LONDON BRIDGE SHOLD HAVE DONE THIS
Tuck and Roll, Baby Boomer, Tuck and Roll
Did my father know how valuable our gymnastics training would be?
Because I am an idiot boy in a 76-year-old body, a few months or so back I tried to put on my jeans while standing up. I fell, but did not hurt myself because I somewhat instinctively tucked and rolled.
That surprised me. I happened to mention it to my sister (Sarah Ouellet here at Medium) and she set me straight.
“Don’t you remember the tumbling Dad taught us?”
I did not, at least at first. But as I thought about it, I dredged up fuzzy short bits of me and my two sisters doing somersaults and cartwheels in our large living room. My father wasn’t in those memories, but he probably was there and I felt that he probably did teach us to tuck and roll.
And as I thought more, I realized that I have done that in other falls over the years. I don’t know how my father got that drilled into me so deeply, but something must have made remembering it important to me.
Just yesterday I was about to do the standing pants maneuver in my bedroom and I stopped. I stopped because there was no free floor space to tuck and roll if I fell. I sat down on the bed and pulled them…
