Skinning the cat
N.R. Mitchum
A passage from an Updike novel:
... "and a jungle gym whose iron pipes were dewy and cold in
the morning on the backs of your knees when you skinned the
cat. Nobody could skin the cat like Essie at the age of ten;
she like the feeling of the world turning upside-down and the
blood rushing to her head" ...
Can someone with children, or a more athletic childhood than mine,
explain what it means to "skin the cat"? Do kids still do this,
or still use the expression? Is it only a memento of the author's
own, 1940s childhood?
Nathan Mitchum
Paul Bogrow
to turn the body 360 degrees around an axis passing through both
shoulders, starting from a standing or crouching position and holding on
to a pair of widespread vertical poles throughout the maneuver?
Wendy Mueller
On Aug 15, 1996 00:35:42 in article <Skinning the cat>, '"N.R. Mitchum"
only...well, it was more recently than Updike's reference. To skin the cat
meant to hang by the arms from an overhead bar and flip the rest of your
body, starting with your feet, over your head and through your arms. You
would indeed be turned upside down for a brief moment, just before you let
go of the bar.
I never questioned the term "skinning the cat." I just thought it was a
great way to disturb my mother. "Hey, Mom! Wanna watch me skin the cat?"
--
Wendy Mueller
Donna Richoux
Paul Bogrow <eey...@eey.org> wrote:
> N.R. Mitchum <aj...@mail.lafn.org> wrote:
> >explain what it means to "skin the cat"?
>
> to turn the body 360 degrees around an axis passing through both
> shoulders, starting from a standing or crouching position and holding on
> to a pair of widespread vertical poles throughout the maneuver?
Those "poles" can be a grown-up's forearms, if you're a small child.
--- Donna Richoux
N.R. Mitchum
Donna Richoux wrote:
-------------
> Those "poles" can be a grown-up's forearms, if you're a small child.
Thanks for that pleasant image. Much nicer than the near-literal one
I have been playing with.
NM [post&email]
Aaron J. Dinkin
In article <199608161...@asd12-29.dial.xs4all.nl>, tr...@xs4all.nl
(Donna Richoux) wrote:
> Paul Bogrow <eey...@eey.org> wrote:
>
> > N.R. Mitchum <aj...@mail.lafn.org> wrote:
> > >explain what it means to "skin the cat"?
> >
> > to turn the body 360 degrees around an axis passing through both
> > shoulders, starting from a standing or crouching position and holding on
> > to a pair of widespread vertical poles throughout the maneuver?
>
> Those "poles" can be a grown-up's forearms, if you're a small child.
Apparently, then, there's more than one way to do it.
-Aaron J. Dinkin
Dr. Whom
N.R. Mitchum
Wendy Mueller wrote:
------------------
> [...] To skin the cat
> meant to hang by the arms from an overhead bar and flip the rest of your
> body, starting with your feet, over your head and through your arms. You
> would indeed be turned upside down for a brief moment, just before you let
> go of the bar.
>
> I never questioned the term "skinning the cat." I just thought it was a
> great way to disturb my mother. "Hey, Mom! Wanna watch me skin the cat?"
Eeee-yow! I don't wonder it disturbed your mom, now that you've described
the maneuver.
One method of skinning an animal is to cut the hide all round and then peel
the skin away from the rest of the body, like a tight glove. Hoicking the feet
through the arms could, I imagine, remind some bloody-minded kids of turning
a cat inside out.
You've given me and my three cats nightmares. Thanks VERY much.
Nathan Mitchum [post&email]
Earle D. Jones
In article <4v06lj$5...@news2.h1.usa.pipeline.com>,
dag...@usa.pipeline.com(Wendy Mueller) wrote:
> On Aug 15, 1996 00:35:42 in article <Skinning the cat>, '"N.R. Mitchum"
> <aj...@mail.lafn.org>' wrote:
>
>
> >A passage from an Updike novel:
> >
> >... "and a jungle gym whose iron pipes were dewy and cold in
> >the morning on the backs of your knees when you skinned the
> >cat.
[........]
