 |
August 27, 2008 |
|
 |
|
|
1-2-3! Dance Routine Finale?
FOUND by Robert Keim
in Upstate New York
Found in the back of an old desk drawer with a few other pictures.
Sign in or register to start a profile and keep track of your comments. You may also post without creating a profile, but you'll have to answer some tough spam protection questions.
Man on Grass September 15, 2002 |
Uncle Arthur November 02, 2003 |
Look Into My Eyes February 17, 2002 |
Trumped! November 09, 2005 |
 |
|
 |
         |
We collect FOUND stuff: love letters, birthday cards, kids' homework,
to-do lists, ticket stubs, poetry on napkins, telephone bills, doodles -
anything that gives a glimpse into someone
else's life. Anything goes...
i love it.
Does anyone else remember the President's Fitness Plan of the 1970's? Suddenly there were a bunch of activities that we "had" to do to pass gym. I never managed rope climbing or that thing where you climb the wall with pegs, but I do have a photo of self and friends at about age 8 or 9, doing "the wheelbarrow" in pairs. The "barrow" would either walk out of the "pusher"'s hands, or the pusher would push too hard...in any case, there was always a collapse followed by giggles.
This must be a club like Brownies or something...most of them are wearing identical skirts. The top girl on the extreme Left has VERY long arms for her size.
They forbade us to do the pyramid at my school after they did a 4-level one, it collapsed like always, and 3 kids got hurt.
I love that this photo was taken with the camera on the gym floor. The reflection off the high gloss varnish is wonderful.
Also, I like that the girl on the right, on top with her arms still bent, doesn't look quite ready / comfortable with the whole thing... that would have been me!
Great find!
I can just imagine the other girls; upon seeing the taken photo:
Jeez, Marlene! How many times do we have to tell you? Extend your arms! EXTEND them! You always mess everything up! Oh the melodrama followed by tears.....lots and lots of tears.
I would be the girl in the middle pyramid - the one with her head facing downward praying for delivery from this 'fun' activity.
And yes, Baby basil, remember oh so well those Presidental Fitness Tests. And the badges; do you remember the badges you would get? hahaha!
Probably a Theatre Production...or Gym class... I love the way this photo was shot, though.
I think the girl on the right is about to lose her balance and fall - this is the moment right before. Either that, or she isn't sure about the pyramid, like the others are. "I dunno, whatever, leave me alone..."
Well, I know for a fact that most of these sweet-looking little girls grew up to join the CIA and the US Army, to get stationed in Iraq, and to have their later antics posted on the Internet. I mean, look at the wet floor in front of them! Look at the human pyramids! It's SO obvious.
It seems to me that the person on the top of the left side pyramid is a boy. Someone's little brother who always got dragged along and had to fill in for one of the girls who didn't show up.
Librarian. That's kinda heavy for breakfast, don't you think? I mean, chuckles, yes, but also whoa.
I believe I spy young Clover in this picture! She's the distracted one with the pony tail.
I like to be in America!
O.K. by me in America!
Ev'rything free in America
For a small fee in America!
"Y.M.T.A.!!!"
There's so much to say about this wonderful find!
They are piled on a gym mat, thank goodness. Safety first!
It looks like some of the girls are wearing boys' pants. I'm guessing that's because they were required to wear skirts to school, but a few borrowed slacks from their brothers for gym class.
Love the reflection in the shiny floor.
If you turn the photo upside down, it looks like a sun or moon orb above a blurred landscape of pyramiding girls.
Peter Pan collars! Cute!
These girls are ready for flight!
I totally LOVE this picture!!
Love the girl on the right, "What? IS this right??"
It is a great picture.
@baby basil, I remembered that The President's Council on Physical Fitness was started by JFK in the 1960's. But in checking my memory against Wikipedia, I learned that it was really started by Eisenhower in 1956, to encourage American children to keep up with the fitness level of European children. Over the years it has been changed to The President's Council on Physical Fitness and Sports. More recently they've added a Fitness Challenge. I guess they think that competition against others makes it more motivating. I believe this is an erroneous assumption that pervades American culture on many levels.
