by Paul Drockton

Created on: March 22, 2007   Last Updated: May 10, 2007

"I coulda been a Contenda!"

At St Charles Elementary School, recess came once a day, whether you wanted it to or not. I dreaded recess for many reasons. One main one is "the gauntlet". For those of you unfamiliar with "the gauntlet". It had something to do with walking from the school to the music building for your weekly violin lesson.

Of course, you were not allowed to come to school three hours early and hide your violin in the bushes outside the music room. Noooo. there was too much risk that some donut fiend would find it and pawn it off for a dozen lemon iced.

You had to walk across the schoolyard with your violin in one hand, and the other hand holding your coat high enough to hide your face, in the hopes that no-one would recognize you. I was definitely in a catch 22.

One of the favorite games on the St. Charles playground, which was sorely lacking in playground equipment, and resembled the same filled parking lot I saw when I went to Church, was the game of "Buck-Buck". For those of you heavily acquanted with Bill Cosby and "Fat Albert", you will recall that the game involves two teams. One team, which bent over, one behind the other, had their "brick" guy holding onto the building for support.

He was called the "brick guy" because of the permanent indentation (brick tattoo) he had engraved into his forhead. Which, by the way, allowed the team to match up their position perfectly, in the same exact place, everyday, with the school's brick wall.

Needless to say, we were forced to change "brick guys" quite frequently, due to, shall we say, "personality and behavioral changes incidental to blunt head trauma." Yes sir! when they started drooling uncontrollably, or talked about the Indians going all the way, we knew it was time for a change!

Now, in "buck,buck", the other team would run and jump on the human chain, one by one, until it collapsed. This is where visiting the donut shop really paid off! Oh sure, there were the usual "buck-buck" recruiters hanging about on the playground, but, since "buck-buck" is an amateur sport, the NCAA was able to control the usual perks that came when you signed up with a specific team.

1. It was rumored that one amateur "buck-bucker" accepted a box of Ju-jubes and was declared ineligible for the next three recesses!

2. Another scandal erupted when an NCAA informant found one team captain "buying a round of chocolate cream filled over at the Snow White Donut shop. He argued that it was a normal part of the player's "training",

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