The Unofficial Hunger Games: Surviving GenX Field Day
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Paul, hey listeners, before we begin, just quickly, I'd love to tell you about three ways you can support the pop culture Preservation Society. As you know, we are an independent podcast. We're not owned or paid by anybody. We do everything by ourselves, and all of our financial support comes from you, the listeners. So if you'd like to help us pay our bills so we can keep on trucking. Here's what you can do. One, pledge your support with a recurring monthly donation on Patreon. There are three levels of support, and each one comes with exclusive bonus content. Just go to patreon.com or look for the link in our show notes. Two, subscribe to our YouTube channel. Did you know we had one even if you don't have any intention of watching anything on YouTube. Do it anyway, because when we get to a certain level of subscribers, we have a shot at getting a little compensation, and every little bit counts three. This one is new. Buy your books using our bookshop.org, Link bookshop.org. Is an online bookseller that benefits small independent bookstores, and when you use our link, we get a little bit of that love. All of these links will be in our show notes and in our email newsletter and in our link tree. But most importantly, thank you for being here. Thank you for listening, and thank you for sharing with your Gen X friends. You are the reason we do this, and we couldn't be more grateful to you, Nanu. Nanu, keep on trucking and may the Force be with you.
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Because I thought maybe I wasn't who I thought I was,
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like, maybe, have I been living a lie? Am I really a shock? I shake it now you're like, I'm gonna be a track in the field. Start Olympian. Hello
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world. There's a song that we're singing.
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Come on, get
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happy. A lot of love is what we'll be bringing.
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Will make you happy.
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Welcome to the pop culture Preservation Society, the podcast for people born in the big wheel generation who still have a blister between their toes from their rubber flip flops. I mean songs,
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we believe our Gen X childhoods gave us unforgettable songs, stories, characters and images, and if we don't talk about them, they'll disappear like Marshall will and Holly on a routine expedition, and today, we'll be saving those tried and true traditions that signal the end of the school year and the start of summer vacation. I'm Carolyn, I'm Kristen, and I'm Michelle, and we are your pop culture preservationists.
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Fauci school summer.
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Welcome everyone to season 16.
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Confetti cannon and applause. Here, you guys, the PCPs can drive. We can
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I got my permit.
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No, we're fully licensed religious. Now, I know I I'm honestly frightened by how fast these seasons fly by. I don't know about you guys, but fly by I don't like I love it and I don't like it. It's time. Just in general, it flies by these days. I think I know everything goes faster now. Hey, DM Well, besides all the great episodes coming your way and listeners, if you missed last week's episode, we gave you the rundown of this upcoming season, as well as exciting stuff we're in the process of planning for the podcast, stay tuned. There's some other fun things that are going on for us individually, right? Carolyn, yes, speaking of planning, you guys, I'm gonna be a mother of the bride.
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That gives me goose bumps right now on my kneecap. Gosh, you guys, I was just a bride yesterday, so this is really hard for me, but fun. I'm so excited. So yes, so Maggie is engaged, and we're just starting those plans, and not sure of what is going to unfold, but it's, I know it's going to be glorious and fun, and I'm looking forward to it. And so any of our listeners who have gone down this road already, any helpful hints are much appreciated. You can reach out and let me know the do's and don'ts, especially the don'ts, because I don't want to do any of the don'ts.
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I you know what? Maggie should feel good about the music, because I messaged her a couple days after she got engaged and said, hey, no worries the PCPs, we are on the playlist for the reception, so just don't even worry about that. I'm sure she was so appreciative. I'm sure she was like, Well,
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you guys, you know, haven't you seen probably, on Tiktok or something, those viral videos of dances at wedding receptions like the mother and the son, but they're also sometimes where the mom and maybe some of her friends come out and do a.
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Little I'll do it. Okay? I will all right.
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And we're gonna dress, we'll go back real quick, and we'll change into, like, polyester pantsuits, yeah? And we'll come out and we'll do a whole Abba thing. I could do that? Yeah? She didn't really, actually ask me, like, Okay,
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you I already was thinking of like, this great thrift store a couple miles from my house. Oh, I can totally find my outfit there. Well, I'm gonna have auditions. I think I have to have auditions. It's okay. I can do that. I'm fine with that. Yes, we have already won the audition. If you're having auditions, I'm not worried about that does not
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scare me at all. We just need to organize a time to get together and do a choreo audition. Yeah, choreo,
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that's there you go. So I know this is a joke, but I'm like, very excited. Like, oh my god, what if this actually happened? I never know.
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Right now, Maggie's listening, and Maggie just has decided to elope.
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The phone rings. Suddenly, Carolyn's phone rings,
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yeah, remember, mom, when you said you'd just write me a check and I could go alone.
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Back to that. Why don't mom, you just have a party with your friends? Why do you have to involve me?
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Yeah? Really, I remind her that of that too. I'm like, Yeah, this, it is about you, but it's, it's kind of also about me. It is a time for me to get to invite my friends, let's be honest. Okay, and I do, I do get down on parents. Parents sometimes when they make it about them, because it is about their kids. However, this is a huge milestone. This is a rite of passage for a parent. You, I realize that you're not like shuttling Maggie out of your house and into somebody else's house. Maggie's been on her own for a long time. She's a big girl. However it is, your family is growing. Yes, exactly. But Kristen, you do have some planning of your own that it's going to be going on too. What's that all about? Oh, it's big. So the countdown has begun for the release of the sequel to worldwide crush called the Scott Fenwick diaries. It's coming out on July 22 and just like worldwide crush was inspired by my crush on Sean Cassidy, the Scott Fenwick diaries is inspired by my crush on Scott Fenwick
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and inspired by I just have to make sure that I say that inspired by that's important, because there are no real events that actually happened to me and Scott Fenwick. Because what happened between me and Scott Fenwick in real life was nothing, zero. Nothing happened. All of these relationships took place solely in my imagination, which is why they become books. However, there is one scene in the book that inadvertently came from my diary in fifth grade. I wrote it, and then I read my diary, I swear to God, and so I'll be filling you in on that later. So I have to tell you I've been attempting to contact Scott Fenwick and just let him know that there will be a book with his name on it when he goes into bookstores this summer, I've only looked for my Scott Fenwick. I've not looked for all the other Scott fenwicks in the world, because my Scott Fenwick might see this book, and he might recognize my name and he might call the FBI. So I just wanted to know that I've not been stalking him since 1979
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so I was able to find him the right Scott Fenwick, but my attempts to contact him have really been a failure thus far, like wrong social media profile, or he can't see my messages because we're not Facebook friends. One of my very savvy friends was able to find his work email, but I got no response from that. It's possible I got caught in a firewall or something, but this week, there was a development months ago, months ago, I requested to connect with him on LinkedIn, months ago, And this week, he accepted that request.