=====
Note to John U.--
Never skin the cat in a jungle gym--you may bash your head on the bar in
front of you. You skin the cat on the *acting pole* or *acting bars*.
earle
=====
__
__/\_\
/\_\/_/
\/_/\_\ earle
\/_/ jones
N.R. Mitchum
> Never skin the cat in a jungle gym--you may bash your head on the bar in
> front of you. You skin the cat on the *acting pole* or *acting bars*.
>>>>>>>>>
I wondered about that myself, after reading the descriptions of "skinning
the cat," but was willing to believe that children are small and limber enough
to negotiate the confusion of pipes. In the playgrounds of my youth, a jungle
gym resembled a collection of giant, criss-crossing croquet hoops; monkey
bars were squarish arrangements of metal ladders.
Never heard of "acting" poles or bars -- what would those look like?
Was there ever a Jungle Jim?
Nathan Mitchum [post&email]
Gayle Harrison
We used to skin the cat this way. First, grab the crossbar on the end
of the swingset. I realize that this might not be clear. The two poles
on one end of the swingset had a crossbar, so that the whole end looked
like a capital A. Anyway, grab the b ar with hands rather far apart.
Then, swing the legs up between the arms, over the head. End up completely
flipped with hands still on the bar. just thinking about it now makes me
sore and tired!
(I know that I have typos, but my editor is not letting me erase.
Please forgive the errors.)
Gayle
nancy g.
N.R. Mitchum wrote:
> Wendy Mueller wrote:
>> to hang by the arms from an overhead bar and flip the rest of your
>> body, starting with your feet, over your head and through your arms. You
>> would indeed be turned upside down for a brief moment, just before you let
>> go of the bar.
> One method of skinning an animal is to cut the hide all round and then peel
> the skin away from the rest of the body, like a tight glove. Hoicking the feet
> through the arms could, I imagine, remind some bloody-minded kids of turning
> a cat inside out.
We always used the phrase "skin the cat" to describe any stunt or trick that
turned your body upside-down, but it was used especially for the (incredibly
cool and exciting) maneuver of pumping your swing so hard that you would
actually make a full revolution at the end of the chains and swing
completely *over* the crossbar. (And yes, thank you, I know now that such a
thing is physically impossible, but it was amazing to find out how many kids
(in my neighborhood alone!) KNEW somebody who knew somebody ELSE who had
actually DONE it!) Kids aren't very good at debunking urban myths or at
questioning the physics involved in them.
But there was another legend which we never questioned either: if you
actually DID manage to swing so high that you skinned the cat ... your body
would instantly somehow turn itself completely inside out, and you'd die a
horrible and gruesome death right there at the playground.
Hmmmm. I guess by the time we figured out that these two legends were
mutually exclusive, we were too big for the swings anyway.
Nancy G.
Cissy . Thorpe
On Thu, 15 Aug 1996, N.R. Mitchum wrote:
> A passage from an Updike novel:
>
> ... "and a jungle gym whose iron pipes were dewy and cold in
> the morning on the backs of your knees when you skinned the
> cat. Nobody could skin the cat like Essie at the age of ten;
> she like the feeling of the world turning upside-down and the
> blood rushing to her head" ...
>
> Can someone with children, or a more athletic childhood than mine,
> explain what it means to "skin the cat"? Do kids still do this,
> or still use the expression? Is it only a memento of the author's
> own, 1940s childhood?
>
>
> Nathan Mitchum
>
If I remember correctly....first you grab the bar with both hands and
hang, then swing your feet up and through your arms and continue the
motion until your feet hit the ground behind you (or you were as far
around as your shoulders would let you go) then back again to catch the
bar with your knees and let go of the bar with your hands and drop until
your knees catch your fall.....a great head rush. Had to stop once you
got too tall for the A frame at the end of the swing set - your head
would hit and ground and that was a bummer. By the time we got big
enough to use the cross bar at the top of the swing set, the joints
weren't limber enough to let you do it anymore....unless you were into
gymnastics.
Cissy
Donna Richoux
Aaron J. Dinkin <r...@usa1.com> wrote:
> In article <199608161...@asd12-29.dial.xs4all.nl>, tr...@xs4all.nl
> (Donna Richoux) wrote:
>
> > Paul Bogrow <eey...@eey.org> wrote:
> >
> > > N.R. Mitchum <aj...@mail.lafn.org> wrote:
> > > >explain what it means to "skin the cat"?
