Professional Documents
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MIDDLEHOOD
BY JUDI KETTELER Then we went to Menards to shop.
Since it was the first time we’d left the
house together without children in
months, it felt like a date. It was July 4,
so I giddily threw sparklers into our cart
on the way to the lighting section. That’s
where I found exactly what I was looking
for: thick black corded lights with big Edi-
son bulbs. “I think those are too big,” my
husband said.
“No, they’re perfect!” I replied. They
were too big.
My Year
through the rose of Sharon bushes around
the patio, but they weren’t enough. I want-
ed to bathe our patio in light, to illuminate
this 15-by-15-foot concrete slab of safe
air for the kind of socializing that had
of Light
become our lifeline to friends and
family, our space for novelty, and our
place for marking any kind of milestone.
It was the place where we had our
end-of-the-school-year campfire, which
featured s’mores and my kids throw-
IT TURNS OUT OUR SMALL PATIO WAS THE PERFECT ing worksheets into the fire and saying
2 6 C I N C I N N AT I M A G A Z I N E . C O M J A N U A R Y 2 0 2 1 ILLUSTR ATIO N BY D O L A SU N
WELCOME TO MIDDLEHOOD
while discussing mobilization tactics. It strange, and eye-opening summer it was. that bright Saturday, when the trees were
was the place where my husband and I It was the place where the weeks simulta- showing a strong hint of orange, my hus-
got into heated matches of Ruzzle on our neously stretched on, with long and bright band and I hung the much smaller lights
phones (it’s an addictive word game that evenings, and counted down ominously around our patio. The poles did not tip.
combines Scrabble and Boggle and that my toward the even-longer darkness. Twelve The sag was exactly right, the slightest
bow-shaped curve.
We invited another couple we’ve
WHEN YOU HAVE A YEAR OF MISSING SO MANY THINGS, known for a dozen years over that night.
We ordered Thai food, I brought out my
YOU FIXATE ON HAVING ONE PIECE OF SOMETHING MAGICAL. stash of cookies and Not a Cheesecake
Cake bars from Sweets by LaDawn (on
AND STRING LIGHTS, TO ME, WERE MAGICAL. Plainfield Road; go there now), and then,
as dusk threatened, I plugged in the lights.
Some things you remember as perfect mo-
husband always wins) while our son prac- weeks until the first frost warning. Six- ments. When I got a 9.4 on balance beam
ticed spinning a basketball on his finger, teen weeks until the end of Daylight Sav- in 1986. The night Barack Obama won in
trying to set a record, and my daughter did ings Time. Twenty weeks until the trees 2008. When each of my babies laughed for
TikTok dances. would be bare. And all of those weeks the first time. And now the site of these
It was the place where we hosted would mean more Americans had died small round bulbs, illuminated above us,
popsicle night with our neighbors. The from the coronavirus. was on the list.
kids tried to eat them before they melted But then I found the lights in the That evening, under the lights, I didn’t
while the grownups talked about if school Christmas aisle at Ace, a hilarious out- think about how it was only nine more
would start, what we could be doing to come since there would be no Christ- weeks until my family wouldn’t gather for
help more people, and what a fraught, mas gathering this year. No matter, on Thanksgiving.
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Seeing the
not even be true. Nonetheless, when I read
it some years back, the first thing I thought
of was how many times as a judge—wearing
a navy blue suit that very much resembled
a flight attendant’s uniform—I had the
Scared Eyes
odd impulse to send a note to one of
the gymnasts I was judging, asking, “Are
you OK?”
It’s not that I ever saw something wor-
thy of being officially reported. But so
ALSO PART OF THE ABUSE PROBLEM? instinct, because I mostly didn’t have kids
yet. What I saw, over and over again, was
a strange dynamic between ego-driven
THIS MONTH, AS I WATCH GYMNASTS SWING AND TUMBLE IN THE BELATED 2020 SUMMER adults (mostly men, but some women)
Olympics—if Japan actually hosts them—I’ll be in awe of their grace and power like and girls with twig-like bodies and robot-
everyone. But I’ll probably also be looking for those tiny moments when an elbow bends ic stares. Were these girls happy, I won-
or their angle isn’t quite vertical. dered? Were they being scolded for gain-
Having spent a dozen years judging gymnastics, which followed six years of com- ing weight? Yelled at and demeaned? Told
peting and six years of coaching, my eyes are still trained to see the mistakes. I fully not to question the methods?
