EN GARDE

Yesterday the newspaper ran a photo feature article about fencing, which Big Bore pointed out to me.

"Oh, I once took fencing lessons," I told him, the article jogging my mind about 44 years back.

"Really?" he sounded impressed. "When?"

"Back in college. We had to take two phys. ed. credits, and I took fencing and square dancing."

He laughed. "You, the hippie girl, took square dancing?"

"I was terrible at it. All the tall girls had to be the boys, so I never learned how to dance it as a girl. (This was during the archaic period in time when p.e. classes were segregated by gender.) All I remember is allemande left, whatever the heck that means." The teacher was Dr. Evelyn Tripplett. She was a tank of a woman but light on her feet.

"How were you at fencing?"

"Not much better. We wore these lightly padded chest protectors--nothing like what is worn nowadays--and one time I got touched with the sword underneath the protector and directly into my belly button. I doubled over and fell down. Hurt like hell."

I can still remember more about fencing skills than square dancing, though. Give me a foil and I bet I could fake my way into a role as an extra in a Three Musketeers movie. --An extra what, I'm not quite sure.