So we cross the bridge to the elementary building, down the steps into something called ‘Boys Locker Room.’ No such thing in elementary school. You grab a locker and change into your gym clothes.
I liked wearing gym shorts under my pants, it made for a quick change. Pull on the clean t shirt when done. A confession–I wasn’t too cool with the idea of walking into a crowded shower with 20 other kids, our peckers swinging in the breeze…cold water cold sucking your nuts into your torso or hot enough to melt steel. Don’t touch my soap, asshole, where’s yours? Did your mom give you that shampoo? You smell like a pussy. But after verbal abuse by the gym teacher (aren’t those guys wonderful?) for my reticence, I got it. No body odor at that age, so I didn’t see the use in showering. We never got sweat-soaked since we never went outside and the gym was always around 68 degrees.
The locker room had two wings for some bizarre reason. We disrobed in the big one, where the teacher had an office. It smelled bad, of course. Imagine 25 Burmese Mountain dogs soaked with rain. ooooo, that smell. Windows did not open–they were constrained by thick iron grating outside that prevented burglars from stealing valuable 25 year old lockers.
The gym itself was a jaw-dropping cavern–more than 2 1/2 stories high, echoed like the valley of hidden graves. A mechanical divider could be collapsed or opened–usually the former, since girls were on the other side (forbidden fruit). I guess if we beheld girls in gym clothes, our libidos would transmogrify us into jabbering chimpanzees.
I alluded to fire drills earlier. The elementary building ran drills independent of the junior high. So, if we had gym, the elementary fire alarm went off during gym. The first time it happened, two smartasses toweling off in the locker room came to the gym teacher bare-assed and asked “Do we really HAVE to go outside right now?”
This, of course, caused heartburn for the Foon. Within a few days, the intercom solemnly intoned that henceforth, all fire drills for the elementary building would be conducted when no gym classes were active.
Thankfully, the days of ‘castrated dodge ball’ I mentioned in my earlier elementary school posts were over.
And yes, eventually, we began snapping wet towels with gay abandon, showing our macho finesse by leaving welts on each other. Once in a great while, someone would try and smuggle burning hot salve onto someone’s jock strap. but at this age most of us didn’t bother with jocks. Too tight, and just a pain in the ass to get into and out of……we kept underwear on under the shorts, changing as needed.
Finally, we were expected to wear white all the time. If your parents didn’t know where to get white shorts, the teacher had a list. In those days, sneakers were either Keds or Red Ball Jets. Adidas, Converse, etc were a few years away from becoming male de rigueur of the seventies.