appreciate how amazing and nearly perfect these gymnasts are, but it’s a fun game to Having grown up in the Catholic
think about whether I would give full credit for a connection on the beam that has a Church and come of age just before the
millisecond pause or if that triple twist made it all the way around. C o v i n g t o n CONTINUED ON PAGE 31
2 6 C I N C I N N AT I M A G A Z I N E . C O M J U LY 2 0 2 1 ILLUSTR ATIO N BY D O L A SU N
WELCOME TO MIDDLEHOOD
Latin School priest abuse scandal cracked the former USA Gymnastics doctor who BY THE LATE 2000S, I MADE A CON-
open in the 1990s, I learned early to be sexually abused gymnasts for decades and scious decision to stop judging club gym-
suspicious of any institution that regarded was sentenced to 175 years in prison after nastics. I didn’t want to be in that envi-
certain people as godly and bestowed on dozens of gymnasts made victim impact ronment anymore. I wondered if I wasn’t
them the recurring benefit of the doubt. statements at his trial. Geddert abused somehow part of the problem because I
The longer I judged gymnastics, the more them and sent them to Nassar, who told was participating in a system that idolized
I realized that the environment around me them he was on their side and would take coaches and didn’t ask questions. That de-
was ripe for exploitation and misconduct. care of them. cision coincided with having my first child
So many of these young girls (and their Not only was Geddert the star of every and needing to scale back anyway. By the
families) were driven by the idea of being gymnastics symposium in the region (a time my second child was born in 2010, I
a champion. USA Gymnastics played on symposium was an educational confer- was only doing a handful of high school
that, creating a culture of silence and cov- ence for coaches and judges), he walked meets, and demands on my time eventu-
er-up. Of course, I didn’t know what was around every gymnastics meet like he ally made me quit that as well.
being covered up back then. That would owned the floor. My fellow judges would Learning about the scandals years lat-
come later. say, with both dread and anxiety, “Pay at- er sickened me, obviously. It also left me
To be clear, I also saw legions of won- tention, Geddert’s girls are up next.” Judg- with a feeling of regret. And yet, layered
derful and dedicated coaches encouraging ing gymnastics wasn’t my career. Unlike under all of that, a deep and abiding love
their charges—young women who were some of the other judges, I didn’t run a of the sport.
clearly loving their sport and having fun, gym or coach or have designs on advanc- Gymnastics was so important to me
as a young girl. It was both a physical
and mental outlet—a way to express
GYMNASTICS WAS SO IMPORTANT TO ME AS A YOUNG GIRL. myself and to challenge myself. I still
do handstands nearly every day and
IT WAS BOTH A PHYSICAL AND MENTAL OUTLET, A WAY TO turn playground curbs into balance beams
so I can do leaps and pop out cartwheels.
EXPRESS MYSELF AND TO CHALLENGE MYSELF. I still love how the movement feels, even
as my adult body doesn’t always want
to play along.
just as I had. I especially loved judging high ing through the ranks of USA Gymnastics. While I had some initial dreams
school gymnastics, where the atmosphere This was just something fun I did on the about being an Olympic champion
was more casual, more team-focused, and weekends. The extra money was nice, but after I watched Mary Lou Retton in 1984,
more fun than the rigor and seriousness of I didn’t truly need it. I dropped that goal pretty quickly because
club gymnastics. So, on one hand, I remember thinking, I was a realist. I did gymnastics through
I also want to clarify that I never judged why would I give a shit what this pompous the YMCA and had a series of lovely
elite athletes. I was a level 10 judge, which jackass thinks? And yet, when he scowled college girls as coaches. I worked hard,
was at least one rating below the highest, at us, threw his hands up, or stood be- but it wasn’t an overly serious environ-
maybe two (the system for how one judges hind our judging table in a play to intimi- ment. At the time, my reasoning was, Oh,
the Olympics was never that clear to me). date us, I was in fact intimidated. There I my family doesn’t have the money to send
But I didn’t need to be an elite judge to was, a grown woman with multiple col- me to a fancy private club, which is where
interact with all the big clubs in the Mid- lege degrees, a successful writing ca- you need to go to get really good. That
west and to witness the dark side of the reer, and solid mental health, and I still was true, but I also didn’t have the right
larger-than-life personalities of many of wasn’t immune to the anxiety he created. personality to be a gymnastics champion.
these coaches. What chance did a young girl have against I’m terrible at submitting to authority.
The one I crossed paths with the most that kind of daily toxicity, especially when At not questioning. At blind faith. It’s
was John Geddert, who ran the Michigan USA Gymnastics rewarded him over and why I was a lousy Catholic. It’s why I’ve
club Twistars and died by suicide in Feb- over again? (He was the coach of the 2012 worked for myself for 20 years. It’s cer-
ruary after his abuse was made public. U.S. Olympic women’s gymnastics team.) tainly why I couldn’t stand to be around
When the story initially broke in 2018 As a judge, my job was to offer an objec- John Geddert.
about how Geddert physically and verbal- tive-as-possible opinion about the degree of I just wish I would have done some-
ly abused his gymnasts—pushing them, bend in a gymnast’s knees or the amplitude thing. Passed my score to my head judge,
throwing things at them, ignoring their in her tumbling. I could do that. Increasingly, along with a secret Post-it note to the girl
injuries, threatening them, and using fear though, I couldn’t seem to distance myself with the scared eyes, saying, “Are you OK?”
to control them—no part of me was sur- from the look I would sometimes see in a Because, at the end of the day, the adults
prised. It also wasn’t surprising that he gymnast’s eyes. The look that made me in the room did a terrible job of protecting
worked in conjunction with Larry Nassar, wonder what was really going on. the children.
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