ANOTHER YEAR... onward! (Part 152e)

ANOTHER YEAR... onward! (Part 152e)

I’ve mentioned that we (the family) hadn’t attended any basketball games and that each time either Mo or Barbara would see Elle at school they’d ask when we were going to come see them cheer. I’m not sure just when it was but on a Friday night that I got home at a reasonable hour (before 6pm) Elle and the girls decreed that we were going... no if and or buts. I’d not met or even seen the new coaches but the talk at the post office was that the varsity coach was really good and had decided to focus on fundamentals and to not worry about the score. I’d kept track of the team through the local paper and they hadn’t won a game up to that time. So, when we got in the station wagon and headed for school I figured I was in for a long night. As far as the game was concerned I was right. But, the cheerleaders made me pretty much forget about the game.

Gone were the old dowdy uniforms replaced with much fancier ones. The newly hired girls physical education instructor had convinced the school board to “get with it” and to be more like the schools they competed against. Blue and gold were still the colors but the skirts were now pleated with the inner folds being gold and the outer ones blue and the uniform panties were back to being blue. What caught my attention was that the skirts were shorter... much shorter. On one of the girls her uniform panties showed without her doing any bending at all. Another thing was that the squad had grown with ten girls participating as opposed to six. I recognized a couple of them with one being the younger sister of the girl from the ‘panty house’ around the corner who used to babysit for us from time to time. She’d ‘filled out’ and was now even more attractive than her sister.

The girls started warming up at one end of the gym while the two teams did their warm ups on the court. I had my eye on the girls and would’ve killed to have been down at that end to watch them bend and stretch. When the horn blew to signal it was time for the game to start the girls got in a line under the basket where they’d been and, on signal, came running out onto the court, one at a time, yelling a cheer that ended with them doing a cart wheel and yelling the name of one of the players. They came out so fast there was no way to see them all do their cart wheels and by the time I figured that out I’d missed my chance for any panty peeks on most of them. Mo and Barbara were the shortest and were the first to come out and there was nothing for me to see with them. I rationalized it by thinking I already knew what they were wearing under the uniform panties.

At the first game time out was when the girls took to the court to perform. The boys were already hopelessly behind. Having watched Mo and Barbara practice a bit during the Summer in our yard I recognized the first activity. It was a pyramid with Barbara on the top. When she was there both Jean and Anne yelled out to her which surprised her and she missed the dismount and landed awkwardly. As she picked herself up I got just a peek of white from under the leg elastics. A sign of good things to come.

We stayed to the bitter end. I saw a few of the guys who I’d joined with the previous Winter to attempt to play basketball in a town team league.The new varsity coach was attempting to put together another team and they wanted to know if I would join them. Basketball was always my favorite sport and I was disappointed when the team disbanded after just a few games. To join the new league the team had to have eight players and they only had seven. I looked at Elle and she gave me one of those resigned “I can’t stop you” looks so I told them I’d give it another try. I wasn’t prepared for the next practice to be in the morning and immediately wondered if I hadn’t made a mistake.

The new coach was a really good athlete. He was a three sport letterman in high school and played varsity football in college. I learned that I’d actually seen him play a few times as his college played against Elle’s college. As opposed to the way we’d attempted to prepare the previous year this time it was structured and he, like a good coach should, made an assessment of our skills. I’d never been a good offensive player but was good on defense so that was to be my main job. Only the coach was in decent shape so the rest of us were sucking wind after fifteen minutes. Leaving the gym around noon I knew I’d be feeling the pain for the next few days. The good thing was that we had two weeks until our first game... if we all lasted that long.

I’ve avoided mentioning Jerry, the new guy at work, but after writing so much about him figured I better give a bit of an update on just how he was accepted by the people he had to work with... and the customers. After just a few days the tellers were snickering behind his back. Trish and Lorie were still the backbone of the Polish Mafia even though there were only four left and Trish told me that after just a few days Lorie was trying to avoid him. Her own appraisal was that he was “wishy washy”... something both Bret and I agreed with. Bret had overheard him as he opened a new account and knew immediately that he had given the customer wrong information. I’d been noticing Bret taking a much more assertive role and this was another case of it as he stepped in and corrected the situation. A day or two later it was a totally different situation as Jerry wouldn’t open an account that the customer wanted even though the customer’s husband had one. I was the one who got involved. I tried not to embarrass him too badly in front of the customer as I did what had been requested. He did make a half hearted attempt to protest but quickly backed off. When the customer left I turned to him and asked why he’d refused to open the account. I can’t give you his exact words but I did hear him say that his old bank didn’t open those type accounts. As you already know I didn’t have a good feeling about him to begin with and hearing those type words... I blew my ‘stack’.

To be continued...