Jockstraps and Skill Saws

 

Jockstraps and Skill Saws

Noel Laflin

9-30-24

 

Coach had just told us the correct way a jock strap should be worn (pouch facing front, just in case you were curious), and that when handed a towel after our communal shower, that one should NOT place it over one's genitals in order to hide one's embarrassment, but rather dry one's face first, instead, and save genital hiding and drying for last.

 

"It's only common sense boys!"

 

Coach made his point by pointing half an index finger at the first twelve-year-old-embarrassed face he saw lined up before him. It was only half a finger as coach was also the wood shop teacher and had had an unfortunate run in with a skill saw a few years earlier.

 

When dutifully instructed on other points of personal hygiene - Right Guard was mentioned, as was the importance of thoroughly drying between the toes, we were told to head in, find a locker, get changed into our band new gym clothes, and report back to the field in five minutes.

 

All was going according to plan until Frankie - small, funny, likable Frankie - put his jock strap on bassackwards, and then proceeded to put on shorts, socks, shoes and lastly, his brand new Sycamore J.H. gym shirt, before huffing it out to the field.

 

I remember the way he kept trying to rearrange things as he ran laps or frowned a bit painfully when it came to jumping jacks.

 

No one bothered to tell him why.

 

Welcome to junior high, I thought.

 

I suppose there were other helpful things learned in other classes that first day of school in 1965, but they have been lost to memory - as lost as any recall as to what my locker combination might have been back then. But I have never forgotten the importance of deodorant, or thoroughly drying between the toes, or where to first place a towel when exiting the shower.

 

However, I haven't been confounded, let alone confused as to the proper placement of a jock strap – pouch forward, as the ghost of a coach would remind me – or the memory of a boy who didn’t listen.

 

But then again I haven't owned one in decades, so give it time.

 

Oh, and on a purely unrelated matter, I have a strange aversion to skill saws, too.

 

Not sure why.