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I want
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to message, yes, it was just like, I mean, the three of us were just going back and forth. We couldn't believe I love, I know, but I loved Carolyn's response when you just sent, uh, listeners, Kristen just sent us the screenshot of the Scott Fenwick has accepted your Connect, or is connected with you, whatever. And Carolyn just says, Let the games begin.
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I have this grand plan that you're going to connect with him. He's going to be like, Oh, that is the sweetest thing. Oh, my gosh, I'm so flattered. And hey, you know you're going to be like, hey, when we do this event at this bookstore, it'd be so fun if I could say, and here's the real Scott. I mean, that would be like, probably he would be like, Oh, I'm game. That's so fun. I don't know. That's my dream. That's the hope. I just want to make sure he knows that, like, the book is not about him, it's just inspired by his shiny hair in fifth grade. So I did, now that we're connected on LinkedIn, I can, I can send him a message. So I did send him a message to say, hey, it's.
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Me. Do you remember me from 45 years ago? My God,
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and I have not gotten anything back, but you know, maybe he doesn't check LinkedIn, maybe he doesn't like once every six months. And we're all thinking, and I'm sure most of our listeners are thinking too, this is adorable. This is darling. It's precious. How can you think it's anything but, and we probably do have a handful of listeners that are like, Oh, that is creepy. AF, you got that message, not that you wrote the book. Because, again, I'm gonna even, I'm gonna emphasize this too. All the things that happen in the book with Scott Fenwick didn't actually happen. So it's not that, yeah, I think would be cute if I got the message. And yeah, I would be, I would be very fine. Michelle Schmidt diaries,
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what
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if I had a crush on you? What if I was like a same? It's a note,
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Michelle, and I would be happy to be character witnesses. If you feel like you need to appreciate that. Thank you. If he needs to reach out to us first. Well, yes, John Cassidy is intact, and he everything's fine. So I would just like to thank you for writing another book, because that just means that my late summer and fall just got a whole lot more fun. Oh, they sure did. They sure did. So in addition to, you know, the Mad cap caper to find my fifth grade crush and prove to him that I'm safe. And there's no call for the FBI. What's leading up to the release of the Scott Fenwick diaries is planning for both my book release party in Minneapolis, which listeners can come to. You're it's open to the public. You can come and planning for a joint book tour slash podcast tour for Carolyn and Michelle and me, and we had a great time in April at Anderson's bookshop in Downers Grove, Illinois, doing our Are you there? God, it's me Margaret book club. And we think that that will be the template for us to come visit you where you are. We had 50 people for the Margaret book club at Anderson's bookshop, and it was so fun. Yes, it was great. The three of us really complement each other and we're and what I mean compliment, not like tell each other how cute we are all the time, and funny just how we do, you know, what we offer to the book club. We all bring our own perspectives, but it really balances. And so it was really fun to have this conversation with with other people, yeah, well, and I mean, listening to everybody's Margaret moments, but also just their Judy Blume love and how much all of her books meant to them is is so fulfilling. I don't know it's it's a great way to connect with people, and it's just joyful, and it's such a good way to also be promoting Scott Fenwick, I should say the Scott
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Fenwick diaries
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as well. We're promoting you, Scott Fenwick, promoting the Scott Fenwick diaries and worldwide crush because, and I've said it before, I'm going to say it again, because they're both Kristen writing style. And y'all who have not read these books, I don't care how old you are, read them, because they're so relatable and real and funny. And she is. She's our Judy Blume. And so it's such a great Well, you're welcome. It's such a it's such a great marriage of of conversation and promotion at these events to be having people come to share their Margaret memories and their Judy Blume feelings at the same time talking about worldwide crush and the Scott family diaries, because they're the same type of book. So yeah, it's all about seventh grade. And so here's where we could use your help. You the listeners. We're not going to go anywhere where we have no listeners. We're just not because we want to meet you. And if you have friends who love Margaret, we'd like to meet them too, especially if they're teachers or librarians or middle schoolers or parents of middle schoolers, because those are all the kinds of people who'd like to hear about the Scott Fenwick diaries also. So if you have a bookstore or a library or a book friendly venue that would like to host us, and if you have a community of people you'd like to share this event with, please let us know. Consider yourself part of our team, like our ground team. You can help us spread the word. You can send us a message at hello@poppreservationists.com
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or send us a DM or call us on the telephone. No, you can't do that because we don't have a phone number. And if you'd like a signed copy of the book when it comes out, you can order one from the bookstore where I work, which is called Big Hill books in Minneapolis. And that link will be in our show notes and our newsletter, and it's in my link tree on Instagram, all the places, all the places. It's like having having a book drop in the summer like this
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is really great, because this may feels like the end of school, it feels like I'm waiting for something really big and fun to begin like summer is coming. Summer is coming. Yes, and what a great feeling that is right. Don't you remember at the end of the school year, there was just a different feeling?
