The 5^th Grade High Jump

by Jeffrey M. Bowen

Each of us has at least a bit of vividly imprinted memory.  There are all kinds of variations.  In my case, myriad moments of the past are imprinted as visual images, often originally triggered by high emotions, a piece of music, just a sound, the person I was with, the occasion, or whatever.  I remember those moments in surprising detail, often right down to the weather conditions, or the color of the car parked down the street.

Here is just one illustration.  These days I have little ability to jump off the ground, and when I do, my knees hurt when I land.  I don’t think I ever had much ability of this kind because, even as a young recreational skier years ago in junior high and high school, unlike many of my age mates who leaped and careened over the moguls at Gunstock Ski Area, I just couldn’t get my boots and skis into the air.  I had little lift, no spring, and not much balance.

However, there WAS a time when I could REALLY elevate.  Back in the fifth grade, after weeks of practice on the playground with my Harvard Street Elementary School classmates taking turns landing in a thinly packed sawdust pit,  after jumping over a bamboo pole strung across a couple of uprights, I found I was pretty good at it.  The “scissors” was our only style.  This was years before the now routinely used Fosbury Flop, which requires at least three feet of cushions under the bar because jumpers are prone to land directly on their necks.

Came the annual elementary school track meet in June.  I went through the elimination rounds with ease, and finally, I actually won!  The physical education teacher who was running this event, Mr. Noucas asked, “Do you want to try for a record?”  I said of course, so with that bar getting right up there to where I had never jumped before, I leaped.  I missed badly, and fell over backward as I came down, so instinctively I put my hands out behind me to catch my fall.  Not a good move.  A moment later I looked at my sawdust-caked right arm, and my vivid memory is that it looked strangely twisted up and down just above the wrist, and it really hurt.  I lay there and moaned, and immediately people crowded around.  I heard Mr. Noucas say, “Ahh, I think he broke his arm.”  What followed was a blur, but my mom, who also happened to be my 5th grade teacher, rode with me to the Laconia Clinic where they set my arm in a summer-long cast, but not before using ether as an anesthetic.  Never will I forget the swirling green buzz I saw before disappearing into etherland.  Nor will I forget waking up to seemingly endless vomit.  But it all ended eventually.  When the cast was removed at the end of summer, my arm looked like it belonged to a zombie.  Before long it came back to life and was as good as new except now and then, in damp weather, when I remember grade 5, it still aches a bit.

Now that I think about it, since that time, I have never been able to spring off the ground more than a few paltry inches.  Perhaps that 5th grade high jump taught more of a lesson than I realized.