Our family has almost completed our annual series of trips to the Cumberland County Civic Center to watch wonderful Maine high school athletes compete. Now we look forward to seeing the Class A Girls championship this weekend.

Always a perfect place to watch games, this year was no exception … but …

I shall now digress. Sixty years ago I was a member of the first cheerleading squad for the newly-formed Oxford Hills High School. We were not athletes like cheerleaders are today, but we were loud.

Times were simpler. I’ve lost count of the games I’ve watched. However, 60 years later and I had never seen athletes leave a competition without shaking hands while making obscene hand signals on their way off the court — until this year. I never want to see that again.

I could possibly be just an old fogey blowing off steam, but is it time to look at ways to retain the joy of the sport and get rid of the ugly? What to do?

Dianne Morton, Naples