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Feeling in the air, in our bones, in the carpet, in the skull. It was just kind of everywhere, this excited anticipation. But yet, I think too, there was a tinge, at least for me, I don't know if I'm speaking for myself, just a bitter being, a little bittersweet, like, you know, saying, Oh, I think more so when I was a teacher, probably, but it was a mix of all of those emotions. Yeah, I mean, leaving your teacher was a big deal, and you didn't start disliking your teachers until much later. In the beginning, your teacher was always kind of your idol, and you were saying goodbye to her, slash him. Well, in your and your your classroom, the kids in your classroom, for better or for worse, that's a family. And I agree with you, Carolyn, as a teacher, when we would be getting a couple of weeks before the end of the school year,
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regardless of if I had a class that year where 10 of them, you know, drove me to an early grave every day, or I had to send to the office three times a week, or whatever. It didn't matter you were. You created a family. You spent more time with these kids during the weekdays than they did with their own parents or their own siblings and so or that I spent with my own husband. And so there was a huge it was. I had a huge melancholy feeling, and I think I even, I'm sure I even had that as a student. The only thing is, I moved around so much that I probably never knew. Like, well, I don't know where I'll be next year. Remember how you had to return all your library books? That was like,
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you couldn't find one of them.
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You still have Beverly Cleary remote you know, you have Ramona and Beezus out or whatever, and I don't know where it is, and your teacher would make you sweep your desks like everybody open your desks. We're looking for library books. I moved so much that I still probably have several library books from various libraries that you know, they'll be like, Oh, just bring it back next fall. And I'm like, okay,
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sucker, see ya, I
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bet I'm moving again this summer. You know what else always happened at the end of the school year, which I want to do this as a as a whole episode sometime, but at the end of the year, that was oftentimes when the whole school would gather in the gym, and like all 500 kids would be sitting crisscross applesauce on the floor to watch a movie. Yes, right. So the teachers could, like, be taken with their boards now, yeah, they were. They had, we didn't know that this was on purpose. We thought it was like, Oh, you've done such a good job throughout the year, and now we're going to give you this gift of watching a movie. But no, the teachers were like, you said, taking down their bulletin boards, doing their grade books.
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76 you know, totally, yeah. And there was just a handful of movies that all of us watched universally across the nation. And so I want to gather all of those movies that everybody watched the gym. And there's one in particular there. This is just a little teaser. So when we were at our free to be you and me event, one of our listeners came up to me, and she showed me her phone. She said, Did you watch this in the gym in school when you were a kid? And I freaked out, because not only did I watch that movie, but I brought this movie up to Carolyn and Michelle, and both of them were like, Hmm, never heard of it. So those of you listening, please raise your hands if you watch the movie paddle to the sea
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and just know, okay, I'm counting. I'm counting all your hands right now.
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It's a lot of hands. Okay, so we're gonna do an episode on this soon, someday, someday, and we'll feature paddle to the sea. We always had Heidi, so like you just said, Kristen, when we were plopped in the gymnasium to watch an all school movie, there were other things that signaled the end of the school year, and none as time honored as That wonderful end of year tradition of field day. You
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all right, tell me about your feelings about a
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field day.
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I loved Field Day. And you guys know I was not athletic at all, but that was the beauty of field day. I didn't have to be.
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And I'm not sure you guys know this, but you're currently talking to the 1977 blue ribbon winner of Swift elementary second grade jump rope. Yvette. Oh, wow. Nicely done. Round of applause. Nicely done. I was gonna pause, and I don't even have to. I can count on you guys for that. I might have also snagged a blue for hula hooping that year or the next. I don't remember, because unlike PE I got to choose, and that was everything to me. No one was making me do the 50 yard dash or the long jump in field day, because I thought they were fun. If nobody was forced.
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Me, or timing me, really, I mean, right? You know they were, but at the same time I it was all just the fun day, right? Yeah. And that just made all the difference, because I could participate in things I felt that I could actually do and I felt confident in. That's why I loved Field Day. And there's a lot of other reasons, but we're going to get to those later in our conversation, yeah, a lot of other aspects of field day that I remember vividly that I loved, that make this such a positive memory and just a spark of joy in my in my childhood, yeah, I remember that, that agency of getting to pick what events you wanted to be in, like, our teacher would tape down these sheets on on desks, and you just went around and you got to sign up. There was maybe a limit or something. And I remember when my best friend, Cheryl Z bold, if you're out there, Cheryl Howdy, and she and I signed up for the three legged race. And we were so excited, because I was tall, and we were gonna have this whole, like, you know, kind of strategy of how my legs could kind of propel us,
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actually,
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you're just gonna tie Cheryl's leg up higher.
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Hit the ground
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like a baby. Carolyn's like, I got you, Cheryl, and he's probably very pointed. Carolyn's looking around like, who's the shortest one in the class?
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And I damn it, wanted a blue ribbon. Did you get it? I
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don't remember. I just remember how fun it was. I just remember how fun it was. And that's the other thing at the end of the day, does it really matter? Maybe I remember, I mean, that's
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the goal. The goal is that what you're saying is doesn't really matter, because that's not why I was doing it. Yeah, as we'll see coming up, Field Day is a mixed bag. For a lot of people. It's a mixed bag of memories, and that's how it is for me, too. I have very mixed emotions about field day. I had one school that was all fun and silliness, like the hula hoop and the and the jump rope and no competition. And then I had another school that was it was just gym. It was just more gym. Oh yeah, outside, that was all day. It was like all day gym. So that's a nightmare, but I will say that I looked forward to the disruption. I looked forward to something different. It was outside. Maybe there were hot dogs. My only very specific memory of field day is when I won. I won one of the dashes,
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150 I don't know. I don't know which one it was I but I want it. There's so many dashes. There are so many dashes, and I but you have to understand, this was a fluke. There was no logical reason for this to have happened, and I messed with my head because I thought maybe I wasn't who I thought I was.
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Like, maybe, have I been living a lie? Am I really a shock, and now you're like, I'm gonna be a track and field star Olympian? Yes, yes, the cognitive dissonance was real. It was very real. And even when I crossed the finish line and they said my name, it wasn't joy that I felt it was like,
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what?
