Grand Avenue by Mike Thompson for December 01, 2023

Gave her enough rope to hang herself.

All she did was ask a question. You could have just answered. Or offered to show her how. Sheesh!

And Gabby probably had this phrase in mind: “I would never ask you to do anything that I would not to myself.” Think about it, Coach.

Gabby asked a fair question. When adults don’t lead by example they can’t be surprised when kids don’t respect them.

When I was 10, we had to climb ropes in gym. But they had knots in them to help us. It was STILL very hard.

When I was around 10, (I’m thinking 4th grade) many of the boys in the class could climb the rope but the girls couldn’t. I remember one stupid girl just hanging on it whimpering. I thought she was shaming all of us girls. I asked one of the boys to show me how to do it and he did, I climbed the rope. But I haven’t had a chance to do it since so I have forgotten how. But what fun it was to do it even just that once.

Coach De Carlo! (I thought he was dead)

But she did get out of gym class. She got to sit outside the Principal’s office.

Our gym teachers were also the coaches (wrestling, football and track) who could climb the rope as easy as walking in the hallway – they started us on the knotted ropes and then moved us to the smooth ropes. I found out a couple of years later that a couple of them had been special forces and they said that rope climbing was part of their job…

Forget fast. But I could touch the turnbuckle.