Month: November 2015

“Daddy, what did you do in the war?”

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There is a World War Two photo of my Dad in his uniform and another of my Mother dating from the same era. Both were black and white “portraits” that had been “colorized.” There is a somewhat faded snapshot taken at Easter some twenty years later and not long before my Mother’s death to ALS. She is seated in a wheelchair with the rest of us crowded around in order for the old Kodak to get us all into its viewfinder.

Tom Brokaw’s book The Greatest Generation was written about my parents. Not my parents specifically but the millions of young men and women who went off to fight and win the Second World War, the last war that had a righteous goal of saving the world from monsters – Hitler and his Nazis or the Japanese Imperialist and Tojo. Some served as soldiers like my Dad or worked in munition factories like my Mother. Hers might have been a more important job than my Dad’s as she, along with millions of young women, filled the industrial workforce that defeated the Axis Powers. After they came home, those who came home, began to try to create better lives for themselves and their families than they, themselves, had had. I would say my parents were successful.
My father Ernest rarely spoke of his involvement in the war. He fought, or according to him, didn’t fight, in the Pacific Theater under the command of MacArthur. In 1941, just days after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, he and several of his buddies attempted to join the Marine Corp. After receiving his physical, I am sure, that “hell hath no fury” as my father when finding out he was 4F – physically unfit for duty due to a birth defect that left him one set of ribs too short. Undeterred, he attempted to join the Navy and then the Army but the 4F continued to follow him. I can only imagine his surprise upon receiving a draft notice in 1943. I guess this should graphically enlighten us on how well the war had gone up until that point. He served in the Philippines and was a part of the forces that occupied the Japanese Home Islands after the surrender at Tokyo Bay. Placed in the tank corps, his physical defect would cause him so much pain he would later be transferred to a group that maintained the landing craft that would be used to invade the Philippines and other Japanese held islands.

“Daddy, what did you do in the war?” I think this was a question that most of us from our generation asked. Like most vets that I have been around, neither he nor any of his friends seemed to want to answer that question or talk about the bloody action that they might have seen. They were full of funny stories but seldom ventured down the dark path of battle. “How many Japs did you shoot, Dad?” Let me say up front that this was his term for our now Japanese allies. In fact, there were worse descriptions used to describe the enemy that they fought in the Pacific. He would smile at my question and inform me that of the many waves of soldiers that “hit the beaches,” his wave went in right after the nurses when the island was secured. He did say that they were close enough to occasionally hear gunfire but it was the exception, not the norm. He once told a story of a “dud” bomb going off in a fire and commented that had he been in the Japanese Army he would have assumed it had been assembled by the Japanese equivalent of my mother. I found out later that the lone casualty was one of my father’s best friends.

Like most of the returning servicemen, my father brought home souvenirs from the war, along with his dress uniform with sergeant strips that included a “rocker” below the three strips and a big T in the middle. Tucked away in my mother’s cedar “wedding chest”, Japanese Kimonos made from rich colorful silk, small porcelain curios and Japanese script that had been used in place of money were just a few of the souvenirs that he returned with. My favorite souvenir was a Japanese rifle and bayonet. It had been “fixed” so that the bolt could not be retracted and, therefore, it could not fire. I spent hours trying to remove that bolt but that was okay. I got to use it to play at war when playing war was still okay to play. I would put on Dad’s old field jacket and boots, both several sizes too big, and with one of my mother’s metal mixing bowls turned over on top of my head, I was ready to defend the good ole United States against all of our enemies, at least the imagined ones.

