I was pretty smart in school, an honors track kid and all that sort of thing. Except gym. I was placed in Remedial Gym in ninth grade (either because I’d just had surgery on my hand or because I couldn’t swim, I forget which.)

I’d pretty much forgotten about Remedial Gym until quite recently. I was telling a story about something completely different to my writer’s group and somehow this came up — and I doubled over laughing. We were a small, ragtag bunch in Remedial Gym. It was me, Sean Brost — who had to wear a knee brace, two angry and over-weight sophomore girls with bad perms and giant Kurt Cobain t-shirts, a guy who was straight-up in a wheelchair, a really over-weight dude, and some kid who was mentally disabled.

I could not help but die laughing when I thought about us trying to cross-country ski. We spent most of the period out in the shed behind the high school, just trying to get the damn skis on. Then we’d go out for the last ten minutes of the period and fall right over into the snow.

Also, I think that class was the most athletic I’ve ever felt in my life.