Corrective Measures

As long as I've got my mind on orthopedic problems, back in 6th grade...
I told my teacher that two boys were lifting up my skirt on the playground. She said that they would have to stay in during recess the next day. Before that recess rolled around my teacher told me that I would also have to stay in. The boys had told her that I liked it. Oh elementary injustice! Did she not also wear a skirt? Were we not both required like the postman through rain, snow, sleet or hail, to bare our legs under every circumstance with some slight mitigating comfort of anklets, or knee socks, or the discomfort of tights or stockings strung by garters depending on our age or height? Hadn’t she experienced some inhibition on the monkey bars? A girl could hardly hang upside down and she really must not climb too high.
Those two boys and I spent the recess inside at opposite ends of the sixth grade classroom, unsupervised. If they had come near me who knows what fury might have been unleashed. I went home and told my dad. He taught me how to make a fist with the middle knuckle protruding and showed me the spot on the upper arm where it would hurt the most. He also told me that shins were sensitive. My heavy red corrective shoes did some admonishing from that day on. Thus was born my philosophy: kick, don’t tell. If Anita had shared such a belief it might have saved the whole country a lot of grief.
It was not till a year later, in 7th grade that the women-in-pants restriction was lifted. The reformation was led by a kid from my church who was senior class president. Pants were now allowed on girls if the hems weren’t cut off or frayed. I began to put my pants on one leg at a time just like every other body who wants warm legs. School culture began to foment change in church culture. Women began showing up in polyester pantsuits. What was God to think of women who covered their lower limbs in cloth tubes? Criticism by both sexes on behalf of His holiness occurred. We ought to have seen this coming as soon as women stopped riding their horses side saddle. What do you know? Their legs actually do go up to there. In all this turmoil where was the outrage over knit polyester?

Posted by cindy at July 11, 2006 09:46 PM
Comments
Great story!
Posted by: Calamity Jane at July 15, 2006 10:31 AM
Kick Don't Tell! Kick Don't Tell!
You inspired me.
Posted by: Bibah at July 28, 2006 03:38 PM