The Blue and Grey

Flipped to a local cable show and what did I see but my old Alma Mater, Lisgar Collegiate Institute, playing a basketball game. There they were, still sporting the timeworn blue and grey. Memories came flooding -- memories of when I was...ahem...a cheerleader. Yikes! Yes folks, one of the most sought-after gigs in high school was that of cheerleader. I shudder to admit it now, but I was in my glory. Of course, this was long before girls actually played real sports. Our versions of sports were tame, girly and nothing like the boys' authentic versions. There we were, decked out in our little gym outfits -- blue, of course -- dancing around lamely. You could even bail if you had a note from your mummy explaining it was...."that time of month". I mean, come on!

No, the real athletic girls longed to be cheerleaders and the tryouts were murder. I remember limping around for a week with a huge purple bruise along the inside of my leg, thanks to a fancy, extravagant cartwheel manoeuvre I was definitely not in good enough shape to perform. But nevermind, I made it. Year one I wore the "I" sweater, but year two I had snagged the coveted "L". I had made head cheerleader. It was a dream come true. And to top it all off, that year I dated the school's head boy. It was my personal nadir.

As I watched the Lisgar kids perform on tv the other night I found myself yelling the old cheers. They were all still firmly embedded in my memory, word-for-corny-word..."blue and grey, blue and grey, these are the colours we won't betray! Victory, victory is our cry, V-I-C-T-O-R-Y!". Yikes again! That's how robust and stubborn early adolescent emotional experiences are -- positive and negative. They remain hard-wired in your brain for the rest of your life. I guess that means I will be yelling the old Lisgar cheers when I am tied to a chair in an old age home and can't remember what happened five minutes ago. So depressing.