This past week, my son’s school held its annual Field Day. Having seen the notice in the newsletter his school is kind enough to send home each week; I knew the day was coming.
Every year, the mere mention of Field Day is enough for me to feel post-traumatic stress sweat break out all over me, followed by my usual diatribe of valid points as to why Field Day totally bites.
For those unaware or lucky enough never to be forced into participating in organized physical activities, aka “games” for an entire day, I’ll elaborate. Field Day is a day set aside for teachers to physically punish their students for any of their perceived wrong doings throughout the year by blackmailing them into participating in organized exercise [manual labor] in the form of frisbee golf, badminton, horseshoes, races, dodge-ball, and whatever other maltreatment they devise.
I know this to be true for the simple reason the teachers were never outside manning the individual purgatory stations. No, we students did that too. Also, if it were not true, Field Day would be optional, and it would not be held during the hottest month of the school year.
I have no idea the genius behind this lame idea, but for some inexplicable reason Field Day is always held at the end of the academic year — you know, when it is already miserably hot outside. It is not, for instance, held at the start of the school year when the weather is comfortable and the students are still antsy from their wild summer adventures or lack thereof.
When I was in school, the only thing I, or any of my fellow students, had much interest in doing during the last days of school was count the days down to summer and watch movies. Sure, I got mentally sick of watching the same movies every year on the close circuit, but I much preferred this to actual physical illness.
It is easy to say because I have Lupus and thus get to enjoy the double whammy of heat intolerance and photo-sensitivity [or legit allergy to the sun] that it makes sense why I would get ill after a day of being relegated to Field Day fun, however, I was not the only sick student every year. And, yes, every year there were kids other than me sick from heat exhaustion.
Somewhere around the mid-morning hours my exposure limit would hit, and I would be overcome with physical fatigue, exhaustion, impressive cold chills, nausea, maybe a technicolored yawn or two for theatrical purposes, and a serious headache. Inevitably, I would be told to go to the gym with the other kids about to pass out and have some water.
You might wonder, how did I play soccer? Soccer is played for a pre-determined period of time, and my coach kept a very close eye on just how red my face got. A mostly pink- toned person, my face gets alarmingly rubescent during exercise, and my coach had to learn early it was natural and did not mean I was preparing to pass out and die in front of everyone. If he became concerned, I got pulled or it would be communicated from the sidelines to the other players on the field down to me; Coach wants to know — are you good?
Field Day should either occur in the cooler months or it should be optional. By the end of the year, I’ve already participated in gym every day, all year long. Why now should one full torturous day under the blazing sun slowly cooking my insides be inflicted upon me? If the kind of prolonged physical activity that comes from daily gym class is not sufficient, then I hardly see where one day of physical torment is.