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Friday, June 28, 2024

All About Me #16


 

"When you reach the end of the road; There's only one thing to do; Build more road." (Ashleigh Brilliant)

 

Hello, my lovely friends!

 

    Today I thought we'd talk about the sports stuff in my life. Did you do any kinds of sports?

 

1. As a kid our local community pool did free swimming lessons in the summer. My mom and a few moms on the block would go early in the morning to sign us all up for lessons. Every year I would take the next lesson and the last lesson you would have to dive off the diving board and that thing scared me. You have to remember I grew up in the 70’s and that’s when “Jaws” came out and you add on my fear of not seeing the bottom of the water made jumping off a diving board scary for me. I believe I was around ten when my swimming teacher was in the water and I would walk to the edge of the diving board and then turned around and walk off. I did this for a year and by the following summer I decided that I would jump. A few days before the pool closed for the season I jumped and then proceeded to jump over and over that day.

 

2. In the summer all the kids on the block would play kick ball, hide-n-go-seek, and whatever else game we could think of. My favorite was “Freeze”. You would play this when it was darker and when a car would pass we would all freeze like a statue when the car passed. Sometimes on the weekends we would play kick ball and my dad would join one of the teams and he could really kick the ball far. The other families would all hangout on the driveways talking and watching us play games.

 

3. In grade school my favorite thing to do during recess was the ringers or tether-ball. The majority of the time I would be on the ringers. I would skip a ringers and got really good at it, but the downfall was I would get blood blisters from it. When I would get them my mom would tell me not to get on the ringers and those days I would play tether-ball. I enjoyed playing it so much my dad put one in our backyard and I would play for hours in the yard.

 

4. I love pro-wrestling and have since I was little. My dad would watch AWA wrestling on Sunday mornings when I was a kid and then I started with WWF way back in the day. I have been to so many wrestling shows when they come to Denver and even a handful of TV tapings and Pay-Per-View shows. It has remained my #1 guilty pleasure that I will always watch. When I graduated high school I got a job working security for the concourse at the airport. Once time the wrestlers were coming down after having a show the night before. I got autographs from Bret Hart , The Undertaker and a few other wrestlers.

 

5. My dad worked at the University of Denver and he could get tickets to the hockey games for the Pioneers. The games were usually on a Friday night. We would have a snack at home and go to the game. We would eat hot dogs from the game for dinner and the four of us would watch the game. My mom would really get into it. When my sister went to college there we would still go to the games, but she would be in the bleachers with the other students. They called them the “Bleacher Creatures”. When I went to college there my dad could still get tickets just not as often because the team was winning lots of titles.

 

6. In 8th grade we had a school trip to New Mexico. They set up excursion for us because we went with two other schools and there were probably about 80 students. One of the excursion we had a choice horse-back riding or white water rafting. While I was allergic to animals and choose to go rafting. I really enjoyed it and it wasn’t that rough at all. I remember coming back home and telling my mom what I did and she was shocked because I’m such a girly girl that the idea of getting wet would have been a no for me, but it was fun.

 

Thank you so much for stopping by.

I wish you a good morning, afternoon or evening wherever you are.

Talk To Y'all Soon…

 

 

4 comments:

  1. What wonderful childhood memories, Paula! We were in swim lessons every year, too. I was afraid of the deep water, and of water up my nose in general. To this day, if I want to make any progress in the water, I have to have my nose plug. Afternoons at the pool were a must!

    The kids on our block were all "come home when the streetlights come on" and we clumped together and played various kinds of tag from someone or other's stoop.

    Schoolyard games: my favorites were perhaps a little quieter than tetherball. I was fond of box hockey. It was fierce competition, but not as physically demanding. I didn't discover my inner athleticism until adulthood, or close thereto.

    For that matter, many of the things I enjoy today would have surprised childhood me.

    Have a great Friday and weekend to come!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Special memories of special times. Happy Friday! 🤗💖

    ReplyDelete
  3. Oh my. That memory of your fear of the diving board evoked memories for me, too. We always took swim lessons, too. I hated the diving board. And like your lessons, that was always part of the last lesson for the session. I climbed on the board, stood on the board just sizing things up. Did not want to jump in. Finally the instructor yelled, “Jump, meathead (this was during the days of All in the Family – hence the name). You’re holding up the class.” I was so embarrassed I jumped in. Never had a problem after that!

    For sure, summer was a time when all the neighbors all hung out and visited on the front porches/stoops. NOTHING like that now, for sure. Sadly.

    We played tag, freeze tag, kick the can, Red Rover, kick ball, caught fireflies . . . anything just to be outside.

    Don’t remember doing the rings, but definitely played tether ball. Fun.

    Never watched wrestling, but so cool you were able to get those wrestler’s autographs!

    How nice that you were able to enjoy hockey games as a family!

    White water rafting . . . my parents and I were on a trip out West to see my Grandfather (he lived in AZ). On the way we passed a place that had white water rafting excursions. We listened to the spiel and I was a wise guy . . . I asked the guy if there was a plug-in for curling irons. BWAHAHHA. No, we didn’t go on the trip . . . way expensive. LOL

    Here’s to a good weekend.

    Barb
    1crazydog

    ReplyDelete
  4. It's Kathy. I'll admit, I've never been one who is into sports, especially while I was in school. I did take swimming lessons at the YWCA - mom let me take the bus downtown! And I also remember playing some kind of games with the neighborhood kids. My daughter was (and still is) a gymnast, I loved watching her gymnastic meets. My 2 sons played baseball in the spring, basketball in the winter, and their best sport was soccer in the summer & fall. One is still a soccer referee and the other one has just recently had to stop playing because he needs a hip replacement - they are now 42. My daughter is a gymnastic coach and can still do almost as much as the girls she coaches - she's 45! Sounds like you enjoyed a lot of sports - and how fun that you could do so much with your dad! Great memories.

    ReplyDelete

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