clubbed.

There were lots of athletic clubs at my middle school. This fact was in direct contrast to my high school, where as far as I can remember, there was only one athletic club, the Fellowship of Christian Athletes. I'm not sure exactly what went on in FCA, other than maybe scrimmaging with prayer beforehand. But in middle school, the athletic clubs had no sort of theological requirements. In fact, only a couple of them had requirements at all. There was the P.E. Club, which was sort of like the honor society for jocks. You had to do well on your presidential fitness exams to be in the P.E. Club. There was also the Sports Club, which was only open to those who played on school sports teams. Clubs in middle school didn't do much, mostly because all meetings had to take place outside of school, usually right after classes let out. Maybe that's why there were so many athletic clubs - the jocks were already used to staying late for practices and such, and their parents were already used to having to rework schedules. However, the meetings couldn't interfere with any of the sports they were promoting. That amounted to about four meetings a year in between seasons.

Then there were the clubs that had no real requirements for joining other than interest. I remember there being three such clubs. The first, and most socially acceptable, was the Jumprope Club. Jumping rope was deemed Okay because pretty much everybody could do it. Also, it's what the boys' basketball team did in the off-season to get in shape. (In high school, the club of off-season basketball players became known as the cross-country team.) So if the jocks did it, then it must be cool. Jumprope club meetings would consist of us watching a video full of very impressive jumprope professionals. There were whole teams of them, and they would work these intricate formations with their ropes, changing positions all over the place but never missing a beat, like marching band, only bouncier. These videos would inspire us to become impressive jumprope professionals, but to be honest, I don't even remember anyone being able to double-dutch. I was one of the few that could even criss-cross, a skill I randomly picked up during one night of intense practicing in my living room when I was about seven years old.

The other non-elitist two clubs could be called college prep clubs - provided you were interested in attending Clown University. Those would be the Juggling Club and the Unicycle Club. I suspect only our first-time readers will be so foolish as to ask if I was a member of these clubs. Granted, there were some popular kids in these clubs, but they were the kind of popular kids that were popular in spite of their idiosyncrasies. Please note that I do not, nor will I ever, include myself in any sort of popular kids group. I was pretty good friends with a couple of the popular kids, mostly the kind that would participate in ridiculous extra-curricular activities.

The Juggling Club was similar to the Jumprope Club in meeting format. We watched a juggling video, then tried to imitate. No one came into the club with actual juggling know-how. We started with scarves, as they are the easiest due to their slow and meandering reaction to gravity. I honestly don't remember anyone ever graduating beyond scarves. Frankly, I'm not certain that anyone ever really got the grasp of scarves at all.

There was no need for an instructional video in the Unicycle Club. We knew what it was supposed to look like. Step 1: Get on the unicycle. Step 2: Stay there. That was pretty much it. Whereas with juggling we had started with scarves, with unicycling, we started with falling down. And we pretty much continued and ended with that as well. Again, no one entered the gym on the first meeting with any experience. And no one left the gym after the last meeting any better off. I couldn't even ride a bicycle at that point in time, so I really had no business there.

A similarity you may have noticed with all of these clubs is that no one ever managed to accomplish anything in them. Honestly, I only remember having at most two or three meetings with each of them. The teachers who sponsored the clubs were essentially off-season sports coaches. So when it came down to softball practice vs. juggling practice, the Future Outcasts of America lost out. I'm not sure why these clubs even existed or more importantly, where all the equipment came from. I can see a junior high physical education department having fifty jumpropes, but a box full of juggling apparatus and two dozen shiny unicycles? I can't decide if maybe one of the P.E. teachers was just really gung-ho about the circus or if perhaps some quirky philanthropist made a charitable donation of clown equipment and my school was just making the best of it.

For the record, I can now juggle. I made myself some little fabric juggling cubes out of yard sale scrap material and Uncle Ben's rice. I found an instructional website, sat myself down, and I learned how to juggle. It was reminiscent of the Sandra who taught herself to jumprope criss-cross and then (much) later to ride a bike. Of course, I'm not any good at juggling, but I can do it long enough to get out the words, "See? I can do it" before screwing up. I learned about six months ago when I realized that I knew a lot of people that I respected and thought were cool who could do it. Now it's just one of those things you might find out about a person and be mildly surprised and vaguely interested, like learning that someone built his own ukelele (Rob), is adopted (Ashley), or didn't learn to ride a bike until she was eighteen (no one I know).

I cannot ride a unicycle. I own one, a rusty little number with a bad tire that I bought at a yard sale. I remember walking around at this yard sale with Casey, and all of a sudden, he grabs my arm and says, "Sandra, look down." I looked down and there was a unicycle with a two dollar price tag. My immediate thought was not, Hmm, a unicycle, but rather Hey, I have a unicycle now. Ashley and I used to try to ride it in the halls of our apartment, but if you can't ride a unicycle with a good tire, one with a bad tire isn't going to offer you much hope. I even have little unicycle earrings. I feel kind of foolish when people notice them and ask me if I can ride one. I'm not sure how to explain that I'm not so much as a unicycle enthusiast as a novelty earring enthusiast.

I should save myself the embarrassment and just learn to ride it, if for no other reason than to save myself from owning yet one more thing that I bought at a yard sale and cannot use. Then I can wax romantic about my old Unicycling Club days or perhaps finally send in my application to Clown U, listing the fact that I can ride a unicycle, juggle, and jump rope criss-cross style (not all at once). I will not mention that I'm still not very good on a bicycle.