> > >
> > > to turn the body 360 degrees around an axis passing through both
> > > shoulders, starting from a standing or crouching position and holding on
> > > to a pair of widespread vertical poles throughout the maneuver?
> >
> > Those "poles" can be a grown-up's forearms, if you're a small child.
>
> Apparently, then, there's more than one way to do it.
I suppose so. The way I mean: the child (say, age 5) faces the adult,
takes hands, and starts walking up the grownup's legs. When s/he is high
enough, s/he flips over (backwards, it must be), still holding on to the
grownup's hands, and lands on feet on ground. Very simple yet very
impressive. There may be other names for this too.
Best wishes --- Donna Richoux
Matthew Rabuzzi
N.R. Mitchum <aj...@mail.lafn.org> writes:
:
: to negotiate the confusion of pipes. In the playgrounds of my youth, a jungle
: gym resembled a collection of giant, criss-crossing croquet hoops; monkey
: bars were squarish arrangements of metal ladders.
:
: Never heard of "acting" poles or bars -- what would those look like?
1) Do you call it a slide, a sliding board, or a sliding pond?
(We used the latter in Ft Meade MD in the '60s;
today in Calif only the first is used.)
2) Do you distinguish between a seesaw and a teeter-totter?
(I do. A seesaw is a plank atop a central bar as fulcrum,
while a t-totter is a swinging gizmo that is suspended
from an overhead bar -- it swings and creaks and it's easy
for small fingers to get pinched. In either device, kids
sit (or stand, if they're daredevils) at opposite ends.)
...................................
The Accidental Forest, by Anne Tler
Matthew Rabuzzi
Mark Odegard
Matthew Rabuzzi <rab...@loc251.tandem.com> wrote:
>N.R. Mitchum <aj...@mail.lafn.org> writes:
>:
>: to negotiate the confusion of pipes. In the playgrounds of my youth, a jungle
>: gym resembled a collection of giant, criss-crossing croquet hoops; monkey
>: bars were squarish arrangements of metal ladders.
>:
>: Never heard of "acting" poles or bars -- what would those look like?
>
>Two other playground equipment questions:
>
>1) Do you call it a slide, a sliding board, or a sliding pond?
> (We used the latter in Ft Meade MD in the '60s;
> today in Calif only the first is used.)
From earliest childhood, it was *always* a slide. At Elko (Nevada)
Grammar School Number 2, we had an array of such equipment. The brand
name "FunFul" sticks in my mind for the slide. We also had a
merry-go-round, where the kids pushed it, then lept on at the last
moment, with many of us, myself included, making the jump a moment too
late and getting a nice scrape/bump. Such equipment today would be an
invitation to a huge lawsuit. This was 1958-59.
>
>2) Do you distinguish between a seesaw and a teeter-totter?
> (I do. A seesaw is a plank atop a central bar as fulcrum,
> while a t-totter is a swinging gizmo that is suspended
> from an overhead bar -- it swings and creaks and it's easy
> for small fingers to get pinched. In either device, kids
> sit (or stand, if they're daredevils) at opposite ends.)
I've called either both, but have wondered. Yeah, my fingers got
pinched *way* back then, and I see little ones of the 90's getting
their fingers just as pinched today.
There was also the jungle gym, but I think this was a brand name for
generic "monkey bars".
The elaborate sets you buy today as kits made out of redwood or
pressure treated lumber (with ladders, forts, swings, etc) are nearly
impossible for an adult to get up into to clean (or retrieve a
obstinate "I-don't-wanna-go" tantruming child).
--
Mark Odegard ode...@ptel.net
The great orthographical contest has long subsisted between
etymology and pronunciation. It has been demanded, on one hand,
that men should write as they speak; but, as it has been shown
that this conformity never was attained in any language, and
that it is not more easy to persuade men to agree exactly in
speaking than in writing, it may be asked, with equal propriety,
why men do not rather speak as they write.
-- Samuel Johnson, "The Plan of an English Dictionary" (1747).
