My dad worked at a pool and spa store when I was very young, and he brought home a trampoline for my siblings and I. It was pretty much the best thing ever. Sadly, I can't really jump on them anymore, tmimy bladder isn't strong enough. We had so many games. One of my friends would do these dragon ball moves, and I had no idea where they came from, but they were fun. And there was crack the egg (I was excellent at that), and trip the dip, which was something my brother came up with, I think. One person was the trip, and they would roll around on their stomachs, while everyone else were the dips. If the trip rolled toward and caught you, you were the new trip. There was a jungle gym right next to the trampoline, and we had some swings rigged up really high so you could just sit on them without getting down, so that was always base.

Later, they installed some new components on the tower in our backyard, and left behind this 5ft spool. Or maybe it was bigger than that. Two of my friends and I managed to roll it over to the trampoline, and we turned it on its side (it was slightly shorter than the trampoline was) so that was the place where we would get on and put our shoes. Later, when we had chickens, that would be where we would run to evade the rooster.

My cousin and I developed this exercise regimen using techniques we called .. sit downs and sit ups or something. Basically you jumped, pulled your legs into the lotus position, bounced, put them out again and repeated. It took a while to perfect the first time, but it was pretty fun xD

Before I ever could do a somersault on the trampoline, I'd do this thing I called a raggedy-ann doll-- jump up and land flat on your back, then flip forward and land on your stomach the next time.

My dad was the awesomest though- he could jump to his feet from just lying down xD

We had this thing... I forget what it was called. Something Olympics. That was fun. And sometimes, we'd just go out there and talk. Once, the two friends who helped me roll the spool and I were out there, and we all saw the sky turn bright green in the distance.
"holy crap. Was that the nuclear plant?"
":OOOOOOOOO"

Since then, I've learned about the green flash at sunset, but that doesn't make sense, because it was already dark when we saw it. Who knows?


The worst PE class I can remember was in second grade or so. The girl's basketball coach had turned the floor of the gym into a huge monopoly board, and she would roll this giant foam die, and we would have to go so many steps forward and do the exercise listed there. They were so hard! One of them was 80 jumping jacks. We bitched about that for weeks afterward.

At recess, we would play jump-rope, four square, tether-ball, swinging, stuff on the parallel bars, and for a brief while in third grade, my cousin and I got up a jogging group to go around the complete perimeter of the playground xD

Fifth grade, they were all about the presidential challenge or whatever. Two kids in my grade actually completed it-- they both played basketball xD I liked the limber exercises since I was good at them (still am )

The best part in fifth grade was playing prisonball. We'd go out on the old tennis courts before they built the new high school, and it was basically half of the fifth grade class. Four people on each side would be the prison guards or something? And we had these huge balls. Not just the little kickball/dodgeball ones, but some of those big 2ft diameter ones. If they hit you with one, you had to go to the prison side, and your team had to come tag you or something. Fifty kids going nuts on a tennis court was pretty awesome.

Apart from that, we also had a "Fitness" class in fifth grade. That was the only B I got in public school. xD I guess I didn't hustle hard enough.

I was supposed to take PE in ninth grade, but uh, I took Art instead. And so I put it off... and put it off... and eventually it was the second semester of my senior year.

", I won't graduate if I don't have this p.e. credit."

"well, technically, if you're in a class with a p.e. teacher, that can count as the credit."

"are you ting me?"

"no, just drive over to the junior high every day, and you can use it as study hall."

They had just finished building the junior high, so that's how I got to be a high schooler in junior high. The only one of my class!
A few times i did go and play with the seventh graders-- they were really adorable but mostly I wrote on my essay about As I Lay Dying.