Chair, Desk, Floor

At Saint Gabriel's my grade was a small grade, it was eventually consolidated into just one class. But before that happened we went through the years as two small classes. We graduated as a grade of 33, or thereabouts.

In 6th grade I was in Honors Math with two others, one Gaetano Castiglioni, the other Gabriella Costello. I'm possibly mangling the former's name, but it's a hard name.

Gaetan was short and very athletic, a hockey nut. He was always a bit of a clown, but at least he was bright about it. That made him especially entertaining. One day he derived a new routine. He didn't tell us the names of these things, but I'm going to go ahead and name it "Chair, Desk, Floor."

It consisted of him jumping onto his chair, saying, "Chair," then jumping onto his desk, saying, "desk," followed by jumping back onto the floor. He would do this in sets of 3 when he could get away with it. It was hilarious to us. He never got caught doing it by the teacher since he'd have the sense to wait until the teacher had made the mistake of leaving us unattended for longer than a second.

After we graduated from 8th grade, I saw him once more: playing hockey for Cardinal O'Hara against Monsignor Bonner at the Skatium.

I later heard he was injured and couldn't play hockey anymore. That's a shame. I hope he never lost the ability to entertain and his sense of humor.