Country people like to make calculated efforts to “toughen up” their young ones. To make boys into men and girls into strong women country people insist that their children conduct gym class on cinder running tracks rather than on polyurethane surfaces. The toughening begins in elementary school as young country children are taught to “buck up” after scraping their knees upon falling over Pringles Can hurdles during field day. In the middle and upper grades, adolescents acquire scars on their chins and palms during the “PE class” when their first attempt at high hurdles goes horribly wrong.
Of course, country people also like cinder tracks because they keep the unattended youngsters from roughhousing while their parents watch the Friday night football game that takes place inside of the cinder track oval. Children are reminded of the dangers of roughhousing on the cinder surface every week when attention is diverted away from the field and onto an hysterical, bloodied roughhouser screaming for his mother from the bottom of the bleachers.
Cinder tracks are not without their drawbacks, however. Country track teams are always at a disadvantage during championship meets in the city when they run on the “all weather tracks” of the host squads. Yet all in all, the cinder track performs a great service to the community.
Dead on. I still have scars on my knees from three years of junior high track on cinders…
Years of junior high track on cinders – horrible for the already slow runner in the crappy track suits that the school has had for 20 years! Ugh