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And for a moment I did consider like, changing my whole persona. Like, is there? Is there a team where you run
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like a red, white and blue Terry
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I got my Bjorn horn, like terry cloth thing and But truthfully, the only reason that I did the whatever it is dashes, because it was the one ski, the one skill that every kid does just by virtue of being alive, right? When you're a kid, you you run to get from point A to point B. You didn't need a special skill. I like throwing or whatever. But then, you know, by the end of the day, I was like, No, I'm a book nerd. It was over.
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I do have another specific memory. Our field days were all day, and I have a very specific memory of
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falling. I was running somewhere, and it wasn't in a dash. I don't think I would have ever signed up for a dash, but I was running and I fell, and I tore open, you guys, like a three inch rectangle on my kneecap. And, I mean, it was, and there was, I can still remember all the gravel in it, and it was all which got me sent to the nurse's office for probably, you know, an hour. And I was so I remember crying and being so upset, and I'm quite certain it was because I was missing Field Day. And then I remember thinking it was, I felt kind of cool when I went back, because instead of a band aid, the nurse had put one of those big, square gauzy bandages on it. Oh, that's real. That's like, you broke your leg. It was almost like, better than a ribbon, because when I
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badge of honor, and in hindsight, I'm really hoping that little Michelle was telling people, yeah, I was out. I was doing.
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100 yard dash
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crossing the
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finish
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line. I arched forward to break the ribbon. You know, I was probably seven. I was sliding into third, sliding so far anyway, but I do have a memory of that on my knee, and it was I even, and the subsequent scab that came about, you know, a week later was just a nightmare. Because, as you are when you're child and you like to pick but
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scabs when you're like seven, and you have a scab that's like a three inch by, you know, a jigsaw puzzle. Yes, that's a good one. That's an activity. My mom would get so mad at me because I would constantly pick at that scab, and for a long time, I had a big old scar on my knee because I never let the scab heal. Yeah, okay, just think about this as an adult, when was the last time you had a scab. I agree, I had a little from
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when she fell, when her dog went, boom,
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yeah, my dog, Frankie, pulled me down a few weeks ago, guys and I just went, like in slow motion. In fact, Carolyn would have laughed so hard if she could have seen video of it. But, I mean, I went down and I thought I caught myself, but I then my toe caught the concrete, and I didn't, and you see the concrete coming up, and you're like, This isn't happening. And it happened. Yeah, you guys, it's maybe one of those other things too, like those full circle moments of aging, like we got a lot of scams when we were young and just carefree and slinging ourselves here and there, and then we're going to get to an age where we're kind of tripping or
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things now we're going to have scabs on the agenda of our lives. So we're going to get it's all going to come full circle. We're going to, let's just hope we can remember the good old days when we burned
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our scabs. That's right. Well, just like us, our listeners also had some very specific field day memories. Some were funny, you guys, some were actually kind of tragic. But one thing was clear, field day left its mark on you.
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And so really, you know, we were kind of split on whether it was something We dreaded or we eagerly anticipated, but we can all agree that this was kind of like an elementary version of Battle of the network stars. Don't you think such a fun day? It was our own battle of the network stars, for sure, Ed Asner was there doing the tug of war, and Robert Conrad,
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what do they call the tug of war guy at the end, there's like an anchor,
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yeah, Lou Grant was the anchor, yeah, and and Howard Cosell was, was announcing all the events, right? The
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body, prostrate, who was the Incredible Hulk? Oh, igno. He was the anchor a lot. Oh, that's a score. Who was on that network? They're like, we got the Hulk.
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Those people probably were able to do the tug of war like, I'm going to tell you guys. I used to do it coming up soon anyway, but yeah, so for many of us, like me and Carolyn and sometimes Kristen, there was, there was a palpable excitement and buzzing in the air that whole week, I think, leading up to field day. And I can honestly still pull up that feeling talking about it now, because even when I was prepping for this episode, I was getting like I was getting like feelings inside me, like or like smells were coming back, or like a feeling of the hot sun on me. Because a lot of the times I lived in either Arizona or Texas,
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because, don't forget, guys, I went to about, I went not to about. I went to six different schools and my elementary school years alone. So I'm basically a field day connoisseur, because I I experienced them at lots of different schools. However, almost all of these schools were in either Arizona or Texas, so it was very hot. So I have this, I have this feeling of sun, sweat and hot, and also we could bring like $1 and we could buy ice cream or candy or snacks, and I'm remembering that part that was an enormous thrill, but I just have a very but I have a definite memory of the thrill it was that whole free I'm not in any kind of class, walking around outside with my friends, that end of the year feeling. Anyway, I dug it hard. I'm not the only one, because some of our followers on social media shared their exciting memories. MP 123, says that she loved field day, getting to miss classes, go outside, play in the spring sunshine, tag football, four square sack races, sack lunches. Field Day also meant the end of school was near and summer was just around the corner.
