For Better or For Worse by Lynn Johnston for September 17, 2014

Too exhausted to take clothes off followed by putting on regular clothes. Bummer.

I see Michael’s hair is brown again… ;)

At my high school (many, many moons ago), there were shower stalls but no-one ever used them; no-one even knew of anyone that had used one! Poor Michael…he looks like he is exhausted…not good, Mr. PE! ;)

No P.E. until junior high, either. Small rural school.

Is this gym teacher some relative of Brad Luggsworth?

Since I am not into guys I tried to wait until the group was done first.

Ours was just a big room with about 20 shower heads with controls. Although, you wanted to be one of the first ones out of the shower otherwise you had to ‘run the jauntlet’ of the ‘towel flippers’ ! ! !!

My first encounter with school showers was in 7th grade. I had just moved to Indiana after having lived in El Paso for 5 years, which was unusual for an army brat. My father did a tour in Germany without us, so I was able to go to the same school for 2nd-6th grade. Lived in 3 different houses, but kept the same school. Moving to Indiana was emotional for me. I always looked older than my age, so on the first day of school many of the kids thought I was a new teacher. It was of course the first time I had to change classes every hour, and also the first time I had to ride a school bus. Then comes P.E. and the public showers. Remember the scene from “Carrie”? No, my period didn’t begin, thank God, but I felt just as scared as she was. I was one of the less “informed” girls. The other girls were talking, and one of them asked me if I was “green”. My brain somehow thought that meant had my period began, since we were at an age where that was normally the time for it to start. I said yeah since it had. Then they asked me “with who?” I didn’t know what they meant. One of the other girls said that you were “green” if you hadn’t been kissed! So nothing to do with periods or anything of the sort! Thankfully I was only there for one semester before we started our “let’s move every six months” time. I was given a medical waiver for P.E. due to my asthma, so thankfully I NEVER had to endure another shower at school.

I see myself and 2 others noticednotice the colorist made a mistake on the hair yesterday but correct today….. also love how the boy peeks behind the curtain to discover michael is clothed.. I guess we have to assume he saw him go in fully clothed… otherwise.. HEY, get the “bleep” outa my shower!

It is in Canada, so…

For me, the first public shower experience wasn’t in P.E. At 9 years old I went to a week-long summer camp (sponsored by the local Baptist church). It was “Indian Village” (back in the pre-PC ’60s), so our “cabins” were six-seven bed “teepees”, with five or six teepees making up your “tribe”. Restroom and shower facilities were in a separate building some distance away. Five shower heads in a large room. You could also count on “friends” taking your clothes and towel while you were in the shower at some point, so you had to cross a large campsite naked. Fortunately, the tribes were unisex.

In Pittsburgh in the early 40’s we had a cavernous gym with wooden floors. We started gym in at least the third grade, since then is when I left. In St. Petersburg, FL, we had recess outdoors. I liked that better.In high school there were showers, but I never took one. I managed to dress modestly, with the strategic use of a half slip over my shoulders. Girls had to wear dresses, unless it was freezing.

Aren’t his clothes “Wash & Wear?” :)

In 7th grade PE—-’63—-there was a big, open communal shower….we never used it….until the last day of school when the coach, for some reason, decided we needed one….no soap, no deodorant…just cold water.

I remember that often times after we had all had a shower that there were no towels left to dry off with… I had to get myself dressed several times while I was still soaking wetand go back to class that way. Wet and exhausted in damp clothes. Needless to say, I hated P.E. This was in the 60’s.

Lynn’s Notes:

In junior high, our teacher used to cut things so short we had no time to change before our next class. Her rule was, we HAD to shower. She’d watch us as we scrambled, slipped, and slid through the water and into our clothes — barking at those of us who tried to get away with not taking off our underwear. Some of us wondered if she was “unusual” or just plain mean!

We brought our own gym strip and towel from home and were responsible for the dryness and cleanliness of it all. Some people got pretty ripe by the end of term!

Showering with clothes on has a distinct advantage: it keeps you cool through the rest of the day (although Mike won’t figure this out ’til later).

In no school in which I substituted did kids use the showers after PE. Not in middle school, not in high school. They just loaded up on deodorant and hoped for the best. And that was by design: The showers were never made available for the kids. I recall showering after gym in junior high and in high school. I don’t know what the problem is they’re trying to avoid by having the kids gas out their next class.

Want to know what the worst part of a bully of a PE teacher like this is? The regular school teachers probably praise him to the high heavens because after PE the kids come back to class too tired to be rowdy and are thus easier to control.