I think I read that recent checks of American kids reveals their fitness levels have declined steadily and dramatically, in spite of these fitness programs and goals. My guess is that funding hasn't followed the mandates.
My own personal memory is of hanging by a bar on the playground, in a painful effort to hold my chin above it while the teacher stood by with a timer. As soon as the biceps gave out and the chin touched the bar or dropped below it, you were done. I never made the rope climb either, and always wished I could. Sit-ups, on the other hand, were my strong point.
Anyone want to name these girls?
Jane
Kathy, Linda
Pam, Joy, Josephine
Ellen, Cynthia, Gretchen, Irene
Mary
Clover, Laura
Thanks, Clover, for the blast from the past. Multipurpose room! Translated from the Vulgate it means, gym from 8.30 a. m. to 11.30 AM. Lunchroom from 11.30 to 1. Instrument lessons from 1 to 2. Choir room from 2 to 3. Then "intramural" activities like Brownies etc. after school.
And there was always a stage at the back for the Christmas programme, which we're not even allowed to have anymore, and assemblies. Basketball hoops and lines as standard.
That stage looked killer high all through school...I went back in college and it was tiny. "Transfer of affect," they call that. But still, Toni fell off it and broke her wrist. It was high enough.
Baby Basil, when did you have time for academic classes? (gym for 3 hours?!?) Unless this is a summer program?
I hated the physical fitness test! I never could do the chin ups, and girls weren't required to do the rope, I believe. The 600 run was awful, too. But I kicked butt at the situps and the "shuttle run" (where you have to run up and down the gym floor, placing blackboard erasers at either end).
I can thank the President's Fitness Plan for my one and only athletic accomplishment in grade school. I was the chin-up champ in 4th grade due to the fact that my scrawny body offered my arm muscles very little resistance.
@clover: you got Pam and Josephine mixed up.
@ baby basil ... my middle school had a "Cafetorium" that doubled as a multipurpose room.
@ not just another mouth ... heavy for breakfast, yes, but I'm at "work" when I find my morning Founds.
This is the choreography for "Springtime for Hitler and Germany."
Bah. Phys Ed. Phys Ed and all the little gymn class snots at my school ruined me on sports, especially team sports, very early on. And now I hear they're going to make gym mandatory right through to grade 12 in my Province. Re-dikker-ous! That final-year reprieve from the humiliation of sweatpants and competition between non-equals was the highlight of highschool!
Dear MLM; read that again. I didn't say **I** used the multipurpose room in those hours: I said that those were the purposes to which the room was PUT during those hours. Not me personally, anyone in the school. It certainly put the "multi" in multipurpose.
"MLM contributes a great deal to the class, but her reading comprehension needs work. She is very intelligent, but sometimes fails to apply herself."
I would have never thought of taking the picture and turning it upside down...
@ CLOVER- I took your advice, or should I say ceativity<----sp? and turned my head...or should I say my eyes...upside down.
WHOA!!
A whole new, in *awe* perspective!!!
I've added this to my *faves*, as well!
CLOVER...you do have one helluvva'n *eagles eye*!!
Thanks, hun!
I love the "crucified cheerleader" game! The only thing better is the "decapitated football player" game!
Dearest Teacher Basil:
Consider me duly chastened. My reading comprehension is not at its highest level first thing in the morning, plus my school never had multi-purpose rooms. Therefore, I didn't begin with an adequate frame of reference. Just let me know what I can do for extra credit, and please, don't call my parents. They've had all the disappointment they can handle.
With gratitude,
MLM
Crucifixion? You don't think these little sprites are practicising for the Lenten Passion Play at Our Lady of Perpetual Sorrows, do you?
Clover--it was called the "flexed arm hang" and was designed to rip arms from shoulder joints, I do believe. I never made it even a second. They switched to pullups my last year of gym, but you had to do them holding the bar with the fingers OUT and not IN and thus, it was just as impossible.
