My Legacy

Our kids often ask to go on bike rides to the local elementary school. This happens to be the school Scotty and I both attended as children (though we didn't know each other then). The other night we were hanging out at the school playground, and I took a moment to ride my bike around the back of the school. I looked out at the expanse of the property and recalled that twenty-four years prior, I stood in that exact place, looking across the playground toward the field at a pair of my very own underwear fluttering in the wind.

When I was in fifth grade, a pair of men's briefs appeared on the playground. It was the talk of the school. Everyone had something to say about the underwear. Kids accused each other of ownership. Boys picked it up with sticks and chased girls with it. Everyone rang out a steady chorus of "Ews!" The underwear circulated the schoolyard for several days before it either blew away or someone took care of it.

The next year, when I was in 6th grade, we had a routine fire drill that took the entire student body outside. I was running up the hill to my class meeting spot when I felt something touch my leg. 

If I ever had a bully in elementary school, it was Candice Rowdy, so naturally, it was Candice who said (in her snooty voice), "You dropped something." I looked down, and to my horror, saw a pair of my underwear laying in the grass.

Everyone noticed the underwear, and the flocking and mocking began right away. All I could do was say, "Ew! That's not mine!" But I knew it was mine. I couldn't understand how it had gotten there, but by the time I got home that day, I'd figured it out. Whenever I undressed for the bath, I tucked my underwear inside my pants, so it was likely in my pant leg in the laundry and didn't come out... until I was wearing the pants and running up a hill in front of all my peers. 

Luckily, no one questioned me. Even Candice backed off, thank heaven.

The underwear didn't go away, though. It was still there when we came out for recess, and it was still there the next day. Everyone knew there was a pair of underwear on the playground. It was just like it had been the year before except this time, it was my underwear being placed on a stick. It was my underwear that the wind blew against the backstop. It was my underwear that everyone was talking about.

And I kid you not! That underwear was on that playground for the rest of the school year. On the day I left elementary school, it was still out in the grassy field.

Nearly three decades later, I'm sure no one remembers that underwear. 

Oh, but I do. 

And when I revisit my old school with my children, the scenery is a little bit different, but I can still  envision the plethora of places my underwear appeared on that piece of land across the span of several months.