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Yeah, I mean, that has so much to do with it. I think, right, if they had had field day in September, it would not have been the same, oh
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no, because it did have to tie into this whole freedom feel, I think, and we had, we had a good handful of comments like the next two I'm going to read. But this is so great. So Marissa told us that she loved field day because she went to Catholic school, so this meant I got to wear regular clothes and be out of uniform for the day and Marvel and said getting to wear shorts at school, so that that's that tied into a lot of the good memories of field day, were people that went to schools where they wore uniforms, just the freedom of getting to choose your own outfit. Can you imagine the painstaking choice that went into that day, if you got to wear something like that one day in the whole year that you chose? Do I wear my Mork and Mindy t shirt? Happy Days t shirt? Well, I can speak to it from a high school perspective, because we had one day a year at Bishop Eustace prep where we could wear regular clothes, but we had to buy our opportunity. And it was like a fundraiser for muscular dystrophy or something. But, yeah, talk about painstaking. I think we planned the whole year what we were going to wear in this one day. It was it was everything. So I can totally relate Marissa that how fun that was, and also the shorts aspect, because even though I went to school in Texas for elementary school, we could not wear shorts to school like during the regular school year, which does seem a little odd, too. Yeah. So it was special dispensation, like you had to wait for the weather report to be really out of hand, or for something like Field Day, when there would be a decree and the day would go out that you were allowed to wear shorts. Yeah, yes. Well, alinka palinka, I love your Instagram name. Alinka palinka says the giant Earth ball and, oh my
Unknown Speaker 32:03
whatever we do, I remember that giant Earth ball, and then she, I'm assuming a link up, palinka, you're a she, but maybe I'll just say they hot said hot dogs, Chip soda in a glass bottle for lunch. Wow, yeah, yeah. And so the hot dog them. I don't did we buy the hot dog? Did the parents? I don't remember hot dogs, but can we just give a little nod to the sack lunch? Okay, this was a sack lunch day for me, which was I felt so grown up because every other day I was carrying my Holly hobby lunch box or whatever to school. Sack lunches were for like the middle schoolers and the high schoolers or the junior high schoolers. And so that whole just the brown paper bag with my name on it that my mom would write, and then, of course, the aluminum foiled can sometimes soda, but high C also had cans back then, so it just depended on how free my mom was feeling at the time if she was gonna go all out and let me have a sprite. I don't think I ever had a Coke, but Mr. Pip, I did a Mr. Pip, you'll be glad to know Kristen,
Unknown Speaker 33:06
Mr. Pip,
Unknown Speaker 33:09
Shasta. Yeah, that was kind of the blue collar. I shouldn't say blue color,
Unknown Speaker 33:14
generic, yeah, although they had grape, that was really good, yeah, Shasta. Grape was really good. But you wrap it in the foil so it stays cold. Yeah? Cereal, no, no, yeah. But we did it. But it never was, because my mom would put whatever drink, even if it was a soda, in the freezer the night before, so it was like frozen, and then you wrapped it in the foil, and then you sometimes had a slushie, sometimes had this huge, huge explosion on your hands. The high C didn't really explode, though, but yeah, I remember that was always in the freezer the night before, and yeah, and then it kept our food cold as well because it was still spicy. I love this next one, the door. Doris comment, yeah. Dory Fallis cook gave us three memories, great memories. She has a field day, and I have to just touch on this first one for a minute. She says, manning the Pepsi dispenser, so I wouldn't have to run Dory. I am with you so hard right there. But it also made me remember, at one of my field days, I got to help the teacher, and I don't know if i I'm sure I volunteered for this, because, one, I was always going to volunteer to help the teacher Field Day or not, but also because it probably meant I got out of the some of the activities I maybe I still got to go jump rope or hula hoop or forces you don't have to do like but I definitely have the memories of following my teacher around with A clipboard, so maybe I was recording times or something, yeah, so when I read that, so I was like, Yes, I had at one of my field days at one of my schools, I got to help the teacher, which is also my god, little Michelle, she was probably over the moon being able to do that. Was the same year that you yeah.
Unknown Speaker 35:00
Won the hula hoop and the jump rope, you would have been on cloud nine for like, no wonder you Love Field Day and you gotta come on. I can't even imagine. And if my mom was smart when I got home from school, that was probably the night she would TED to drop the news that we were going to move for the next
Unknown Speaker 35:19
Oh, anyway, that hurts. Dory also says performing the hook allow. Is that how you would say that the hookah? I'm saying hook, allow, yeah, yeah, with my fourth grade class, which, that's so cute. So I bet that's a dancer. I'm assuming. No, it's a Hawaiian fishing, Hawaiian tradition. It's a fishing thing.
Unknown Speaker 35:39
How do you perform it? That's a there must be something rhythmic about it. I didn't do a deep dive, but I did have to know what it was. And it was some sort of Hawaiian fishing, like a net, like a fishing net, and there must be something rhythmic about it. Oh, Doris, listening right now, just going, you got she's screaming right now. You guys have no idea what you're talking about. Okay, Dory, DM us and maybe do a video of you doing the hukou out so everybody, we could educate everyone. But this next one is so so great. The next one is just so 70s field. Yeah. Dory also remembers performing a riveting display involving a giant rainbow parachute to dream weaver.
Unknown Speaker 36:27
I'm visualizing it in slow mo. Dream
Unknown Speaker 36:33
parachutes just going up and down, and maybe there's like a sun ray, everything's in slow mo. It's all slow mo, because the parachute is, by nature of its existence, slow mo.
Unknown Speaker 36:46
That's true. I love Gary here. What is his name? Gary Weaver, Gary Wright. Gary, Gary, right, yeah.
Unknown Speaker 36:53
I knew every word to dream weaver because I'm sure I've shared this before, but in the Sunday magazine, or it might have been Saturday in the newspaper, we'd have a thing called zest. There was, like, zest and parade. Do you guys remember this?
Unknown Speaker 37:08
Yes, okay, well, zest was another one that we would have, because we had two. Back in the day, you had two newspapers. We had the Houston Chronicle and the Houston Post. So one must have had parade and one star and a tribune. Gosh, those were the days you guys, morning paper, afternoon paper, whatever. I digress. But anyway, every Saturday they would have one song, and there were that all the words, like the lyrics to a song, and I remember the dream weaver week, and I cut it out, I put it on my bulletin board, and I knew all the words to Dreamweaver and when it would come on the radio, because I don't even think I had the 45 or anything, but it would come on the radio, I would run, get my little lyrics out
Unknown Speaker 37:50
and just belt them out.
Unknown Speaker 37:54
Love this song. I love it. To get such a good song, and you can't like you just you're not gonna go out and buy Gary Wright's album, so you did have to just sit and wait. Yes. Wonder, what happened to Gary? Was he a one hit? Wonder, I don't know that. I know Michelle's gonna find out. Let's
Unknown Speaker 38:12
get back to field it. Yes, yes. Let's, let's dig into these games a little bit. Shall we? You guys, we're gonna save tug of war till the end that was the event. But in the meantime, we had some other fun events, some a little more serious than others. I seem to recall some of those, like less serious ones. And I was always in on those, because I was sure that I was going to be able to win those, like the three legged race I already mentioned. Do you guys remember egg on a spoon? Yes, the relay.
