School portraits / Spring evenings in Watertown, Connecticut
At Taft, Softball Before Study Hall Is an Official League
A Connecticut boarding school publishes a glossary of its own slang. The best entry is the one that schedules the hour before homework.
The Taft School in Watertown, Connecticut, posts a glossary for families, on the reasonable grounds that students there seem to speak a language of their own. I read it the way I read restaurant menus in another country, slowly and with growing affection.
Mons are monitors, the student leaders. The Jig is the student union, formally the Donald Oscarson Jigger Shop. An Ex is your afternoon extracurricular, required. Feeds are what happens when advisors, coaches, dorm parents and clubs decide to feed you, which, judging by the list of ice cream, sushi, pizza, cupcakes and cookies, is often. The Scene is the time after dinner but before study hall, which the school says many regard as the most social time of the Taft day.
And then there is PSBL, the Pre-Study Ball League. In spring, coed teams of students and faculty play softball in the evening before study hall, and teams "with extraordinarily creative names" compete for the PSBL championship and bragging rights. A math teacher, a Taft alumna, listed it in a school interview among the things that keep the place from taking itself too seriously, along with feeds and dorm dance battles.
Somebody, at some point, had to name the hour before homework, and they named it after the homework. That is a school that knows its audience. The ball game is allowed, the name says, because of what comes next.
I have a softball, an old glove and a driveway. On Monday I announced our own Pre-Study Ball League. The middle one asked what we were pre-studying. I said everything. The eldest said she was too old for it and then played shortstop for forty minutes. The youngest named our team. The name is extraordinarily creative, and I am not permitted to print it.
At 7:30, by agreement, the game stopped. The dog kept the ball. The middle one went inside to do his math, which had been waiting on the kitchen table the whole time, like the youngest waits for dessert, patiently and with growing suspicion.
On Tuesday he asked if there was a league tonight. I said yes. He said good, because he had more math, and it seemed easier after a game. I wrote that down. I have no idea where to file it.
Sources
The public records, school pages and published accounts this story draws on. Where the story imagines a scene or a line of dialogue, that is the column’s telling, not a quotation.
- Taftisms and Traditions taftschool.org
- Meet Ms. Drakeley, Taft Voices taftschool.org
- The Taft School, Watertown: public reviews niche.com