Scales and Memories

Elijah and I went to the doctor a couple of days ago. He had to get a couple of shots to bring all of his immunizations current. Fortunately this trip to the doctor went much smoother than the last one!

Before administering the vaccination, they measured and weighed Elijah -- forty-eight inches tall; 52 pounds. "That's a pretty good-sized ol' boy," I thought out loud. "Oh, that's pretty average," came the nurse's reply. She could stand to get a little closer to average herself!

ANYHOW...that prompted me to remember a day almost 30 years ago. I was in the first grade at Westcliff elementary School in Ft Worth. My teacher, Mrs Meyers (whom I adored), rolled in a big chalkboard and a scale one day. "We're going to work on averages today," she said. Most of the kids in the class had no idea what an "average" was...but already being a baseball stat nerd, I had a good idea of what that meant.

"One at a time, I want everyone to come up here, and I'm going to weigh you. Then I'll write all the numbers on the board, and we'll add them up together."

My heart instantly sank. I looked around the room and knew this would be a painful exercise for me. You see...I was the fat kid. From the time I was in Kindergarten 'til the time I was in 7th grade, I was always the fattest kid in the room.

The first year I played tackle football (2nd grade) I was absolutely unstoppable. Not because I was a gifted athlete (ask anyone that has ever seen me play ANYTHING, and they can attest to that)... but because I weighed at least 20 pounds more than the other kids. The first year I played soccer, the other kids (and their parents) called me "Truck." In middle school football, they had to get pants from the high school for me to wear. That wouldn't have been so bad...except for the fact that everyone else had white pants, and my pants were BLUE!

I have vivid memories of going to JCPenney to shop for jeans...and searching for size 16-Husky with my mom. I would try them on...and they would be at least 10 inches to long, but the waist would fit. So we would buy them, and mom would hem them up. About every couple of months she would have to let the hem out...so by the time a couple of school years had passed, the legs on my jeans would have several rings around them.

There are other things I could elaborate on, but I won't beat you down with that.

So the weighing process begins. One by one, students walk up to the front of the room, hop on the scale, and Mrs Meyers would write their name and their weight on the board. All the while, students in the room are talking or doing homework.

Then it's my turn...and the room turned instantly quiet. I slowly plodded to the front of the room. It was at that instant that I think Mrs Meyers realized this may not have been such a good idea. I distinctly remember almost a sorrowful look on her face as I prepared to step on the scale. You could hear a pin drop in the room. Every students' eyes were glued to the chalkboard...kinda like people intently watch a horror movie, anxious to see what happens next.

I took my shoes off (because we all know that shoes add at least 10 pounds to your weight) and stepped on. The numbers on the scaled seemed to spin for hours...finally coming to rest just to the east of 80 -- EIGHTY-ONE POUNDS!

With everyone else Mrs Meyers had called out the number...but this time she simply wrote the number on the board. I bent over to put on my shoes as the "8" and the "1" went up beside my name. I didn't want to see the facial expressions of my classmates.

"WHOA!" was the general response...along with a few giggles. I was embarrassed...but not devastated. After all, being the biggest kid in the class meant I could also kick some butt. So no one tore me up too badly.

Later that evening, the phone rang -- it was Mrs Meyers. She called to apologize to my mom and then to me. I hadn't mentioned it to anyone at the house because I didn't think they would care. But it meant a lot to mom and to me to get that phone call.