Since I didn’t know exactly where this photo was taken, I was going to toss it aside. Then I got a closer look and I saw what was on some of the shelves. (You can click on the photo to make it larger, but if you do, I suggested deactivating the Smell Emitting Diode on your computer first.)
Those rolled-up towels contained fermenting gym clothes. I wonder if this could have been taken near the Tiger Den on a Friday, traditionally the day when you were supposed to take your PE clothes home to be washed.
Of course, many of those rolls got stuffed into lockers and recycled again and again. That’s probably why the school got new lockers when it was converted to a junior high school.
As you may have gathered from earlier posts, I wasn’t exactly a fan of PE.
Guy shower experiences
When I saw those rolls, it brought back all kind of olfactory twitches. Now, despite teen movies, I was never privy to how girl locker rooms worked, but we guys were herded into gang showers where earsplitting hoots and hollers echoed off the tile walls like a bad prison movie. At least once during this session (which I tried to complete as quickly as possible), there would be something that sounded like a space shuttle lifting off, followed by a sulfurous cloud of methane gas that rolled off the tiles in a green cloud, prompting another Neanderthal to try to best the earlier contribution.
How I envisioned the girls’ locker room
I envisioned my female counterparts being ushered into individual cleansing facilities where there would be soft music playing, the water would come out at the perfect temperature, towels wouldn’t be needed because each compartment would be equipped with air-drying fans and there would be a gentle spritzing of the perfume of the girl’s choice on the way out. Attendants, probably freshmen, would take care of nail and hair maintenance and see that clothing was restored with nary a muss.
The physical education portion of the hour would last about 8 minutes, with the remainder of the time being taken up with the ablution process just described. I’m not sure if the freshmen were actually required to peel the grapes for upper classwomen or if they did it of their own volition.
That must have been the tradeoff for having to wear those ugly uniforms.
I can’t wait to hear how close my vision came to reality. Girls?
The sleeve is marked December 1966 Basketball. Since there are a variety of teams all jumbled together, I’m assuming it is the annual Christmas Tourney or the College High Tournament. I can’t remember if they were one and the same or if they were two different meets.
