Rec Center Memories - Chicken Fight

In the summer of 1993, me and my brother moved to Orlando to live with our dad. A few months prior he had been transferred to the Navy base in Orlando and he wanted us to finish out the school year before moving down. We were excited, I was ten years old and we were moving to the home of Universal Studios and Disney World! We thought we had won the lottery, which was nice after dealing with the divorce of our parents the year before.

Things were different though. We didn't have a stay-at-home mom anymore, and the Navy isn't exactly known to work around children's schedules. So my dad did like most military personnel, he enrolled us in the base MWR (Morale, Welfare, and Recreation) recreation center, a sort of daycare/camp located in an old rectangular building attached to the skating rink. I'd never been to anything like that before, heck I had never been in a skating rink before. It was going to be a very different experience and something I was really weary of.

I remember arriving our first day and just looking around stunned. In this building was four pool tables, ten or twelve arcade games, a TV area with a Nintendo hooked up, a huge patio, a craft room, and one of those awesome metal spaceship playgrounds out back.


Our days would be split enjoying all those activities and more. We'd play football out back with our cool counselor Todd or work on making all sorts of crazy crafts with Jenny in the back room. We'd spend some days in the skating rink where I embarrassed myself trying to learn how to roller skate and others taking field trips all over central Florida in the big Barney colored purple bus.

Two weeks in we had a picnic across the base at a little park. There wasn't much there, just a shelter for some tables and a few random pieces of playground equipment. The kids who'd been there before immediately ran for a small balance beam, no more than six inches off the ground and six feet long. Not an unusual sight to see back in those days, but I could not understand the excitement, it was just a pole in the ground. One kid finally told me they were playing a game called chicken, and I just looked at him wondering what the hell chicken was.

The game was pretty simple; one person gets on one end of the balance beam, and one kid gets on the other. You put your hands behind your back and attempt to use your chest to knock the other person off the balance beam. Of course, after a few rounds, hands started getting used and the game took a more dangerous turn, but that didn't stop me from wanting to try.

One boy was the chicken master. He went through the entire line twice before I decided to give it a try. He was unstoppable, and no one could dethrone him... until I got there. It took me less than a second to throw his butt off the beam and suddenly I went from the new kid to the hero. Kids cheered, a marching band started playing, and a parade in my honor began. Okay... maybe that didn't happen, but it sure felt like it.

He took it pretty gracefully and simply got in the back of the line in hopes that I'd still be there for a rematch. His patience was rewarded and suddenly it looked like a showdown in Rocky. The new rookie who had defeated the champ, was now backed in a corner to face an angry, embarrassed champion looking for vengeance. What was going to happen next?

I wish I could say there was an epic battle that went on ten minutes or something, but it was over in just a few seconds. The boy stormed across the beam, locked up with me, and then took his leg and kicked my legs out from underneath me. I remember falling and hoping I wouldn't hit the balance beam, but then I heard the loud pop, followed by a searing pain in my elbow.

Being ten years old, I thought I was dying. I had no idea what had just happened. I started crawling my way towards the woods just trying to get away from all the chaos while trying to comprehend that I probably just broke something. Like always, the stress made me want to sleep. I just wanted to close my eyes and relax.

If I would have been able to sleep it wouldn't have been for long. The Navy has full fledge emergency services on base that usually have nothing to do. So when one of the counselors called for an ambulance, two arrived, along with a firetruck, and two base security cars. You would have thought someone had been shot with all that attention.

I refused to go with the paramedics and instead waited for my dad to arrive to take me to the base hospital. I broke my elbow and shattered the growth plate which required me to have to see a specialist to ensure my elbow wouldn't start growing the wrong way.

I got a Miami Dolphins cast put on, not because I was really a fan but because rec center counselor Todd was a fan. He was in his early twenties, and was that cool guy all us kids looked up to. He loved the Dolphins, so I figured getting a Dolphins cast would endear me to him. I was right.

Below is a pic of me wearing my awesome Dolphins cast. I got to started the fourth grade with that cast on, and to save me on writing I went by a nickname my dad had for me, J.B. It was the only time I ever did that.


People were impressed with my win over this kid whose name I forgot in chicken and everyone called him a cheater for sweeping my feet out from underneath me. Suddenly I made friends, and fit in with the rest of these military brat misfits, and I knew things were going to be okay.

Oh yea, one last thing. Nobody made a fuss about me breaking my arm at least the way people seem to do so today. There was no talk of lawsuits or asking to have the balance beam removed or any of that crap. It was simply kids stuff and it was left at that. I learned my lesson, I stay off balance beams now.