The beefy man on youtube is lecturing on the cardiovascular benefits of jumping rope. High tech fitness machines make an expensive backdrop as he lectures novices to keep the shoulders low and to permit only the wrists to do the turning. The rope, he explains, must be carefully sized to fit the jumper; the ideal rope has ball bearings and is made of durable vinyl. Such a rope can be purchased for fifteen or twenty dollars.
H
e demonstrates proper jumping techniques, bouncing for a while on the balls of his feet, then announces a more advanced jump—three bounces on one foot then the three hops on the other foot. Wow! Then, finally—but only for the well advanced he cautions—skipping!
I am amused.
On the playground of the elementary school where I did most of my rope jumping, we were ignorant of all these things the beefy man knows. We’d never heard the word cardiovascular. Skipping (the advanced technique) was simply the way we traveled back and forth between school and home. Our ropes weren’t vinyl and ball bearings were only for our roller skates. Our ropes were lengths of clothesline begged from our mothers. They were white in the early spring and gray by the time the blossoms opened on the trees.
Length is important—the beefy man had that right. Of what use is a short rope? A decent rope must be long enough for several girls to jump at once. When we wanted to jump solo, we simply wound the excess rope around and around our hands until it was short enough for a little girl to skip over it daintily.
But solo jumping is only for emergencies. The fun is in community.
Two girls volunteer as turners. They stand ten to twelve feet apart and begin turning. The rope starts its familiar springtime slap-slap-slap-song against the pavement. The other girls form a queue and begin to feel the rhythm. Then Kathy jumps into the turning rope and the chant begins.
“Down in the meadow where the green grass grows/There sat Kathy as sweet as a rose/ Along came JACK and kissed her on the nose/How many kisses did she get?”
The rope turns faster—it’s whirling now—and Kathy’s jumping shifts from an easy double-bounce to an intense jump-jump-jump and the fascinated chanters count.
“1-2-3-4-5-6-…”
How many kisses? When will the rope trip her allowing Jack to stop his amorous advances?
But Kathy is skilled. When she tires, she simply slips the cage of the turning rope and arrives laughing and breathless on the other side.
Jump rope rhymes. We have our favorites.
“Mabel, Mabel/Set the table/ Don’t forget the red hot pepper!”
And the rope turns madly as the jumper jumps for here life.
“Miss Mary Mack-mack-mack/All dressed in black-black-black/With silver buttons-buttons-buttons/All down her back-back-back/She asked her mother-mother-mother/For fifty cents-cents-cents/To see the elephants-elephants-elephants/Jump the fence-fence-fence…”
The best ones are the motion chants—the rhymes that require the girls to act out the movement called for in the chant.
“Charlie Chaplin went to France/To teach the elephants the hula-hula dance/ (hip swivel)/Heel, toe, around we go (360 degree turn in the air and repeat)/Heel, toe, around we go/ Salute to the captain, curtsey to the queen (salute and curtsy)/And touch the bottom of the submarine!” (Slap the ground and jump back up again before the rope completes the full arc).
“Teddy bear, teddy bear, turn around/Teddy bear, teddy bear, touch the ground/Teddy bear, teddy bear, go upstairs/Teddy bear, teddy bear say your prayers/Teddy bear, teddy bear, turn off the light/Teddy bear, teddy bear, say goodnight.”
Two new tuners take over and new pair jumps together for a while, face to face. A doubles chant begins:
“All in together, girls/Never mind the weather girls…”
Now the line of girls runs through the spinning rope in a drill team style.
“Double-Dutch” someone orders and two ropes spin—one clockwise, the other counter—and still the drill keeps running. Now three girls risk jumping in trio; they bounce in rhythm to the chants until the bell ending recess rings across the playground.
Long gray lengths of clothesline are hastily gathered into loose coils and the girls run for the school door. Cheeks are rosy; hair is windblown, and breathing hard and cardiovascularly fit, we open our arithmetic books.
Oh big, beefy man in your expensive sneakers, turning your perfectly sized ball bearing rope, what rhymes do you know?
“We could go in on the Orange Line.”
er the hay bale and found the rat’s nest. Rodents are almost a fact of life in buildings where feed is kept for livestock. She understood that. Still … rats! Realizing that even her immaculate grain room—pristine by most barn standards—wasn’t immune to rodents, she started the process of acquiring a pair of barn cats.
