I had to impress Bill Clinton. I failed to do so, so he came to my house to call me a loser.
Obama wasn’t mad, just disappointed that I was out of shape
That’s why you had to do the sprints. To be ready to escape Bill Clinton when he appears.
They tried to warn you.
The pain. THE PAIN.
Steady! I warn you not to try jerking away. I am old, but my hand can drive this needle into your neck before you can escape me.
Does Elmo have choice to not?
Did you know all of those sit and reach boxes were manufactured by Halliburton? Follow the money…
How much could a box cost? $10k?
Man, I had to go check it just in case.
Did you find the proof? I gave it a half-effort on mobile and didn’t succeed…
And?
In Civil Air Patrol they just screwed a ruler into a box.
We were poor rural Canadians. Our sit-and-reach used a wooden ruler and a blocky wood scrap.
He wanted to make sure we didn’t get left behind 😌
What does this mean?
The presidential fitness test is something us kids had to do every year. It was basically doing a bunch of different exercises, and if you did good enough you got a certificate.
Things like sit ups, push ups, chin ups, vertical jump, running a mile, etc. Based on your height and weight there was an expected level you were supposed to achieve.
I believe it. I guess I was hanging out with the metal heads, stoners, and hacky sack kids during gym. That’s why I got a D. And not the gym teacher’s D… That was reserved for the underage girls that used to play with his leg hair. Right there in the bleachers of a new Hampshire school.
(Actual true story… Girls used to play with his leg hair… This was middle school or 9th grade. Larry A. …I’m looking at you.)
Knowing my town, I’m surprised that guy stayed athletic director and not a paraplegic. He must have paid someone off. 70k to be a shit town gym director??
Where I grew up school was for chumps.
The village makes the villains.
If you can’t bend over and touch your toes, you can’t be President.
In the US, there was a thing called the “Presidential Fitness Test” that kids had to do in P.E. (not sure if it’s still a thing).
What does this mean?
Dental plan.
You had to be able to do so many crunches, pushups, etc, in a certain amount of time.
1 kid failed it. Thats how we got 9/11. The president was not fucking around.
Or what
I was a fat kid. If you failed, you couldn’t get Phys. Ed. credit which was required coursework. They made you redo the test until you passed. The only other way out was a medical exemption. I eventually passed, damn near keeling over from the pain my lungs were in from running the mile. It made me resent my gym teacher and cardio, so in hindsight it was a pretty shitty way to encourage physical fitness. I didn’t get not fat until I was like 19.
Damn your school was harsh-- pretty sure they didn’t fail kids at my school in the 80s for failing the presidential test. I could never pass myself despite being an active kid. I was fine on most everything, then always barely squeaked by on the mile, but I could never do any pull-ups (even though the passing number was like 2 I think).
To be fair I never looked into it whether or not that was school policy, but I do know that Phys. Ed. credit was required. My gym teacher at the time was the type to have us running track while sitting on a lawn chair and munching McD’s breakfast, so he could have just been an asshole.
There’s like 10 challenges including running a mile, a half basketball court relay, touching your toes (pictured), etc. There was a “great job” level and a “you did well enough to not fail” level. At my school, the great job level required you to meet a higher level at only 2 challenges and meant you got a free shirt. Other than that, there were no consequences. It was the same kids who did a great job each year, so a small subset of the class would be wearing those shirts all week, then walk home with a new one.
Or you have failed as a patriot.
Shame. Shame. Shame.
I was born in 1999 and I’m pretty sure that I never had to do this.
I graduated high school in 1999 and I definitely had to do this in elementary school.
Same here.
Am I the only one who couldn’t even reach the freaking box?
I was athletic, but not flexible. Shit was humiliating.
I also couldn’t do a pull up, but neither could most kids in my class, so that was alright.
I had to do it to impress Bill Clinton. Side note, he gave me the worst handshake I’ve ever had in my life, just competely limp, dead fish style. So I don’t give a shit if he was impressed with how many crunches I could do.
Gotta make sure the youth can be good little soldiers if needed
Fuck yeah!
This is 100% fact. Eisenhower made PE a universal part of education to increase overall fitness in the case of war and conscription.
I think it was worse than that. It was to test for and increase capability for military life, but the exercises themselves are not a good way to keep a general healthy body so it actually caused physical health to decline in the US.
This very far predates George w Bush.
This predates George HW Bush
Reagan kid here, can confirm
Was Reagan impressed?
Bitch didn’t even show up to give me my award.
“Oh mommy… I’ve been shot…”
What a whiner.
Yeah it was Eisenhower. He was concerned our youth would be less fit than Europeans
Eisenhower also predicted the US military industrial complex.
Man called 'em as he saw 'em I guess.
I topped my school’s record score on those tests. I haven’t been able to afford to go to the dentist in more than 20 years. I wish they would have focused on making our society sustainable instead.
Wanna do some pacers?
I did it to impress George Bush Sr. I’m not sure he cares either.
Same reason W wanted to be president and same result
Haha!
Speaking of crazy things in US PE classes, if you learned to Square Dance, it was because Henry Ford was a racist who was afraid of Jazz.
There’s usually a dance section included in PE instruction, mostly to break up hard physical activity snd allow kids to have fun. The type of dancing depends on the school and the state, we did salsa dancing in Florida.
“Allow the kids to have fun”
Should have told that to my PE teacher in grade school. I’ve never been good at dancing, and I got pulled aside multiple times in front of the class because I just couldn’t follow some of the dances we were supposed to do. These weren’t for competitions or anything, just as an activity.
That’s when I learned that not all bullies are children.
Let me guess: “if you only applied yourself, you’d get it. It’s easy (for me). Watch!”
You’re younger than I am. For my generation, it was all square dancing.
Same. I lived in Minnesota and Indiana and did Square Dancing in both.
I’m over 60, growing up in SoCal we had Square Dancing and the Maypole but also the Mexican Hat Dance, plus Tinikling, the Filipino one with two poles. Oh, and I think a bit of Hula.
(Later as a teacher I taught my 2nd graders some Russian dancing I had learned from my ballet teacher, because little kids are bouncy and kicky and we could do it inside when it rained.)
That might be why it was added to the curriculum at first, but that’s certainly not why it stayed, nor why we did it at my school. It’s a pretty fun activity too, so a good use of that PE time.
Man. We hated square dancing time in PE.
I had horrible eyesight and was shockingly inept at all sportball games, even compared to other hopeless nerds, so I found it slightly less awful than the stuff we usually did.
I never had dancing in PE in any grade. Can’t decide if that sucks or not. Maybe I’d have better coordination now. We did get roller skating week though.
They had to make sure middle schoolers would be ready to fight a war at a moments notice
I still have my presidential physical fitness award. I’m old, mine is signed by Nixon. It’s a very official looking certificate with a patch that I put under the glass in the frame. Back when I used to hang my work awards on my office wall, I used to have that one in with them. Most people didn’t ever notice, but every once in a while someone would be looking at them and I could always see the exact moment they realized what it was.
Is that the same flex as the “I ate a grilled-cheese in Woolworth’s” badge of honour?
I don’t think I know the reference, but it sounds equivalent.
