Miss Manzetti and the Swamp Thing

Miss Manzetti had been wearing the neckbrace as long as we knew her.

She was our high school gym teacher, and rumor 'round the locker room was, she sported that thing because she was the plaintiff in a big personal injury lawsuit.

We were 15 or 16, at the time-- just old enough to be jaded, and just young enough not to be deterred by a complete and utter lack of facts. So the story went that the injury itself had healed a long time ago-- but Miss Manzetti just never knew when the defense investigators would be checking her out.

The neckbrace, we suspected, was for show.

This, of course, meant that we kids spent a lot of time in gym class:

1. Looking for mysterious people who might be private detectives lurking around the sports areas and...
2. Trying to get Miss Manzetti to turn her head. Making loud noises, startling movements, things like that.

By junior year, though, we were not quite as rigorous in those two particular points as we had been.

Probably because Miss Manzetti seemed to have nerves of steel. And also there were other things to focus on in gym class. Like actually getting to choose our own activities.

Yes, gone were the days of mandatory group fun like square-dancing, gymnastics and the Jane Fonda workout. So with freedom of choice came a newfound love of exercise. Double-dutch, basketball, floor hockey and volleyball entertained us in the winter. And then, as the spring buds popped and the Canada Geese returned to poop on the marching band field-- there was football, and tennis, archery and the eternal favorite, canoeing around on the swampy pond out behind the tennis courts.

And so, I joined with a rag-tag team (because what story is fun if the team is neither rag, nor tag?) of classmates, all of us unusually low in the gym class pecking order. The little group consisted of myself, my friends Raoul and Josette, Jan McNeely of my old Gin Rummy days, and three kids I knew from my lunchtable.

The lunchtable kids were kind to include me at their table. But the overall dining atmosphere most days was not exactly candlelight and roses. They knew each other well-- too well, maybe. So a whole lunch hour could examine the philosophical aspects of who-did-what-to-whom-when, and how much more stupider this one was than that one, and who stunk more.

Usually this last honor was laid at the feet of a girl dubbed, "Smelly Kelly."

So, in lunch and in gym, it was a lot like hanging out with a trio of bickering fishwives. Or possibly the Three Stooges if all of them were Moe. Or if Tweedledee and -Dum had had a long-lost sister, -Duh--- to add into the mix.

Slapping and kicking were used liberally in between verbal assaults.

You may see now why we were not exactly welcomed with opened arms to join teams.

So, tennis was the sport of choice for us one particular semester. And we discovered fairly quickly that, unlike the games of John McEnroe or Chris Everett at the time, tennis need not necessarily be a fast-paced sport.

You see, there was that pond.

Since none of us were actually any good at tennis, a typical set would go...

Volley, volley, volley...

Bang! Hit too hard. Up and over the fence and...

Sploink! Into the swampy pond.

Then after a thorough filleting of the person who hit the ball out, that person would be made to leave the courts, and arrange for whatever kid who was rowing around in Canoeing, to go and fetch the ball.

See, we all knew that was the whole unspoken purpose of Canoeing, anyway-- to recover all of the archery arrows and tennis balls and other equipment and Jimmy Hoffa, that inevitably ended up in the pond.

Then our player would amble back to the court, and we'd begin the process all over again. One set could easily take a full gym period.

Well, this went on day after day. And the inner rage of the lunchtable kids was building. I don't know precisely what the controversy was anymore. I never really wanted to know. I'd had to proclaim myself Switzerland on more than one occasion. It was not mine to fix.

But "Smelly Kelly" was getting very tired of being -Duh in this family of Tweedles. And after a particularly heated back-and-forth between herself and -Dee and -Dum, Kelly finally... inevitably... exploded.

The ball bounced to her. And snatching it from the air in this middle of this argument, she flung it up, swung her racquet and with the shrieking scream of a Valkyrie... Kelly hit that thing using the power of a hundred-thousand men.

The sound of it echoed over the cement courts sending a chill down our collective spines. It sounded like an eagle screeching, going in for the kill.

Other teams stopped what they were doing to see this ball, this poor defenseless yellow-green sphere, vault skyward with blaring, breath-taking speed---

And go whizzing right over Miss Manzetti's head!

Miss Manzetti, who mostly occupied herself with the contents of a clipboard eight hours a day, saw the shadow of doom pass over her.

Perhaps she thought it was meteor coming in to crash. Or a low-flying secret jet. Or The Greatest American Hero. Or nuclear bombs. But it was loud and it was fast and perhaps it was through fear and reflex alone that... well...

She jumped and turned her head upward.

Students gasped and nudged each other. Kelly gaped and dropped her racquet.

Well, from then on, Miss Manzetti's credibility was lost, the reign of her phys ed monarchy over. If she suffered undue pain because of wrenching her neck from Kelly's rocket? Well, we didn't want to know about it. Because Kelly had made her turn her head...

And that was good enough for us.

The Tweedles didn't even make Kelly go and get the ball, so happy were we all with this minor triumph of Kiddom. They volunteered themselves, directing the current canoe-driver to the far, far back of the swamp. And returning with a ball coated with murk and moss and goo, a slick and slimy trophy for Kelly's efforts. We weren't winners, oh no... but still we had won.

For that day, that was just enough.

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