I remember staying up late on a Saturday night, after the Gillette Fight of the Week had ended. It was a special treat to watch the NBC Saturday Night Movie of the Week with the family. The movie Sahara starring Humphrey Bogart was being shown. The story was about a tank crew separated from their unit as it retreated after the rout of Allied forces at the seaport of Tobruk. The story is not important, while my thoughts about it and my father are. I always thought that my father resembled Bogart in a somewhat less gaunt way, especially with a “coffin nail” hanging from his lower lip. Like Bogart he was not a big man and I am sure it was the dark hair and the strong and silent personality that he had. Maybe it was their sense of duty, although my father’s was not portrayed on the Silver Screen but in the way that he lived his life. I can remember thinking, “Gee, I wish Dad was more like Bogart and had gone out and killed all of those Krauts or Nips!” You know, someone heroic instead of a landing craft mechanic. Really? I guess youth is wasted upon the young or maybe with age comes some sort of wisdom.

MORE THAN MISSOURI FOOTBALL

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While never a fan of the Missouri Tigers, I commend Coach Gary Pinkel for standing with his Missouri football players and their decision to strike if certain student demands were not met in regard to the perceived lack of dialogue that seems to exist at the University of Missouri. I am just sorry that the team had to do it and impressed that football players once again prove that they are not just a group of “dumb jocks.” Even though I grew up during the protests of the late Sixties and early Seventies, I am not sure that I could have done it with a scholarship or a 3.1 million dollar contract on the line.

I am also sorry that Tim Wolfe was compelled to resign, whether by the school’s governing body or by big money boosters, but how can a university president turn a deaf ear to real or imagined reports of racial harassment and not investigate it? Am I missing something here? Why were protest from just “plain ole everyday students” and the faculty members ignored along with a student on a hunger strike? Why did a group of student-athletes, yes football players are student-athletes, have to provide the tipping point for this protest? With Ferguson a mere two hours away how could Tim Wolfe not have had a meeting or five? I am astounded. I am also astounded people believe these are nothing more than “Ferguson” agitators and should be ignored. Ignore is related to the word ignorant which is what you are if you think this is just going away if ignored. Nothing bad gets better being left alone.

A number of people have taken the attitude that student demands were only met because “money talks.” Of course that is the reason demands were met and that should not be an epiphany. Big Time College Football is a multi-million dollar endeavor and the most recognizable face of a university. A loss of a million dollars for one football game or a half-million dollars for one university president…you choose. I praise the football players for realizing they had collective power that could be used it to evoke, what is in my opinion, a needed change. I would also point out that all of this was done without violence.

These players are not the first athletes to use their position to aid social or political change and not the first to come under criticism for doing so. While on a larger scale, Jackie Robinson quietly breaking down color barriers in baseball, Muhammad Ali’s protest of the Viet Nam War or John Carlos’s and Tommy Smith’s “Black Power” protest during the 1968 Olympics are just a few that occurred during my life time and proved that one person or one group of people could cause positive change. I am happy that this generation’s youth, at least at the University of Missouri, have found something worthy to protest. For too long this generation has been portrayed as having no desire to do anything other than play video games and take selfies to be posted on social media.

Our underlying racism is not going change because of this any more than it changed because a flag was removed from a government building. At best dialogue will cause change in those willing to change and at worst…we continue down our rutted road toward self-destruction.

WASTE NOT

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Excerpt from the book PATHWAYS which will be released through Amazon in late November.

When did we become such a disposable society? I wish people would quit disposing in my front yard. When did planned obsolescence become…planned? I remember ranting to a science class about wasting resources before I even knew what planned obsolescence meant. Does that make me clairvoyant? No, it probably makes me Clarabelle the Clown. Just because we can throw away a plastic bottle should we? Why do we change fashions every season? Hems go down, go up, then go down again while ties get wide then narrow then wide again. How many of you actually wear something until it wears out? Blue jeans maybe. How many of you really drive a car until the wheels metaphorically fall off. I’ve tried often. Linda and I bought an ’86 T-Bird with sixteen miles on it. It was a beauty. Two hundred and sixteen thousand miles later, thinking we had “licked all of the red off the candy” we traded it for a Mustang. A local teenage boy bought it…and the now father of three is still driving it. Presently I am actually attempting to see who can hit a quarter million first – me or my ’97 Cherokee “Bessie Mae.” We just cracked one hundred and ninety thousand on the “Bessie Mae” but I may be slightly ahead. Am I the only one to name his cars?

