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Pastimes : THE SLIGHTLY MODERATED BOXING RING -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Lazarus_Long who wrote (16170)	6/30/2002 1:58:32 PM
From: E	Read Replies (4) \| Respond to of 21057

No, we agree that the two words should be left in. We agree on this: "But this is not worth the backlash a culture war will set off." I was commenting on the remark below, and being surprised at it, though maybe the fact that the children were JW's, and that was understood as a "religion," and that there were a number of them, made it a not uncomfortable experience for them. I knew a number of Jehovah's Witnesses in school. They did not recite the pledge. Nothing was made of it.

To: Lazarus_Long who wrote (16170)	6/30/2002 3:02:37 PM
From: E	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 21057

I wasn't any of those, but was still shy, with some exceptions You? Shy? With exceptions? And what were those? <snicker> I was very shy as a child, but, for example, if anyone picked on my little sister, I lost my shyness. I even went once to an adult's house, a woman who had incorrectly assumed my sister had done something or other of which she was innocent and had scolded her, and told her she was wrong and should say she was sorry to my sister. I was maybe 7 then. (She called my parents and told them about the incident, and they were proud of me and talked about it later, which is why I remember it.) But here is a story that is about... The Bravest Thing I Ever Did Or Will Ever Do! (I started to tell it on DAR once, but got distracted.) I'm still more proud of this than of anything I've ever done, and how pathetic is that, since I did it when I was about 10? I've done hard things, but never anything that was harder to do (because I was a child, and it was scary.) My sister and I were sent to Girl Scout Camp for two weeks one summer. The camp was on a large lake, and all the children swam in the lake twice a day. The first day, when swim-time was over, a counselor blew a loud whistle. The children scrambled madly to get out of the water. It appeared to be a race, to my surprise. Naturally, somebody's always out last. All the other girls, and there were lots of them, formed two lines. I didn't understand what was going on until the little girl who had scrambled out of the water last started crying. She was made to run between the two lines, and as she ran, crying so much she ran slowly, the children slapped her as hard as they could on the behind, or on whatever they could reach as she stumbled past. I learned that this was the way they got the children out of the water quickly every day! Every day, somebody had to run the gauntlet. I guess it saved the staff the annoyance of delays. This scene upset me very much. There was a wide age range at the camp. My sister, who was maybe 8, was among the youngest, as was the little girl whom I had seen run the gauntlet (I suppose that had something to do with my reaction to the scene); but there were teen aged girls, too, big, strong girls I was quite intimidated by. But (and here's where I was brave) this is what I did. Each day, twice a day for two weeks, starting with the second swim, I stayed in the water, standing at the edge of the lake until the last child was out, and then walked out of the water and back to my cabin. Some of the teenagers were unpleasant to me, and the counselors called me "a bad sport," and it was not at all a fun summer camp experience, but I had no ambivalence whatever, oddly enough, only that sick fear children get, and satisfaction that there was no gauntlet while I was at that camp. I wonder if it resumed afterward. I suppose so. Now aren't you sorry you snickered? Oddly, I have a nephew who did a similar thing at a horrid city-run summer camp he went to. It made my sister and me wonder if such attitudes are genetic.