Back in the Day

When I was in High School, back in the day as they say, girls and boys had separate gym classes.  Call me old-fashioned, but I thought that was a good idea and still do.  As if it’s not bad enough that every girl in school knows of your pathetic athletic skills does every boy really need to know, too?

As I was exercising the other day something passed through my mind that brought back those less than cherished memories of high school gym class.  There was an exercise that we did routinely in gym class that would, we were told, increase the size of our chests.  To do said exercise we’d stand with our arms basically reaching across the front of our bodies, hands facing downwards with one forearm over the other.  Then, we’d stretch our elbows back with our arms still bent, bring them forward again, followed by another backwards stretch in which we’d unbend our elbows and extend the entire arm back as far as possible.   As we did said exercises there was a little chant we said to go along with it; "We must, We must, We must increase our bust."  I’m not saying they don’t do this particular exercise in gym classes today, I’m just guessing that the accompanying chant has gone by the wayside.  Kind of sad.

Speaking as one who hates to exercise, I have to admit, this was a pretty sneaky tactic those gym teachers were using.  I mean seriously, 99.9% of the freshman girls would probably have swallowed goldfish had they thought it would give them a little more up front.  But alas, I’m not convinced that it actually did any good as we all seemed to end up to be the size that God had created us to be.

It did, however, give me something to look back at and chuckle.  I wonder what else they lied to us about?