Aaron J. Dinkin
In article <3219F6B2...@loc251.tandem.com>, Matthew Rabuzzi
<rab...@loc251.tandem.com> wrote:
> Two other playground equipment questions:
>
> 1) Do you call it a slide, a sliding board, or a sliding pond?
Slide.
> 2) Do you distinguish between a seesaw and a teeter-totter?
Yup.
N.R. Mitchum
Matthew Rabuzzi wrote:
---------------
> today in Calif only the first is used.)
I've only heard "slide." Other ex-children will have to speak
for themselves. But I'd stay off anything called a "sliding
board" -- I've taken enough splinters in the backside. (How
does a pond slide, anyway?)
----------------
> 2) Do you distinguish between a seesaw and a teeter-totter?
> (I do. A seesaw is a plank atop a central bar as fulcrum,
> while a t-totter is a swinging gizmo that is suspended
> from an overhead bar -- it swings and creaks and it's easy
> for small fingers to get pinched. In either device, kids
> sit (or stand, if they're daredevils) at opposite ends.)
>..............
Me, personally? If stopped on the street by a stranger and
asked, I might answer that a seesaw can be anything from a
rough timber thrown over a trestle to a plastic toy for rocking
two toddlers; whereas a teeter-totter should be the official
piece of playground equipment, a stout plank firmly attached to
a massive iron crosspiece, complete with seats and handholds.
Only pampered brats would use those backyard contraptions that
swing *and* rock, and were built by a cursing daddy over
several weekends. No, REAL kids need REAL toys.
(And if that passing stranger asks for my name, I'll tell him
it's Matthew Rabuzzi.)
The Accidental Forrest Gump,
Nathan Mitchum [post&email]
Patrick Gillard
In article <Pine.SOL.3.91.960818192714.23078A-
100...@lonestar.jpl.utsa.edu>, "Cissy . Thorpe" <cth...@lonestar.jpl.ut
sa.edu> writes
>
>
>On Thu, 15 Aug 1996, N.R. Mitchum wrote:
>
>
>> Can someone with children, or a more athletic childhood than mine,
>> explain what it means to "skin the cat"? Do kids still do this,
>> or still use the expression? Is it only a memento of the author's
>> own, 1940s childhood?
>
>If I remember correctly....first you grab the bar with both hands and
>hang, then swing your feet up and through your arms and continue the
>motion until your feet hit the ground behind you (or you were as far
>around as your shoulders would let you go) then back again to catch the
>bar with your knees and let go of the bar with your hands and drop until
>your knees catch your fall.....a great head rush. Had to stop once you
>got too tall for the A frame at the end of the swing set - your head
>would hit and ground and that was a bummer. By the time we got big
>enough to use the cross bar at the top of the swing set, the joints
>weren't limber enough to let you do it anymore....unless you were into
>gymnastics.
>
There is a (slightly) more grown-up version of this game played on the
London underground ('subway') when no-one is looking. In some of the
carriages there are rows of seats with their backs to the windows. Above
each seat there is a pair of strange blackjack-shaped handles fastened
to the carriage ceiling.
You reach up from your seat, grasp the handles firmly, and pull your
feet up between your hands so that you perform an elegant back
somersault before plopping back into your original seat.
Either that or you dislocate both shoulders.
--
Patrick Gillard
Gary Williams, Business Services Accounting
Never heard "sliding pond", but I may have been present for the transition from
sliding board to slide. In Missouri in the mid-50's, my mother called it a
sliding board, but my friends called it a slide.
> 2) Do you distinguish between a seesaw and a teeter-totter?
> ... a t-totter is a swinging gizmo that is suspended
> from an overhead bar...
I don't distinguish; what you call a teeter-totter sounds like what I called a
glider.
Gary Williams
WILL...@AHECAS.AHEC.EDU
Markus Laker
Matthew Rabuzzi <rab...@loc251.tandem.com>:
> 1) Do you call it a slide, a sliding board, or a sliding pond?
> (We used the latter in Ft Meade MD in the '60s;
> today in Calif only the first is used.)
The South-of-England vote is for 'slide'.
> 2) Do you distinguish between a seesaw and a teeter-totter?
I've never heard of a teeter-totter and don't recognise the description.