Unknown Speaker 38:42
I was gonna mention the not the running relays where you have to, like, run and pass the baton and keep running another 50 yards, or whatever. I loved relays that were goofy, like balancing the egg on a spoon or walking backwards was one or sideways or skipping the crab walk. Crab walk was
Unknown Speaker 39:02
that kind of stuff, gosh. And you guys today, I want you to know, when I went on a run, I decided the last part when I kind of cooled down and I was walking, I was going to walk like I did when I was in the egg on a spoon race. Because, you know, you kind of waddled, because you couldn't really run, or the egg would be stable. It was this kind of fast, but model kind of, but you're holding the thing and well, and yes, so that's why, because we're all modeling, yeah, I would also, Carolyn, like you tomorrow on your run, to have in your little running couch an egg and a spoon so that you can actually do it after that egg is $3 you know, I was gonna say I can't afford one,
Unknown Speaker 39:40
exactly, right, yeah, kind of crazy. And some of our followers shared some of their moments that they loved in terms of events. 80s podcast said she loved field day so she could show off at the softball throw. Do you guys remember those? Yeah?
Unknown Speaker 39:59
Well, there.
Unknown Speaker 40:00
So much throwing a various sized balls, so much throwing during field day, so many balls. So we ever throw the earth ball, I almost feel like, Oh no. I think we just all tried to keep it up. We always had to all try to keep it up. You know, that's the one we played crab soccer with. I think was the earth
Unknown Speaker 40:20
Yes, and but I want to follow up on the softball throw our follower, Towanda 1965
Unknown Speaker 40:28
this is, this is the
Unknown Speaker 40:30
comment she left. She said, Damn that, Sue Albee, she always beat my distance throwing a baseball I could heave with everything I had. Damn Sue would effortlessly throw, and her ball would land just beyond my yellow marker.
Unknown Speaker 40:46
You guys, decades later, she remembers first and last name. Yeah, she's all salty, yes, oh gosh, fun, fun, fun stuff. And also, you know, a little tragic poor Tawanda. So close, and yet, so far, I want you all to listen to Holly Berry's comment that she left us about an event that she participated in on field day. And she says she has a lot of mixed emotions about Field Day. The one that she remembers the most was sixth grade. She was paired because they did alphabetical order in her class. She was paired with her good friend Mary for the three legged race. I know what that's like, Holly. We were pretty good. She said we practiced as much as we could before the big day, probably the first time that Holly felt like she had a chance at getting a ribbon. Here's what she said. But as fate would have it, on field day, we were paired up alphabetical with all the sixth grade girls. So I was not with my friend Mary. I got paired with Gloria, and I didn't know her very well, but knew her well enough to know we were not going to win the sixth grade girls three legged race. So with all my might, I hobbled as fast as I could. This sounds familiar, as I could with Gloria tied
Unknown Speaker 42:01
to me. Down to that finish line. We came in dead last. I went on to never win a field day ribbon in my whole field.
Unknown Speaker 42:10
Not Gloria. I know, Holly, you're so sorry. GLORIA And Sue. Sue, they should have been paired up. Yeah. Damn Sue dreams were dashed. They were woven. We weaved our dreams, and then they were dream weaved our dreams and the 100 yard dash,
Unknown Speaker 42:31
our 100 yard dash, dream weaver was dashed. I like how Gloria today, like today. GLORIA tells the story differently. It's like, Man, I got paired when I was in sixth grade, field day with this girl named Holly, and we came in dead last, and we never won a ribbon. And they blame each other to this day. Well, let's talk about the ribbons. Then shall we? I don't know if you guys know this, but I want a couple of blue ones. Did I mention that somewhere? Yeah, no. But in all seriousness, though, isn't it funny how important that must have been to me? Oh, that piece of garbage is, that's a that's a golden treasure. I think it also tells you how much I never want anything, probably, and I, I can't imagine it's not somewhere either here in a box, or it probably was in a box that we didn't get to go through it my mom's and it got someone at the, someone at the estate sale we ended up having, was like, I'll take this blue ribbon for Michelle on it, 77
Unknown Speaker 43:35
so I was gonna, I was gonna ask you guys, did you get participation ribbons? Because I remember, at my field days, we got place ribbons for one, two and three, and then everyone else who competed in that event got a participation ribbon. So you did end up with ribbons, but you didn't want maybe the participation one was yellow. So if you're walking around with a whole bunch of yellow ribbons, like flapping out you showed up that day. Yes, that flapping out of your pocket, that was something you showed off when you had them like, yeah, somehow you tied them on, or you had them flap. People knew what you had won. And yes, I so you had to have more than just yellow or green or whatever the participation. Remember, there were some kids that would walk around holding this giant stack in their hand, yes, and it would be all multi colored, but like Mike Foley, can just barely hold on to the big stack in his hand. And I'm just wondering if I'll get one. And then eventually, when I did get my one, and it was blue, because, you know, I know you've heard some dash, it was either 50 or 100 or 9010, whatever. And and I had my one blue ribbon, and I just hung on my finger, and I was proud. I was because I was in awe. I'm like shit
Unknown Speaker 44:47
even happened and but then Mike Foley comes walking by holding his fistfuls of ribbons, and it just puts into stark contrast that we have. There are some haves and have nots in the athletic ability.
Unknown Speaker 45:00
Department here, even at age eight, even at age eight, yeah, and it sticks with us, because, believe it or not, I went down a Reddit rabbit hole, and there was a whole thread on ribbons from field day, people just still have feelings. And I wanted to read this one because it was kind of funny. In this case, the participation ribbon was green. And this gentleman said, don't forget the green one, the participation one you got every single year because you were a fat, unathletic kid. You didn't win anything until sixth grade, when you get a third place in a four by four relay. Fuck yeah.
