However, there is one day a year when torture is acceptable and that day is called "field day."
-Patsy
This is the beginning of the end of the school year. Standardized testing is over for the year, so teachers everywhere are beginning to plan "fun" activities and "rewards" for their students. Maybe they'll get to watch a movie. Maybe there will be pizza. Maybe they will tie dye shirts in art class. Almost inevitably, they will do something called a reward that is actually far from fun. It actually more closely resembles child torture. Kids everywhere will fake sick and hope to stay home from school, and then cry when their parents make them attend. "Oh, Patsy. You are just exaggerating. Teachers don't like to torture kids. You should know that," is what you are probably thinking. However, there is one day a year when torture is acceptable and that day is called "field day." Field Day was a pretty big deal at my school. We had to change into our gym clothes and sign up for events. Every kid would get a "participant" ribbon on a safety pin, and first, second and third place ribbons could be added throughout the day. There were events like basketball shoot-off, baseball hitting, hula hoop contest, tug-a-war, relay races and varying lengths of running races. I suppose field day was fun for normal kids, but I lacked any competitive nature required to merely tolerate field day. I was clumsy and bad at sports and I hated running. Even worse, teachers usually let us sign up for events in alphabetical order, and by the time they made it to me, all the wimpy events (bubble gum bubble blowing, water balloon toss, etc) were taken. I remember in 5th grade the teacher signed me up for a lot of running events and I cried. I remember her saying something like "oh, it's only one lap," which to me sounded like "oh, it's only 100 miles." I imagined myself collapsing in pain as my legs gave out halfway through, and all the other kids laughing at me saying "come on Patsy! You only needed to run from here to Cleveland! That's not that far!" I wondered if it was a sick joke. I heard that in middle school you had to run laps in gym class if you got in trouble. Why did the teachers want us to do it for "fun?" Fortunately, that day one of my jelly sandals broke, and I gladly used it as an excuse to let me another kid fill in for me in all of my events. Like I mentioned above, there were a few wimpy activities designed to give clumsy kids like me a chance to win. If I was able, I would sign up for hula hooping or frisbee throw, and even though I could probably have won one of these activities had I tried, I never really cared enough. Once, perhaps by a lucky gust of wind or a forgiving teacher, I won third place in the frisbee throw. It was the only ribbon I ever won in 5 years of field day. I looked like sort of a joke compared to all my friends with tons of first place ribbons pinned to their shirts. Even as a kid, I realized that field day had no impact on the rest of my life. The only perk of it was that the end of the school year was near. Maybe I would have been competitive if there were actually events I cared about, such as "read a Baby-sitters Club book as fast as you can" or "Who can sing Backstreet boys songs loudest." I would have had first place ribbons for sure. What did you win prizes for at field day? Or did you cry like I did? What would be the ultimate field day event?
-Patsy
2 Comments
Meg H.
5/8/2011 01:54:51 pm
I am totally on the same side as you...not competative, or always picked last in my case... the events at my school were more team related, and it sucked, because i felt like i was making the team lose...some of the time it was fun, but def. not all the time...
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Sarah J Sartori
8/11/2022 07:14:35 pm
I am competitive in nature so Field Day should've been right up my alley. However, just because I had an itch to beat my classmates didn't mean I had the skill. I was a slow runner and quite the daydreamer. I used to think that if God wanted to make people run you would've heard about everyone running here and there in the Bible. I was perfectly fine to just sit and keep pulling up grass and not get called. But once I was called up, man did I hate losing. It just reiterated my thoughts that I am slow and useless. Hence why I was as competitive as I was. It was only geared to the sport savvy kids. All the nerds, girly girls, and most everyone else were as out of place as a caterpillar in a bird cage.
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