What is Gym Class For?

Rock Island, Fall 1970

When I was a kid in the 1960s and 1970s, I hated gym class.
1. Trying to catch a projectile aimed at your head.
2. Not catching it, and being jeered by your classmates.
3. Or catching it, not knowing what in the world to do with it, and being jeered by your classmates.

Ok, I liked one thing about it (see left).

Why was gym even a class?  What were we expected to learn?

Gym class derives from the 19th century "muscular Christianity," which tried to remedy the increasing "feminization" of Western culture through hard physical labor.

But it got a kick start in 1956, when President Eisenhower decided that American youth were too sedentary, not able to compete with the Russkies, so he established the President's Council on Physical Fitness.

By the 1960s, an hour of "vigorous physical activity" every day was mandated for middle school and high school kids (grade schoolers made do with recess).

There were regular "Fitness Tests" to see if we were adequately muscular. The one I hated the most: push-ups, sit-ups, and chin-ups.  The number you could do at one time was your grade:
Less than 60, F
60 to 69, D
And so on

I have never in my life been able to do 100 push-ups in one set.

The Canadian Council on Physical Fitness says that, for a 20-year old, 36 push-ups is "excellent."

But I liked the public-service announcements that the President's Council broadcast during the 1960s, lots of smiling, muscular, semi-nude all-American boys exercise.

The one I remember most clearly -- is a President's Council on Physical Fitness PSA.

 It depicts a muscular teenager named Eddie Lewis, naked except for skimpy gym shorts, doing push-ups, the camera lingering on the interplay of muscles, while the narrator says that for each push-up, he's "a little bit hotter, a little bit healthier, and a little bit happier" than before.

Just watching made me a little bit hotter.  And a little bit happier.

See also: How to Survive Gym Class.

Dating the Preacher's Son

Rock Island, Spring 1977

During my junior year at Rocky High (1976-77), most guys were obsessed with demonstrating that they were not Swishes (our word for "gay").  The best way was to become a Rock (jock), or be seen in public with one -- they hated men with muscles.

I wasn't on a team -- being an athletic trainer didn't count -- so I had no choice but the only other option: date a Rock.

But most Rocks were very busy, having sex with eight or nine girls in various combinations every night, so they had little time or energy left for boys.

One day in November, a few weeks after my date with Todd's girlfriend, I was running around the indoor track, when I saw the preacher's son Verne (not his real name) playing one-on-one basketball in the gym be-low. Verne was a senior, so our paths rarely intersected. At school, I saw him only in the locker room after football practice, when he was anxious to get to the showers.

At church, he was always encased in a shell of fawning groupies. Practically our only contact came a couple of months ago, when I helped him Pray Through to Victory at an altar call.

As I ran, Verne finished his game. He guzzled Gatorade from a plastic bottle, then ripped off his t-shirt and collapsed, shimmering with sweat, onto the lap of a girl.  He was hugely tall, with broad shoulders, hard thick biceps, short dark hair, and dark blue, almost purple eyes.  And he was a Nazarene -- no sex allowed!  He would be perfect.

It took a week for me to bolster my courage enough to call. Even then, I dialed and hung up three times. When Verne came on the line, I said, “There’s a gospel concert on Saturday. Um. . .if you’re not, like, busy or anything. . .would you like to go?”

Verne burst into raucous laughter.

“Sorry to bother you,” I said stiffly, my face burning with humiliation.

“No – it’s ok, sorry,” Verne said. “It was just funny the way you asked. I’m busy Saturday, but what about the basketball game Friday? You can do more touching at a game, anyway. I’ll get us a couple of girls.”

I spent the rest of the evening exuberantly calling all of my friends, and wondering why do we need girls?

During the game, Verne and I sat with the girls on either side, so that our thighs and knees sometimes brushed together, and whenever the Rocks scored a point, he enveloped me in a warm, sweaty hug. Next came Alfano's for Canadian bacon and sauerkraut pizza and two pitchers of soda, one for the boys and one for the girls.

We had a lot to talk about.  Verne was taking AP Spanish and French; if it hadn't been God’s Will for him to become a preacher, he would have become a linguist.

When we dropped off Verne’s girl, he walked her to her doorstep “for safety,” but returned almost immediately, complaining that her father had left the porch light on.

My girl came next; her porch light was dark.

When I returned to the car, Verne asked “Did you get any?”'

I assumed that he meant kissing, so I said “Sure. Lots.”  I had kissed her on the cheek.

Verne reached over and punched my shoulder and exclaimed “Awright!” I was disappointed that he didn’t walk me to my doorstep to “get some,” but otherwise I was elated by my success.