It sounds like a piece of fairground equipment that one would pay to
use, not something I'd recognise from an ordinary adventure playground.
Seesaws, though, are standard issue.
Oh -- in case you don't have adventure playgrounds in your area, they're
like ordinary playgrounds but larger and with more equipment. A minimal
playground will just be an area of land. The distinction between
adventure and the other kind (nonevent?) is blurred.
--
Markus Laker.
Gerry Cechony
> 1) Do you call it a slide, a sliding board, or a sliding pond?
No. I call it a sliding pod.
* RM 1.31 3115 *
Matthew Rabuzzi
Donna Richoux <tr...@xs4all.nl> writes:
: >
: > Apparently, then, there's more than one way to do it.
:
: I suppose so. The way I mean: the child (say, age 5) faces the adult,
: takes hands, and starts walking up the grownup's legs. When s/he is high
: enough, s/he flips over (backwards, it must be), still holding on to the
: grownup's hands, and lands on feet on ground. Very simple yet very
: impressive. There may be other names for this too.
Why? Because it's something of a backwards version of an "Allez Oop"
("allez-hop"). And what /that/ is is this: child stands doubled over,
like the leapee in leapfrog, but with the hands thrust back between the legs;
adult grabs the kid's wrists and pulls up quickly, lifting the kid, who spins
around in a forward flip and lands (or is lowered) giggling to his feet.
......................................
The Barter of Avon is a pound of flesh
Matthew Rabuzzi
Public_Access_Machine
Markus Laker wrote:
>
> The South-of-England vote is for 'slide'.
>
The South-of-Scotland vote is for 'chute' (at least, it was 20 years
ago).
--
The opinions expressed in this communication are my own,
and do not necessarily reflect those of my employer !!
Lee Billings
In article <3219F6B2...@loc251.tandem.com>, Matthew Rabuzzi says...
>
>Two other playground equipment questions:
>
>1) Do you call it a slide, a sliding board, or a sliding pond?
> (We used the latter in Ft Meade MD in the '60s;
> today in Calif only the first is used.)
Growing up around Detroit in the early-to-mid 60's, I never heard it
called anything but a slide.
>
>2) Do you distinguish between a seesaw and a teeter-totter?
> (I do. A seesaw is a plank atop a central bar as fulcrum,
> while a t-totter is a swinging gizmo that is suspended
> from an overhead bar -- it swings and creaks and it's easy
> for small fingers to get pinched. In either device, kids
> sit (or stand, if they're daredevils) at opposite ends.)
Nor did we ever use "seesaw". We had only the board-on-a-bar type and
they were universally called teeter-totters.
Joseph Chacko
In article <321ad719...@news.tcp.co.uk>
la...@tcp.co.uk "Markus Laker" writes:
> Oh -- in case you don't have adventure playgrounds in your area, they're
> like ordinary playgrounds but larger and with more equipment. A minimal
> playground will just be an area of land. The distinction between
> adventure and the other kind (nonevent?) is blurred.
I must disagree here. The adventure playground need only differ from a
'nonevent' playground in that it has a particular type of apparatus.
This is usually constructed to resemble a very small house or log cabin,
and _has_more_than_two_openings_ (where the openings are suitable for
egress and/or ingress). This may be combined with the humble slide, or
freestanding. The adventure of this lies in the fact that the children
can be in a 'house' _without_adults_present_ . They can also surprise
one another by entering and exiting through different openings, and
appearing unexpectedly in various places.
--
Joe Chacko <j...@sheril.demon.co.uk>
Keith C. Ivey
"N.R. Mitchum" <aj...@mail.lafn.org> wrote:
>I've only heard "slide." Other ex-children will have to speak
>for themselves. But I'd stay off anything called a "sliding
>board" -- I've taken enough splinters in the backside. (How
>does a pond slide, anyway?)
The same way a rink skates or an alley bowls, I guess. The real
question is what "pond" has to do with a metal incline.
I call the thing a "slide", though I have heard "sliding board".
"Sliding pond" is completely new to me.
[posted and mailed]
Keith C. Ivey <kci...@cpcug.org> Washington, DC
Contributing Editor/Webmaster
The Editorial Eye <http://www.eei-alex.com/eye/>