THOSE WHO RESCUE OUR HEARTS
Monday, October 25th, 2010There are two stories here, both rather sad, unless—like me—you choose to view them as redemptive.
Bud arrived just when he said he would—a few minutes early in fact. He backed the truck slowly up the service drive toward the barn. Ann Marie had finished her business, and she and her vet tech were packing their van. She acknowledged Bud with a small salute.
We watched his arrival from the kitchen window.
“Please,” my daughter said, “could you take my checkbook and pay him? The check’s all filled out except for the dollars. I wasn’t sure of the final amount. And could you also ask Bud to please…take off…the halter?”
Since my self-designed job description was to provide emotional support, I overrode my resistance to go out there. I took the checkbook and went to meet the truck, stepping respectfully around the now-still horse. The two heavyset men in the cab looked like clones of each other; the one I took to be Bud began backing the truck carefully over the lawn. The passenger gazed at me dolefully. I went around to the driver’s door.
“I’m her mom. She asked me to give you the check.”
“Ma’am.”
“She wasn’t sure of the total.”
He told me.
Filling in the amount, I saw my hand was shaking.
When I handed over the check, Bud presented a small card with words about the Rainbow Bridge.
“And she wondered if you would remove his halter?”
“Aw, sure…sure I will.”
“I already put the halter in the barn,” Ann Marie said as she came up to us.
She and I exchanged a few words, but I was in a hurry to get back to the house before Bud began doing what he had to do.
Liz, her eyes swollen, had two cups of hot tea ready in the kitchen. When I took my tea bag to the sink, Bud’s truck was already heading up the road.
“Where does he take them?”
“Somewhere up in Maine. His son is always with him and usually his wife rides along. I don’t know what we’ll do when Bud goes.”
The “we” was the local horse community—a surprisingly large and close-knit freemasonry that depends on Bud—and on each other—to fill some hard, life-and-death needs that arise in the normal course of things.
“He’s careful. He never cuts off their tails.”
I stood at the sink and reflected on the gentle humanity of people like Bud who not only take on the awkward task of horse disposal, but who do it gently and with respect for the animal and the owner. The Rainbow Bridge card was on the kitchen table. I knew Liz would keep it.
The woman thought she heard crying in the adjoining cubicle. When the crying accelerated into sobbing, she quietly stepped next door. Her office mate’s head was on the desk; he was drenched in grief. Slowly at first, then in a flood, his story poured out.
He was ill. Medical costs, not covered by insurance, had eroded his savings. Circumstances were forcing him to move to a place where pets were explicitly forbidden, and that very morning, he had taken his beloved Italian greyhound to an animal shelter. He’d left it there, believing that the little dog would be euthanized. The man’s soul was in anguish.
“Why didn’t you call a rescue group?” his co-worker wanted to know. Involved, as she was in Border collie rescue, it seemed to her incomprehensible that someone wouldn’t take the breed rescue course of action. He was astounded. He had never heard of such organizations.
“If I’d done that, he might not be put to sleep?”
“Well, look,” she said briskly. “Let’s find an Italian greyhound rescue rep and see if anything can be done.”
A quick web search, a couple of phone calls, and soon Mary of IG Rescue was making plans to meet the fellow at the shelter where he had turned in his beloved pet. As well, Mary made a pre-visit call to the shelter to introduce herself and to claim a registered rescue group’s “first dibs” accommodation. Yes, they would hold the dog until Mary and the former owner could get there.
“I’ve never been hugged so much in my life,” Mary claimed later. “But I was able to assure him that his dog would have a good, loving home, and that he could contact with the new owners so he could be satisfied that his friend was in a good circumstance. Oh, and this dog’s a sweetie. He’ll be so loved!”
It is terribly difficult to let a beloved animal go. But when parting times come to an animal owner, it is of untold comfort to walk with folks who are able to give us and our animals what each needs. The rescue reps, the sympathetic veterinarians, the friends who understand, and even the guys who slowly back up their trucks and respectfully carry off the horses that are loved still and always—these are the ones who rescue our hearts. These are the ones who help us heal.
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