Cracking

  When I was in 6th grade, it was a big deal.  Not just for me, but for all of the boys in our class.  We had arrived at a point, where we at the end of elementary school before going on to junior high.  I have already discussed the honor of being a school patrol officer in the story "The Fight", but needless to say we were macho.

 We didn't even know what "macho" meant, but we knew we were big guys on campus.  We demanded respect from the younger kids, and we got it.  If not, they were reported to the administration.  Nobody wanted to go to the principal's office.  We had the power.  One of the boys in our class discovered knuckle cracking.  It was a macho thing.  In order to pass the test, you had to crack your knuckles.  We had heard rumors from older kids that cracking your knuckles would make them bigger.  Even though our parents may not want us to have bigger knuckles, we thought that we could be better patrolmen with bigger knuckles.  The younger kids would fear us, because we had bigger knuckles.

 And so, the knuckle cracking began in earnest.  We first started learning how to maximize the cracking of our knuckles at recess.  One guy had perfected the art of cracking, and we all learned how to do it the loudest.  If you cracked your finger joints, they just made small noises.  The knuckles were the loudest.  We moved on to doing it in the classroom.  

 The girls were grossed out by the boys cracking their knuckles.  They were too lady-like to do such a thing.  One or two girls tried to crack a knuckle, but the other girls shunned them, so they stopped.  It was a boy thing.  On one occasion, the boys were cracking during class.  The girls had complained to the teacher that it was gross.  Our teacher had just about enough of the chorus of knuckle cracking, so she stopped her teaching and said in a mad voice that the next boy to crack his knuckles would have to stay after school.  I was a patrol officer.  I was macho.  I cracked my knuckle.  The teacher asked who did it.  All of the kids pointed at me.  I tried to tell the teacher that it was an accident.  I had to stay after school.

 I still crack my knuckles, although not as many as I could at the height of my ability.  I once counted up to 30 separate joints to crack.  Fingers, wrists, toes, ankles, knees, back, jaw.  They were all subject to cracking at one point or another.  My knuckles never grew bigger, although some arthritis has set into some of the areas.  It isn't so much being macho anymore.  It is kind of a stress reliever.  The Village People said it best, "Macho Macho Man.  I've got to be a Macho Man."  I was.