Unknown Speaker 45:37
And third was white. I remember third place was white. Yes, yeah, he's remembering like that. That makes impact. I know. When I asked my sister, I texted my sister, and I said, thoughts on field day. You know, we're recording an episode on field day. And immediately the response was, I still have all my ribbons from Field Day. Exclamation point, 100 yard dash, long jump, etc, somewhere like with eight exclamation points. I loved Field Day Five exclamation points. My sister would have been the type that would have been winning like a first would have had the fistful but that one guy on Reddit who gets that one ribbon, that one time, is like, I'm a person, yeah, like you get I exist exactly like a big spotlight is finally being shown on you. Yes, our identities, how we kind of constructed those when we were young. And always, I was always the wannabe. It was like I wanted the stack of the ribbons, and if I only had one blue that was going to be on the top of my stack, people were gonna think I had a lot more blues. But, oh, definitely yes. But you know, it's somehow it validated you. The more ribbons you had, the better person you were. Yeah, I'm more I'm more deserving of being on this earth than you.
Unknown Speaker 46:50
How awful it started so young,
Unknown Speaker 46:53
so not even the allure of ribbons could make Field Day tolerable for some of our followers. We actually had more comments more. We had more comments from folks who despised field day than those who relished it. And I get you, I see you, I totally understand that, because Mike Foley's walking around with his fist full of ribbons like he's so much better than you. And we had some great comments from people. Philebutant, that's a great name. Philebu taunt said dread in all caps. Any forced sports based activity filled me with such anxiety the entirety of my childhood,
Unknown Speaker 47:35
fistful of ribbons. So Jill casaria, she says I dreaded field day. It was always too hot and too competitive. I get sunburned on my face and my arms, and I get rope burn on my hands from tug of war. The only part I enjoyed were the popsicles at the end.
Unknown Speaker 47:52
That's fair, and you can see where that would be a big thing to look forward to. It's like popsicle day. Yes, there was always some fun kind of food. Yeah, you didn't normally get associated with it. But again, the Texas heat, I just kind of remember, I think we would be popsicles too, and you'd be eating them like you kind of stuck your head over like that, and they'd be dripping like the red whatever. But yeah, you had that like,
Unknown Speaker 48:16
it all, if you held it up, it all dripped down the stick, down the stick, down your hand. So you always had to hold it sideways and, like, sideways, and then it sometimes you'd it'd get so mushy you'd bite it, and then it would all just, everybody's walking around with different colored like, drips down the front of their shirt. Like somebody's got green drips, somebody else has got orange drips. Yeah, so Sandra, sunny side says wandering around avoiding teachers so I could avoid participating. And there's more than one person was like, Yeah, ditto me too. Like, how can I just hide? How can I carry a clipboard? Can I carry a clipboard so I don't have to run and Jill Evans McGuire says, hated field days because they made us play sports. I was a dancer, and sports were not my thing. I was the kid doing cartwheels in the outfield. Same, same. Just let me stay out here and do cartwheels. I was going to share. I read again on the Reddit thread, people again had strong feelings about Field Day, and somebody who did not like it said that there was just the humiliation of coming in last for everything. And then she said, To paraphrase Charlie Brown, I already know that I stink at sports. Why do we have to have a whole day to emphasize
Unknown Speaker 49:34
exactly what it is?
Unknown Speaker 49:38
Emphasize it, I know, but tug of war. I think that was fun for everybody, because that was more like a spectator sport.
Unknown Speaker 49:48
Yes, and you had a team to root for. Yes, I want to go on record right now saying admitting I faked it so hard during the class versus class.
Unknown Speaker 50:00
Ass tug of wars, like, I'd put my hands on the rope, but I wouldn't really like, like, grasp it, because it would hurt my little, tiny, delicate hands. You know, I needed those hands to jump rope, right? Yes,
Unknown Speaker 50:15
just, I would just kind of like,
Unknown Speaker 50:19
so I wouldn't. I wouldn't. I am so upset with you right now. I don't even have words. I'm so proud of her
Unknown Speaker 50:28
team.
Unknown Speaker 50:30
Understand, it doesn't matter. Understand little Michelle had zero strength. Z like she to the table. Yeah, nothing to so not actually participating by pulling was not going to hurt my team at all. In fact, it probably would have hurt my team. It probably already did this calculus
Unknown Speaker 50:51
and pulled. I probably would have done it something wrong or because of my negative strength that would have made us lose pushing, I would do really good, like you wouldn't be one of those people that kind of fell down.
Unknown Speaker 51:10
Oh my gosh. But our friend Susie dilling street said the kids who were good at sports, not me. She said, make sure. Makes, makes, makes, that distinction had yet another chance to show that they were good. I was fascinated by the tug of war. The whole thing could have been tug of war, as far as I'm concerned.
Unknown Speaker 51:28
Her whole field day experience came down to tug of war that was less sports and more like circus sideshow. And so it was much more fun for me, and like the whole school would surround the tug of war. The rest of field day, in my recollection is you had lots of different events going on at once, but not the tug of war, right? And do you find, do you remember when you found out it was tug of war? And I was like, No, it's, yeah, tug of war. It's, it's tug of war. Well, it's sort of like Battle of the network stars. It was like a battle of the network stars. That was the event that everybody was watching. And remember, like, there'd be that little, like, ribbon hanging down, or little flag or something, and when it crossed a certain line, that's when you want and it would get really close, but then all of a sudden the other team would pull and it would come back, and you were all screaming. And then
Unknown Speaker 52:17
somebody would get the strategy of, like, going Heath, and they start, remember, they would get, they would get some rhythm. And the other team is just like, we don't know how to respond.
