september 26 etc
It's Friday and I'm on a train with my favourite person on my way to Montreal to see some of my favourite people thinking back on a pretty tiring week of learning the ropes of a new p/t job, battling a low-level cold and high-level anxiety, putting a lot of myself into my personal writing (including here and here), and coordinating our little anniversary trip.
Like, your boy's tapped.
That said, your boy is also a giver and as I don't want to leave you with nothing to chew on while you avoid doing your job and/or explaining what Kakistocracy is to your kids, below please find three 100% true things I remember happening in the late 1980s.
1️⃣ When I was in Grade 4, a group of the popular girls decided to prank call a kid named Jeremy because one of them had a crush on him. When the fateful day came and the fateful call was made, one of his parents answered. The girl panicked and then shouted "Do you want to buy a vacuum?" into the receiver before hanging up.
2️⃣ Around that same time period, the 1988 Winter Olympics were held in Calgary, Alberta, and we young Canadians had to do some kind of an art project that referenced the Games. As you may remember, East German figure skater Katarina Witt was expected to capture the women's gold, and did. Surprisingly, Canadian Elizabeth Manley captured the silver. That same group of girls had a civil war that got ridiculously animated. Why? Because one of the girls decided to put Manley atop the podium as the gold medallist and others didn't like that she was playing fast and loose with the facts.
3️⃣ Also around that same time period (but also in the years before and after), we, the few, the proud, the elementary school students at William G. Davis Junior Public School in Scarborough, Ontario, were forced to do something called the Health Hustle. In the mornings after the anthem played over the PA system, we kept standing. Why? Because after it finished, famous songs were played over the same PA system and we were guided in doing a series of exercises along to the music by our gym teacher, whose voice was edited into the tracks (unless she just did it live off the floor every morning). You'd be listening to "We Are The Champions" and then Freddie Mercury would get interrupted by gold old Janet Granger saying "deep knee bends!" or some shit.
I know this sounds made up but it's 100% real. It was the brainchild of a guy named Lennox Gray. I found his obit in the Hamilton Spectator, screenshot what I could because it's behind a paywall, and uploaded it to Picstatic.
You can also read this at Tinnitist, and check out this scanned upload from something called the CAHPER journal.
Because I believe that you have the right to be lazy on Friday I've grabbed a selection from the Tinnitist link for your enjoyment:
Speaking of music, the throwback I want to discuss here is The Health Hustle. This was an initiative developed in Scarborough in 1978, designed to improve fitness by getting kids dancing. A medley of pop songs were pumped through the school PA system, to which teachers would lead students through a series of movements to the music. The goal was to get student’s heart rates up to 150 beats per minute and maintain that for eight minutes.
If the school had a gym teacher, that person was responsible for showing the other teachers the Health Hustle “routine.” Senior students were also shown the routine so that they could be used as leaders in the classroom. The routine involved a warmup, a workout and a cooldown.
When people ask where I'm from, I say Scarborough and not Toronto or Montreal. Now you know some of the reasons why.
On y va!
🐅🐅 This is now unironically my favourite poem too. (Twitter/ObtainerOf)
🎵🎵 I'm feeling hopeful in this moment and I hope you are too and if you're not listen to this old Hey Rosetta! track and maybe you will. (Spotify)
🎵🎵 Chase that with this old banger from The Drums. (Spotify)
☎️☎️ It's the phones. (Twitter/TheStefanSmith)
🍫🍫 Some jabronis tried to sue Hershey for a dumb reason and lost because that's what losers do. (CBS News)
🌿🌿 I've started to reincorporate a particular pejorative into my everyday speech and my partner asked me what it meant the other day and so this is for her but maybe also for you. (r/Twinnovation/)
🧩🧩 It's been a minute since I've played or talked about Dordle, so I am talking about it now and about to play it. (Dordle)
🎵🎵 Closing it out with some Joey Purp because I'm flexin' fragrant atm. (Spotify)
🌲 gonna
🌼 go
🌱 touch
🌳 grass
🌷 now
Be good to yourself. I'm out until Monday.
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