GENERATION BULGE GENERATION BULGE GENERATION BULGE By MARIANNE JESSOP Being seven-months pregnant is physically and mentally strenuous enough without traveling 1600 miles on a bus full of lively, uninhibited students to watch a parade. But my husband's high school band was performing in Calgary's famous Stampede. Besides, a wife would have to be irrational to allow her husband to travel that distance alone with all those attractive high school girls. It wasn't worth the risk. So when the doctor said, "Enjoy yourself," I suppressed all common sense and packed the suitcases. The goals of the individuals making the trip were varied. The goals of the students were to have as much fun, as little sleep, and as much non-nutritional food as possible and still be alert enough to win the first-place marching band prize in the parade. The band director claimed his main goal was to build unity and spirit within the group. But I suspected his ego would be inflated if the band were to receive special honors. The goals of the chaperons should have included the safety and welfare of the students. Since this was the case with the other nine chaperons, I limited my goal to the chaperoning of my somewhat awkward and bulging figure. In fact, the only contribution I made as a chaperon was to hold combs, sweaters, cameras, purses, lipsticks, hair spray, etc., while the group performed. But I could have been considered an "added attraction" at the parade site when three men boosted me on top of the bus in order for me to watch the parade from a better vantage point. Getting off the top of the bus was another attraction, as you can imagine. For the four nights we were to stay in Calgary, the girls had been "booked" at one of Calgary's high school gymnasiums. The boys were to stay in another school across town. Before the boys left, they helped unload and carry in our baggage. Between my husband and myself, we had two suitcases, one very heavy bag of clothes, two sleeping bags, two pillows and two blankets. Under normal conditions my husband would have expected me to carry my share of the load. But since a pregnant woman is pampered, and especially in public, he very aptly swung my sleeping bag over one shoulder and gathered the suitcases and clothes bag in his other arm. A chaperon offered to carry the blankets. This left me with one pillow to carry and an amused smile to display. I couldn't help enjoying the pampering, but I wondered how much of the paraphernalia I would be expected to help carry from the car into the house when we returned home and the public had dispersed. The school the girls had been assigned was a faded red brick building with poorly lighted hallways and musty-smelling rooms. The main gymnasium resembled a battlefield hospital with half-clad bodies strewn everywhere. Fortunately, they were without wounds. The only ventilation was through the gymnasium door 10 which led to one of those musty-smelling hallways. The stark, gray walls added to the forlorness of the atmosphere. A small clothes rack had been placed at the east end of the room. It was so full of dresses and uniforms that one girl could hardly pull out the items she had been looking for for the last thirty minutes. We soon found we would be sleeping in the same room with girls from different parts of the United States, Canada and Europe. Before long, we also found that regardless of geographic and language differences, we had very similar problems for the present; mainly, how to get the most comfort out of hardwood floors, how to avoid waiting in the long lines formed in front of the rest rooms, and how to unclog clogged showers. Up to this point in the trip, my privacy had not been invaded to the point of frustration or embarrassment for anyone. But how can a seven-month pregnant woman find privacy in communal showers and sleeping quarters. As my husband gave me a reassuring pat on the shoulder and told me to take good care of myself, I wondered how he could get me into this condition in the first place, bring me 800 miles away from home, and then leave me to mingle with fifty-five naturally curious teen-age girls. Realizing that society would not tolerate his sleeping in the female quarters, I clenched my fists and headed for the crowded gymnasium. As the feeling of frustration began to envelope me, I passed a small man dressed in a gray working suit. Realizing that he must be the janitor, I approached him with my problem. It took only a quick glance for him to realize why I was asking for special privileges to use the physical education teacher's private facilities for showering. He agreed to unlock the office for me each night if I promised not to divulge our arrangement to any of the other chaperons. So for four nights I would discreetly gather my sleeping and showering gear and head for a rendezvous with the janitor. He was so agreeable about the whole affair I often wondered if the room were equipped with a two-way mirror and the joke was on me. Since the arrangement with the janitor solved my dressing and undressing problems, my biggest concern, now, was how to survive the hard-wood floors. To begin with, walking from one end of the gymnasium to the other was extremely hazardous. There was an unlimited maze of shoes, pop bottles, hair-spray cans, irons, suitcases, and pillows scattered on top of the sleeping bags. It was impossible to plan any strategic route since the next time you made the trip the rubble would be shifted to different positions. That first night my sleeping bag felt warm and comforting. Since the folds and creases of the heavy canvas hid my protrusion, I felt safe and relieved for the time being. However, as I lay there, a mixed odor of hairspray, dust, and perspiring feet began to permeate the air around me, and I felt the relief being replaced by nausea. Realizing there were a number of sweaty shoes placed directly above my head. I sat up, put on my robe, crawled out of my sleeping bag, and moved the worst smelling shoes to another part of the room. Hoping this would help the nausea, I settled down again. Another problem arose. This time it was the potato chips, the licorice, the salted peanuts, and the soda water being passed from one section of the group to another. Since all the lights except the hallway light had been turned off, this could not be done very prudently. Then reflections of flashlights began glancing off the walls and giggles arose from all areas as the girls tried to find their right sleeping bags. In addition, the light from the hallway shone directly into some of our eyes, but many insisted that we needed the door open in order for the stale, musty air to circulate. At first, as I stated earlier, the sleeping bag was inviting. But the longer I stayed on the floor and the longer the food was being passed and the hairspray being sprayed, the more I felt my bones and muscles rebelling against the wooden floors. Since sleeping on my stomach was obviously unthinkable, that left my back or either side. When 1 lay on my back, the weight of the baby was so heavy that I felt like my tail bone was teetering on a rock ledge. I could still smell the remaining odor of the sweaty shoes on the right side so I chose the left side which put me facing the lighted hallway. As the potato chips and licorice diminished and the chatter decreased to a normal talking state, I found myself being overcome with exhaustion; sleep was inevitable. Before joining the ranks of the sleeping population, which was few, my last thought was, "Three more nights on the gymnasium floor coming up." 11