We’d try anything… except synchronized swimming 

It seems like to me, back when I was competing in the Summer Olympics, we didn’t do so much talking between events as they do today. You can bet your bottom dollar we didn’t plan our races, high dives, and javelin throws around television commercials. And a long-winded documentary on every contestant in every event would have been superfluous.

We grew up together. I didn’t need a background check on John Ingram, Hollis Mayo, Buddy Wiggleton, or either of the Stafford brothers. I don’t remember a day they were not in my life. It was the same for Larry Ridinger, Bobby Brewer, Emily Scarbrough, Jim Williams….

As a matter of fact, when we gathered up in front of the swimming pool for the race to town, I knew who I could beat, and who I couldn’t. The aforementioned John Ingram was going to win unless he stumbled over that little hill in front of Paul David Campbell’s house, or he got run over by a car when we bolted through the intersection where Stonewall Street crossed Magnolia Avenue.

We didn’t have one of those fancy pits for the long jump. We settled for the big ditch behind George Sexton’s house. We’d try to pick a spot where the ditch wasn’t 20 feet wide. And we approached it from the east side because you could get a downhill running start. We didn’t have any rules about what part of your body landed first. The idea was to make it to the top of the bank on the far side.

We didn’t need a judge. If you didn’t reach the top, you’d bounce off the far wall and plummet to the bottom of the ditch. It meant immediate disqualification, not to mention a few cuts and bruises, and, every once in a while, a broken arm. 

The winner didn’t need a gold medal. His reward was he wasn’t spitting blood out between his teeth.

The discus throw was one of my favorite events. We’d borrow a hubcap off of the nearest 1960 Chevrolet and head to that vacant lot beside the swimming pool. That hubcap was as big as a flying saucer and, in the right hands, it would sail on forever.

Form didn’t matter to us. We’d spin around and let it fly. We’d throw sidearm, overhand, we’d get a running start to build up momentum…. Distance was the key here. And we’d most always get into a heated argument on whether you measured to where the hubcap landed, or where it rolled out to, as to who would be declared the winner.

That is when the boxing match broke out. It was legal back in our day for one Olympic game to “spring up” right in the middle of another one! 

We used sawhorses for the hurdles race. We’d pull up those hollow reeds down by the pond in Mr. Archie Moore’s field, cram mud in the big end to give them some weight, and throw them like javelins. We’d cut small trees down, trim them up a mite, and pole vault any high thing that got in our way. 

The pole vaulting never worked as intended. You put a big stick in the hands of West Tennessee boys back in those days and they just naturally started hitting each other with them. Remember, we could have two games going at once.

And the good news is, we did this all summer long, every summer! We were not about to waste three years “training” for a game. And we never felt confined to a set order of games. It was our summer, our games. If we could imagine it, we could do it!

Well, almost….

Leon invented the tree jump. We had climbed up to the top of the walnut tree in our backyard. We were enjoying the view high above every house in the neighborhood when he got to discussing the fastest way back to the ground. As you all know, it always took longer to climb down a big tree than it did to get to the top of it.

Leon got to studying the distance to the mimosa tree that was 15 feet or so below us and back closer to the house. He figured if we leaped out wide enough we could catch the nearest limbs of the mimosa and be back on the ground in no time.

It was true the mimosa limbs were more spread out and easier to maneuver, but if you missed those limbs that sudden stop when you hit the ground wasn’t going to be a lot of fun. I turned to tell Leon he was crazy, but I was too late. He was already in midair…. Leon was never one to ponder over anything for long.

He crashed through the first couple of high-up limbs, but they slowed his descent till he could get a good hold, and then it wasn’t but a few seconds till he was on the ground. He immediately looked up at me and yelled, “NEXT!”

From that distance, I couldn’t tell if he was bleeding or had an arm dangling loosely by his side. I looked at Buddy and Ricky. We voted Leon the gold medal for tree jumping right on the spot.

Of course, it took us 20 minutes to get back down to the ground to deliver the good news to him. 

Respectfully,

Kes