleaders were determined to wear their mini skirt cheerleading uniforms at the bus stop in sub zero weather on the days the boys had a game.  The older and wiser cheer leaders wore sweat pants.  But Susan’s generation of cheerleaders wore mini-skirts.  Something about school spirit, they claimed.

One seventh grader astutely declared that she thought the boys should have to wear their basketball shorts on game days.  Wouldn’t that be fair?  The boys could shiver and turn blue, just like the girls.  And the girls could whistle at the boys’ legs in the hall.  I liked her thinking, but the majority ruled.

I didn’t argue with Susan about it.  Why start an argument with an adolescent? There’s no future in it. 

TURTLES

Part of a series of stories I wrote while living in Wisconsin in the '80s

I let my daughter buy a turtle.  I can’t for the life of me remember why.  Maybe it was because I had already agreed that she could keep her biology teacher Mr. Eddy’s turtle for the summer.  Who knows?

At any rate, we went turtle shopping.  We bought a turtle, an aquarium and worms.  (Yummy!)  Then we needed clean sand.  Yard dirt wasn’t good enough.

At the garden store, the clerk asked what kind of sand I wanted.  In my experience, the subject of sand classifications had never arisen.  I told her I just wanted plain sand.  She asked what I was going to use it for.  So help me, she kept a straight face when I said, “It’s for a turtle.”

All the way home, we thought up turtle names.  The best one was Sherbert, since Mr. Eddy’s turtle, who would become Sherbert’s summer roommate, was named Herbert.

Poor Sherbert was very shy.  We held her until she finally got used to us and began cautiously poking her head out.  We discovered that scratching the bottom of her shell made her wiggle her legs. 

Next, my son’s friend heard that we were collecting turtles (really?) and generously offered a monstrosity that he found on his paper route.  We put Turtle Number Three in a child-size pool in my son’s bedroom for a few days.  For fun, we put Herbert and Sherbert in the pool for a while.  In his frantic search for an exit, Turtle Number Three (still unnamed) ran over shy little Sherbert like a bulldozer.

Herbert and Sherbert spent the summer in a large aquarium Mr. Eddy had lent us.  Herbert ate night crawlers like potato chips and Sherbert hid in her shell.  The pool went to the garage, and Turtle Number Three moved into the abandoned aquarium with the store-bought sand, still resolutely searching for a way out.  I was, too.

CHILI COOK-OFF

I went to my first Chili Cook-Off in 1985.  My taste buds were impatient as the air filled with aromas of garlic, Tabasco sauce, and who-knows-what. Anything goes in these recipes – even moose.  OK, I guess that’s acceptable. 

I was working for the local paper at the time, and my job was to get some pictures of the judges.  When the cook-off ended, they took samples to the judges’ table. 

My mouth was watering.  I took some pictures, then headed for the chili tent.  It only took me a couple of dives into the swarming mob to get to the chili pots.  They were emptying fast, but I did manage to sample enough to catch my mouth on fire. 

I’ve got to hand it to the judges.  They had a tough job!  How can anyone taste samples from thirty-five pots of hot chili and live to tell it?  At the end of the judging, I went back over there to see how they were doing, and I was sure glad I hadn’t waited until then to take their pictures.

Golf's Not For Me

I wrote this in 1986 when I lived in Green Lake, Wisconsin.  Since then, I’ve learned to like golf.

Is there anyone in Green Lake who doesn’t play golf?  I’ve watched men and women out on the fairways whacking at those silly balls all summer.  I wish it would snow on them. 

I bought clubs ten years ago.  My husband gave them away five years ago – with my blessing!  But this spring I signed up for a lesson and joined the Ladies’ League.  Why?  Something to do with being in Rome and – you know the rest. 

During my lessons (all two of them), I hit some beauties.  An exhilarating peace overwhelmed me when the club made square contact with the ball.  I finally nailed that sucker!  But on the golf course, I bombed.  I crept down the outside edges of the fairway a few yards at a time. 

If some of you ladies in the Wednesday Ladies’ League are reading this and thinking, “I wonder why I haven’t seen her on the golf course?” it’s because I only lasted three Wednesdays.  I finished nine holes one of those Wednesdays.  It took four hours and I swung the club well over 100 times.  The other three in my foursome assured me that the mob backed up behind us was friendly.

“Do I really like this game?” I kept asking myself.  I like the exercise.  I like the fresh air.  I like the conversation.  I just hate that golf ball!  I thought, “This is going to cost me hundreds of dollars before I even begin to like this game!”  Then I confessed to temporary insanity and asked my husband to shoot me if he ever saw another golf club in my hands.