I also have horrible memories of gym, where you were graded on how well you played. I got a D in tennis -- my eyesight is all screwed up and I have no depth perception. It still burns to this day.
I'm hoping these girls are just screwing around in a gym, having fun, and not being graded on their pyramid (Form, Shape and Dexterity)...
The girl on the right appears to be wearing arm bands. Maybe that is not a super shiny gym floor, but a swimming pool, and it isn't a crash pad they are on, but a giant float! That'd make this gymnastic feat even more impressive, but Mary can't swim too good, so she has to wear arm bands just in case it all goes tits up.
@Effie
Tits up! HAHAHAHAHA
Particularly appropos considering the arm flailing on the right hand side.
P.S. That girl labeled Cynthia is sick and tired of having her name misprinted in the year book. It's Sylvia, thank you very much.
I do remember how high that stage was! Thank YOU baby basil for helping me remember. I kinda liked that multipurpose room. And at 7:00 PM were the PTA meetings.
If there aren't multipurpose rooms anymore, maybe it's because the multi-purposes have been axed, due to budget cuts.
@John.. you're right about Pam and Josephine. Oups!
Trees? The one on the right is an oak, the other 2 are fir trees.
Which one are the sharks and which ones are the jets?
Feeling, I am happy someone caught on to my post early this morning.
The Beach by Steven Wright
THIS IS A STORY ABOUT THE BEACH.
I, Phillip, a small boy of twelve, lay exhausted, not knowing if I was sleeping or if I was daydreaming that I was sleeping. Gently I rocked back in forth in my hammock, a hammock woven out of the eyelashes of 1000 deer. There was always a gentle breeze at the top of the 300-foot stainless-steel trees where my hammock was located. All the trees were stainless-steel in the Shiny National Forest. Some of the trees had been sawed down and cut into 60-foot lengths, then sold as flagpoles to people who lived in reality, many, many years away. I had never worked so hard in my life as in these past few hours. My clothes proved that I had labored, stained with confusion, compliments and criticism, all things that are not machine washable.
I was living on Water Island. A small island, sizewise. The island had no shore. All islands are above sea level, but this was ridiculous. The entire land mass was 200 feet above the ocean. All sand. Not one human had ever been near the water. And why the hell should they? You don't see fish trying to get on the roofs of buildings.
The year was a very long time ago. The island was ruled by a king. King Sammy. King Sammy lived in the Great Formica Castle, located at the bottom of Sand Valley. The king experienced temporary insanity every day. The Formica grew wild. There was much Formica left over after the castle was completed. The extra Formica would be sold to people who lived in reality, many, many years away. Nobody ever imagined that parts of King Sammy's castle would end up in kitchens.
The king was the king because he controlled gravity. That was the only reason he was king. Which was good enough when you think about it. If he didn't like you for any reason, he would snap his fingers and you would float higher and higher until he snapped them again and you would stay at that height forever or until he brought you back down again, maybe.
People were living at different heights all over the place. The people the king hated the most were very high up in the sky, sitting on stainless-steel chairs. The people who who lived in reality, many, many years away, would look into the sky and invent the word "star." They would also invent the word "shooting star," which was actually a person on a chair that the king was moving to another position.
The reason I lived in a hammock at 300 feet was I was a waiter at the castle, and one night, entranced by the beauty of the king's niece, I accidentally served soup on flat dishes. I smiled at the young girl, the king snapped his fingers, and I went up through a skylight and have been living at 300 feet ever since. I overtook Styrofoam Canyon.
To please King Sammy and again live on the ground was indeed my goal. I was notified of my chance to do this one day at about an hour before the beginning of time. A bird flew to my hammock delivering a small letter. An invitation to possible fate. It was from the king himself. It said, "Dear Phillip: As you know, this year I will be celebrating my birthday on August 11th. If you can arrange a unique festival I will again allow you to live on the ground or at least at eye level and maybe date my niece, Princess Sammintine. I know your great-great-grandfather invented socializing. That is why I'm giving you this chance. If not, I'm sure you will be reaching further heights. Sincerely, King Sammy."