During the winter and spring of eleventh grade, we went to a a jazz concert, the spring musical,  an orchestra banquet, two basketball games, a baseball game, hiking, jogging, tennis, and swimming.  That was more enough for us to be “going together,” though no one at Rocky High seemed to notice, referring to us only as buddies.

 Dating Verne summarily ended any suspicion that I was That Way. Even at church, people spoke to me in a civil tone.  It also ended pressure by my Crowd to date girls -- apparently Vikings were dreamy enough.

 Maybe that's why he always insisted on girls for evening dates.  He usually provided them, but twice I brought Becky, my Just Friend, and once I acquired my own, by casually saying: “Oh, and Verne will be there, too.”

At some point Verne always disappeared with his girl for ten or fifteen minutes, and on the way home he had the annoying habit of asking “Did you get any?” But these complaints were trivial; I was dating a Rock!

In May we spent a weekend camping with his friends at Starved Rock State Park at Starved Rock State Park, about 100 miles from Rock Island.  Though we shared a tent, I avoided any repeat of the scapular incident.  I didn't want to discover that Verne was one of these guys who drops you the moment things get physical.  But I did see a few things.

The Psychotherapist of Omaha

Omaha, June 1980

In the summer of 1980, during my sophomore year at Augustana, my boyfriend Fred landed a pulpit in Gretna, Nebraska, a tiny town about 20 miles south of Omaha.  So, being bright-eyed and naive, I moved with him.

I hated every minute of it.
1. Fred was completely closeted, so I had to be introduced as his "cousin."
2. He expected me to do all of the housework.
3. Gretna, Nebraska had an annual "Watermelon Feed."  I never go to any event called a "feed."  Do they line you up at a trough like pigs?
4. I had a job as an Assistant District Circulation Manager for the Omaha World Herald. A glorified paperboy.
5. I had a car, but I wasn't allowed to go to into Omaha to the gay bars, or even to go to the gym without Fred's permission.
6. Fred dated women, "for appearances."
7. I'm pretty sure that Fred was also tricking with the teenage boy downstairs.

Naturally, I got depressed.  Super-depressed.  Sitting-around-all-day-in-a-bathrobe depressed.

"You need psychiatric help," Fred told me one evening when he returned to see that I had spent the entire day in front of the tv.  "Every gay person should be in counseling anyway, to work through the guilt and shame."

"I don't have any guilt and shame.  I'm homesick."

 "Yes, you do.  You're just suppressing it.  Don't worry, I'll find you a therapist."

Easier said than done.  Although the American Psychiatric Association removed "homosexuality" from its list of psychoses in 1973, some therapists hadn't gotten the word, and others were just homophobic.  But the Gay Hotline of Omaha had some referrals, and in July 1980 I began seeing Dr. Corey.  I couldn't afford individual sessions, so he suggested group therapy.

Bad idea!  There were four other members in the group, two men and two women, and they spent the entire three sessions that I attended peppering me with inane questions:

"Were you gay before you met Fred?"
"How do you know you're gay, if you've never tried it with a woman?"
"Did some traumatic event turn you gay?"
"When you see a cute girl, do you think she's ugly?"
"Where do you find women's clothes in your size?"
"When are you going to have a sex change operation?"

And those were the polite questions.

Dr. Corey had a rule: you can't hit anyone in session.  If you feel like you're going to lose your temper, get up and leave the room.

A tall, muscular guy named Stan, about my age, got up and left the room a lot.  After almost every question.  We could hear him stomping around in the waiting room, saying "Goddam!  Goddam!  Goddam!"

When they asked "Do you have to be drunk or high to be able to have sex with a man?", I answered "No, I like it, so I want to be sober."

That got Stan so upset that he had to stomp around outside the building, in the parking lot.  When he returned, he had obviously been crying.

"I don't have anything against anybody," he stammered, "But when you...act, act like that, like a...woman, with your legs in the air...and then you say you like it!  You're sick!  You have a disease!"

"What makes you think I'm the one with his legs in the air?"

He stomped out of the room again.

During my third session, someone asked: "Are you the boy or the girl in your relationship with Fred?

Of course, the proper response is "We're both boys," but I was too stupid for that.  I thought of how Fred was the money-maker, how he expected me to stay home, put all of my career aspirations on hold, and spend my days doing housework and watching soap operas.  Gender-polarized female.  So I said "The girl, I guess."

Three of the four group members ran out of the room to avoid hitting me.

Which didn't make me feel better.

I never went back to group.  I thought of a better solution.

On Sunday, July 20th, I waited for Fred to go to church.  I packed while he was gone, got into my car, and drove cross country 24 hours to Los Angeles.  You can read about my trip here.