Memories On Why Gym Class Was The Worst Class
Obstacle courses and other indignities
The first gym teacher I remember having in school was Ms. Roberry. She was a fierce, solid woman with a greying buzzcut and bad knees. Actually, I don’t know if her knees were bad, but I do know they were awful to look at. She was a heavy-set woman, so when she stood at her full 5’5”, her bulging knee muscles would create a scary face of sorts at the cap. Dimpling just in the right places to make it look like two pupil-less eyes had appeared in the thick flesh below her quads.
I only remember this because, as it happened one day in gym class when I was wearing my spandex shorts, I realized that I had these flesh eyes in my knees as well.
I quietly asked my friend Janelle if it was just me or if my knees appeared to be twinning with Ms. Roberry’s. Janelle laughed long and heartily, yelling to the rest of the class that I had Roberry knees. I was shattered.
But my knees weren’t because I’ve always been a sturdy girl.
I’m not here to talk about Ms. Roberry, though; she was alright, although for middle school, perhaps a bit gruff. The thing Ms. Roberry did for all of us in those tentative years before high school was prep us for Mr. L.
