Remember that story about a preschool teacher who started a Fight Club with the kids they were supposed to be watching? Yeah, that was pretty fucking horrible, and the title of this GF column might seem misleading because I'm going to talk about my time in preschool. Back when I first put on a pair of boxing gloves.
I took it up again while I was in junior high, and I wasn't very good at it, which is probably why I didn't continue. But those preschool boxing days were kinda fun.
I'll not mention the name of the preschool, and I won't mention the names of the two people who ran it. For all I know, they're no longer with us, but I'll just keep that info to myself. Not that they did anything bad. Far from it, in my opinion.
I don't know if they were husband and wife, or even if they were together or what. But I do remember that she was very nice, and he was a lot of fun. Especially when he broke out the boxing gloves. What he would do was, he would teach us how to put them on, and then he let us whale on him with everything we had. Which, you know, wasn't much. Was I even five years old yet? Probably not.
My mom dropped me off and would go four doors down to work as a clerk at the 7-Eleven. Or was it the bar in the next parking lot over? She did both jobs, but I don't remember which one it was in those days. I then had the guy help me with my gloves, and he'd let me throw punch after punch at his face. He goofed off a lot and made funny faces, pretending to be in pain, but he couldn't hide the ridiculous grin slightly turning up the corners of his mouth.
"That all you got?" he'd ask.
I'd hit him with everything I had, and every once in a while a delighted laugh would escape him.
That's probably one of those things people would frown upon today, like cooking with lard or letting your kid hang out on the ledge beneath the back window of your car. I mean, obviously you shouldn't do those things. One's a great way to have a heart attack, and the other is a surefire way to get your kid killed. Probably you, too, since you weren't wearing a seat belt back then.
But still. It's weird to think about the things we used to do decades ago.
The place where the preschool was is now inhabited by a karate dojo for kids. Which makes me laugh, kind of.
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