Afternoon Electives

On Thursday, I hula hooped. I was amazed at how effortlessly it came back to me, and how good it felt. Donna and I were teaching an afternoon elective class about the 1960s, and she had heard that the hula hoop was patented on March 5, this very day, in 1963.

Also there just happened to be some hula hoops in the shed. (Actually, they didn't just happen to be there; you would have to know Linda, the director of the middle school, who considers things like hula hoops and pogo sticks to be pretty basic playground equipment.)

So after the academic portion of the class, we went outside beneath blue sky and epic clouds and gathered on the chessboard (yes, I know that sounds strange) and we hula hooped to our hearts' content. It seemed to come quite naturally to most of the students. They immediately shouted out advice to one another.

“Start it high on your chest!” they said.

And “Don’t make such big circles! Just sort of barely twirl. You don’t need to wiggle quite so much!”

And, "Let me try with a few more!"

Once I started, my hips remembered. I couldn’t keep it going as long as the kids, and I certainly wasn’t about to try with five or six hoops as they did, or even two or three, but it was a very fine moment indeed. I tried to recall when I had last done this, but I believe it was before 1963, because the memory places me on Coney Island Avenue with my childhood friend Carol Bessey.

For a moment I was ten years old again.

As we were hoopin’ and laughing it up, Mac strode by across the broad grassy field followed by a colorful procession of students, not walking, but dancing, running, and skipping along in the way that kids do. One red-haired girl was carrying a white parasol, and I told Mac that it all looked Fellini-esque to me, but she said no, they were actually making a kung fu movie.

Earlier in the day Marc had been simmering chanterelles in the kitchen and it still smelled of garlic and butter when we entered with our fourteen advanced cooking students.

The next day would be biking, and I heard a rumor that the Random Acts of Kindness class was planning to leave some refreshments along our route.

And that’s the way it is sometimes in middle school world.

Meanwhile, the brightness of the day dazzled and I succumbed to a happy sort of lunacy. “Far out!” I found myself saying. “Psychedelic!”

And then I gave my hula hoop another spin and gyrated gently but with joy.