[PW] Male/female competition

[John P. Dyson]

Quoting Jeanne Schramm <jeanne.schramm at gmail.com>:

>   This year's winner of the Belmont Stakes was the filly Rags to Riches,
> the first filly to win this event in more than a century.  Are there other
> sporting events -- involving athleticism -- in which males and females
> compete on an equal footing (so to speak)?    TIA


I still recall with embarrassment my regular frog-gigging defeats at
the hands of my cousin Corinne. She was a year older than I but had
skill with torch and arm far beyond her age. The bullfrogs' "barooom,
barooom" sounded like "foredoom, foredoom" to me as I struggled
futilely at pond's edge to match the wriggle and jerk in Corinne's
burgeoning burlap bag. Mornings afterward, following overnight
salt-water soaks, even the gaily twitching legs Corinne had harvested
seemed to mock my own pitiful catch, subdued in the hot skillet, shamed
into nervous collapse. It was a bitter competition that marked me
at an early age and still smarts whenever I hear that cruel and
scornful summer cry, "foredoom, foredoom."

John Dyson