Unknown Speaker 52:28
And then once the other team kind of gives up, you know, they all just kind of come forward like, Oh yeah, it's really Yeah, easy to pull. Did you ever have where the teachers did tug of war? Yes, that was two types of teachers. Yes, very the teachers were real people. Again, those were always fun days when your teachers got in the dirt. That was a good day. Well, I have got to read to you guys perhaps, what is the most tragic yet exciting story comment that we might have ever gotten. And this comes from Laura deal, and it has to do with field day and tug of war. Laura says, I know we had many field days, but I only remember one. I was in fifth grade. We were playing tug of war, and one of my classmates started yelling incoherently and hitting people. Now he was an eccentric kid, but not violent. So I ran over to see what was up, and I noticed that his younger brother, who was at the end, so like the anchor, he was at the end of the rope, and he was on the ground, and he had tied the rope around his waist and used a slip knot, and it was tightening, and he couldn't get it untied, for better or worse, I have the voice that carries so I yelled at the top of My lungs in my most serious voice, everyone Stop pulling now you are killing Alan.
Unknown Speaker 53:48
So basically, I saved his life, and I am a hero.
Unknown Speaker 53:53
The teacher in charge in quotation marks of the tug of war, who hadn't noticed that someone was literally dying gave me the blue ribbon. I'm not athletic to this day, in the least, so it was the only time I want anything on field day, if only being loud and bossy was an Olympic event.
Unknown Speaker 54:12
She wants a life saving ribbon Lifesaver getting basically squeezed into he was getting imagine. Oh, but you know, you probably thought of that because you were tied around like Lou Ferrigno did have the rope tied around his waist, but not in a slipknot. Oh, my God, I was I was reacting as if it was happening in real time. Well, he's gonna die, traumatic. Poor Alan. What do you think
Unknown Speaker 54:41
he has a scar. Talk about rope burns. Oh my goodness, poor Alan. So the drama of Field Day, clearly, so much drama on field day oftentimes culminated with the passing out of yearbooks, and then the frenzy commenced of the signing of the yearbooks. And I have to tell you that I just did a.
Unknown Speaker 55:00
Deep dive on my yearbooks from seventh grade until I graduated. And this is so interesting. I highly recommend it for everybody. It reveals so much about who you were at each stage of your development, especially when you go all the way through from when you were 12 to when you were 18, you are like five different people in that period of time. And it says so much about the culture, about being a teenager. And so we had this great conversation about our yearbooks and reading all the things that we wrote in our yearbooks. And you guys, it took up so much time that we've decided to package it as its own episode and bring that to you next week, because the end of the school year is nigh. We're celebrating. And like you said, when you go back to your old yearbooks and see what? Because we don't get to see what we wrote in other people's yearbooks, no, it's what people wrote to us. And there's all these little easter eggs and tidbits that tell us how our friends saw us or what we did. And it's so much fun, yes, and total who screwed you moments too, that you'll totally forget you were even a part of and then
Unknown Speaker 56:06
sucked back in that time machine, people you forgot, people that you thought were periphery people, but it turns out, maybe you were best friends, but it was only for a semester like you were so close during Earth Science and you just didn't remember, forgot. But that's huge, though, because you know you were good friends with those people during fourth period or something. Yes, I feel so sad that I no longer have a last day of school. I just have to tell you, I feel I'm very bereft about that. I'm jealous of all of you who are teachers who still get a last day of school. Sometimes when I see the kids in my neighborhood, running home with, like, papers flying out of their backpacks. I know it's the last day of school, and I'm like, everybody, get in the car. We're going to Dairy Queen. Like, even though there's nobody in my house who has the last day of school, we're going to Dairy Queen because I want to celebrate these are important rites of passage. And when you're an adult with grown children, we're pretty low on rites of passage, and the passage of time is just very hard for us to measure when you're at this stage of our lives. And can we just say that the ultimate last day of school for all of us from this generation is that scene in Greece with the carnival and everybody wants to have the carnival. And there is a town in Illinois. It's a suburb of Chicago called Naperville. I used to live there many years ago, and they had something back then. I hope they still have it now, called last fling, and it is a carnival on or around the last day of school. And I remember going to this as an adult and just being like, Thank you Naperville. Thank you Naperville. Thank you for giving me my grease experience, because this is what everybody dreams about. Everybody wants to ride the Ferris wheel on the last day of school. You know what? We've lost this rite of passage, unless you live in Naperville, Illinois. But it doesn't have to be that way. We can still celebrate the turning of a new chapter. We can celebrate the annual arrival of summer, right? Even if you still have to get up and go to work every day, summer is still different. It just, it just is right. We're a little more relaxed. We might go home early on Fridays. We go for walks at night. We sit out after dark, we eat a lot more ice cream. That's something for us to celebrate. That's a turning of the page. So I suggest you start a new rite of passage by getting out your yearbooks and inviting your friends over, maybe do a balloon toss or a three legged race, or the egg in the spoon relay. You can throw something at something and and then have popsicles. Dairy Queen. There's got to be some kind of ball and ribbon for everyone. Yes, everybody gets a ribbon. And then you can do a round robin, of like reading your yearbook entries. You all take turns, and then you go to Dairy Queen. Everybody gets in the car and goes to Dairy Queen, I'm there. Yes, I want to go. Yeah, we get a rite of passage too, and this is a way of honoring all the last days of school that you have had in your entire lifetime and bringing them into your present. Thank you so much for listening today, and we will see you next time. And we'd like to give a special shout out to some of our patrons. Thank you so much to Diane and Sherry. Mike. Christina, Tracy, Stella, J, s, Jennifer, Erica, Lisa Natalie and Nina. Thank you so much to all of our patrons. In the meantime, let's raise our glasses for a toast. Courtesy of the cast of Three's Company, two good times, two Happy Days, Two Little House on the Prairie. Cheers, cheers, happy. Last day of school, the information, opinions and comments expressed on the pop culture Preservation Society podcast belongs solely to Carolyn the crushologist and hello Newman, and are in no way representative of our employers or affiliates. And though we truly believe we are always right, there is always a first time the PCPs has written Purdue.
Unknown Speaker 1:00:00
And recorded in Minneapolis, Minnesota, home of the fictional wjm studios and our beloved Mary Richards Nano. Nano, keep on trucking and may the Force be with you. You.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai