{"id":5270,"date":"2019-07-24T05:57:07","date_gmt":"2019-07-24T12:57:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/?p=5270"},"modified":"2019-07-24T05:57:09","modified_gmt":"2019-07-24T12:57:09","slug":"on-tetherball","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/meditations\/on-tetherball\/","title":{"rendered":"On Tetherball"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\n

Not too long ago, my boss and I rescued\nan ancient tetherball pole lost in the grass on a construction site.\nIt was one those set in concrete inside an old tire and it made me\nwonder so you bought the pole somewhere, it came with a rope and\nball, but you provided the tire and poured the concrete yourself?<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Millions of these quasi homemade jobs\nand more formally installed ones graced American backyards in the\nGreat Era of Tetherball. Thousands of tetherball poles stood in\nelementary schools, parks, prison yards and Christian youth group\nsummer camps. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A few still stand in the backyards,\nfields, but now abandoned, forgotten, forlorn, the rope and ball\nclinking against the rusty pole in the breeze. What a sad sound to\nhear because you know no one is ever playing tetherball on that pole\nagain. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Once, mirth and pain emanated from the\nground around that pole. Nothing now. One wonders if there is one\ntetherball pole left standing in a school or park in America that\nactually gets any use. Does anyone even play anymore? And what are\nthe rules? Question: who invented tetherball? I’m not going to Google\nit. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tether is such a great verb. It feels\npejorative, but I can’t say anything pejorative about tetherball,\nunless of course, I dive deep into the pain inflicted upon the body\nwhen the game got intense, on the schoolyard, or in the backyard\nafter too many gin and tonics and someone cranked up Black Sabbath on\nthe tower speakers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Did anyone ever die from playing\ntetherball. You know, when a player pounded the ball so hard, upward,\nthat the rope whipped around the neck of the other player, lifted her\noff the ground, and hung her right there. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yeah, it happened somewhere in America.\nI hope to God some mystery writer put a murder-by-tetherball scene in\na book. You wanted the asshole or shrew dead, then you killed them\nplaying tetherball! It’s the perfect crime! It was an accident!<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

As a sixth grader, I played tetherball\nat a Christian youth group summer camp along the Yamhill River. I\nthink I won a championship. I earned it by beating a girl, my\nchildhood crush, first girl I ever kissed and she had a black eye. I\nthink I gave it to her during the game. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I also have memories of playing\ntetherball at Mt Pleasant Elementary in Oregon City. There were two\nor three poles and players lined up to participate. I vaguely recall\na circle around the pole, perhaps dived into halves. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Interestingly enough, boys and girls\nplayed against one another. The girls were somewhat taller in\nelementary school, which is an advantage, and I remember one who\nseemingly never lost. I also remember trying to get into line to play\nagainst the girl I liked so that meant strategically losing to\nsomeone. Of course, I wanted to beat my crush and I did, but she took\na few games off me. I never let her win. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Oh the pain of aggressive tetherball!\nBlocking the ball, pounding it, having it pound you, the rope stings\nand burns. You can also lose and never touch the ball! Is there\nanother sport like that? Is tetherball even a sport? \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I have no desire to Google to learn if\nPortland started an adult tetherball league inside some cavernous\nbrew pub or pot shop. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

*****<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We rolled the pole into my boss’ truck\nand he drove it to his place down the road. We unloaded the pole,\nwheeled it to a good level spot in the grass and then stood it up.\nPerfect! We couldn’t play yet. No ball or rope! But there was a\npromise of tetherball fun in the near future thanks to Amazon. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Is fun the right word?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A few days later, I squared off against\nmy boss. In an earlier conversation, I had learned that he had\nsuffered trauma at the hands of tetherball bullies as a young\ncorpulent lad. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The game began. Thirty seconds in, I\nwas winded, but holding my own against my boss, whose childhood\ntrauma was obviously resurfacing. (The vodka probably helped with\nthat, too.) \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I was shocked at how my muscle memory\nfor tetherball instantly returned. I mean, it had been 45 years! I\nhad forgotten how much talking there is when playing tetherball. You\ncan taunt your opponent! You can hurl profanities! You can try to\nhurt him and draw out the demons! \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At some point, my boss took command,\ngot the right angle, got the rope whipping around the pole, and\nkicked my ass. I sat down on the grass, exhausted. He wanted to go\nagain, but I demurred. There would be a next time, maybe even a\ntournament. \n<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Not too long ago, my boss and I rescued an ancient tetherball pole lost in the grass on a construction site. It was one those set in concrete inside an old tire and it made me wonder so you bought the pole somewhere, it came with a rope and ball, but you provided the tire […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5271,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,75],"tags":[1062],"class_list":["post-5270","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-meditations","category-sports","tag-tetherball","has-post-title","has-post-date","has-post-category","has-post-tag","has-post-comment","has-post-author",""],"builder_content":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5270","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5270"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5270\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5273,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5270\/revisions\/5273"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5271"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5270"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5270"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5270"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}