Actually my great-great-grandfather was really a hermit and invented socializing just as a joke.
So here was my chance to redeem myself and live on the ground again. I decided I would go to sleep and dream about what to do. Often I would wave goodbye when I went to sleep. As a small boy I would sometimes sleep with my eyes open so all my dreams would take place in my room. It was raining. There was a great rainbow. Rainbows over Water Island were made of a light plastic.
I was standing on a cliff looking out into the great ocean. The ocean was called Land Ocean. Just then a herd of deer ran by. None of them had eyelashes.
The water was beautiful. The king loved water. Hmmm hmm. The king was very fond of water, to the point where he installed a pool that surrounded the entire castle. Other kings would later copy this idea.
King Sammy could not swim. People who were great swimmers were despised by the king and forced to live on twelve-foot chairs. My dream then switched to housekeeping, which startled me awake.
Yes, yes, the king loved water. If only Water Island had a shore.
I began to work. I got rid of the sand the only way I knew how, I vacuumed it. Night and day I vacuumed until the sand on Water Island got lower and lower, closer to the ocean. Inadvertently, I was inventing the beach.
It was the night of August 10th. I needed much help. So I hired hundreds of small children to help remove the sand. I gave them little plastic buckets and little plastic shovels. The children removed tons of sand. They worked very hard, although they thought they were playing.
Soon the land was level with the water. An unusually beautiful sight to see for the first time: the shore, the beach. I walked up and down this peaceful area trying to avoid the broken glass.
I wrote a letter to King Sammy. "Dear King Sammy: Meet me where I'm going to be. Sincerely, Phillip."
I then prepared the festival. I brought loads of food and ale packed in boxes that were built in the Styrofoam Canyon. I brought small, horizontal fireplaces that stood on little legs. I hired a group of minstrels who could only play music too loud.
Fate lessons of the past and present were now in session. Tradition was about to begin. King Sammy arrived at the beach with fifteen court jesters, his wife, Edna, Princess Sammintine, and several other men and women who were walking around at different heights. Some of them he really didn't like and made them arrive in their underwear. People in reality would do this willingly, many, many years away.
The minstrels began to play. The king danced with the waves. I danced with the shadow of the king, and the idea of Princess Sammintine kissed the back of my memory of the events that took place.
We drank until we almost drowned on land.
A seventy-two-year-old childhood friend of the king cut the plastic rainbows into circles and filled them with air to create colorful bouncing balls. As the king snapped his fingers to the music, people were flying up and down all over the beach. The children with plastic buckets were now heavily into the construction of little castles made of sand, so the king would feel at home.
The more the king drank, the more he liked the people, and the more he liked the people, the lower they were to the ground.
Soon people were actually lying down on little cotton flags all over the beach.
I invited a few of the great swimmers on twelve-foot chairs. The king ordered them to stay in their chairs unless someone was drowning. They wore bright orange shorts.
I had a waterproof pen. The ocean was very calm. The king wanted bigger waves. So I drew huge waves on the ocean. The ships didn't understand.
As the madness continued, I made my way over to Princess Sammintine. I asked her if she wanted a massage. She said, "Yes, but not physically." I said, "How do you like the beach?" She said, "Well, it's kind of sandy." I apologized for the beach's being sandy. Then I said, "Will you marry me?" She said, "No, you're boring, and besides I've seen fatter legs on a bird."
I smiled at Princess Sammintine and accidentally served clam chowder on flat dishes. The king snapped his fingers, and I went up 300 feet onto my hammock in the sky.
I lay there swinging in the breeze, knowing that a situation like that would never take place again.
Wow. I hope that was a cut-and-paste.
No.
I refuse to believe that Smallbear is SALT IN THE SEA.