My grandparent’s generation were the ultimate recyclers and repurposers. My grandmother was also huge on sayings, “Early to bed, early to rise”, “a fool and his money” and one that I heard maybe daily was “Waste not, want not.” She lived it. Old plastic Clorox bottles were carefully cleaned, holes punched in the bottom and a hole cut about a third of the way up from the bottom. Why? It would become a martin house that would join a colony of Clorox bottles suspended over the garden providing homes for birds that became part of Nannie’s insect control. Buttons were cutoff of unrepairable clothing that would be later repurposed into patchwork quilts with matching pillow covers. The buttons themselves were put into an old Quaker Oats container for future repurposing when I didn’t play with them. My first set of drums were old Quaker Oats boxes and a really magical “comeback” toy. Shoes were “half-soled” repeatedly, old overalls that had finally given up the ghost were cut into patches to extend the lives of this generation’s overalls and blue jeans.

Fall would herald another type of recycling. Dried corn and beans were gathered, the best put into burlap cloth sacks and suspended from the high rafters of the crib. There they would wait until the spring to be shelled out and replanted to provide the next year’s bounty. Potatoes were spread and separated from each other on old newspapers in the darkest corner of the crib waiting to be made into chowders, salads and mashed potatoes. Those that survived the winter were cut, dividing the eyes, and replanted in the spring to start the cycle of life all over again.

Late in the fall an odd-looking truck would show up. It was the miller’s truck, not to be confused with the Miller’s truck. This was cutting edge technology for the period. Instead of taking your grain to be ground up, the truck showed up to grind your grain. This would be preceded by a flurry of activity as corn was shelled from the cob, dang that really hurts your fingers. Corn was ground into cornmeal and grits and no I had never heard of polenta. Even the cobs were ground into a fine powder that was mixed with water to be fed to our hogs. None of this could be done until my grandmother had chosen her feed sacks. This was the ultimate repurposing. She would use the emptied feed sacks to make “sack” dresses that she sewed on her foot-operated Singer treadle sewing machine. Rarely, until later in life, did my grandmother wear anything other than homemade dresses, many made from old feed sacks. Later they would be repurposed into cleaning rags or tie ups for the tomatoes. If they were a particular favorite they would be put into her scrap bag to become a part of a quilt. I am lucky to have several.

SPARE THE ROD…

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Social media post that have showcased our crazy students either attacking teachers or being attacked by teachers and SRO’s seem to be multiplying. What happened to the normal fistfights between students of my generation? All of these posts causes myriads of questions to form in my head. The former teacher in my head screams “WTF?” Then the eternal optimist in my head asks, “Could it just be that things haven’t changed that much? It’s just everyone has access to IPhones and Social Media and therefore we just see it more than we did.” Finally the conspiracist in my head wonders, “Was it a manufactured post with really good actors?” Fox Mulder would say, “The truth is out there somewhere.” At least he is not in my head. There is not enough room for so many voices and I am worried that if I look hard enough, I actually might find truth and it might not be what I would wish for.

Most of such posts are accompanied by calls to arm teachers or remove SROs. I am not for either of those options. I see a scenario where my fourth-grade teacher, Mrs. Crow, might have shot Little Donnie had she been armed and there is a lengthy line of “little Johnnies” who might have been put out of my misery by me. Most of the posts underline the adage, “Spare the rod and spoil the child.” I began my teaching career when corporal punishment was still the primary form of punishment and according to many posters it still should be. As a former teacher, I am just not sure. While I was called upon to “pound that butt” on occasion, as time marched on I found myself uncomfortable physically disciplining a child who was not mine. Okay, I was uncomfortable disciplining my child and thankfully she gave me few reasons.

When I moved to Mauldin to begin my high school teaching career, my room was located across from our principal’s office. Occasionally, Marilyn Koon would enlist my right arm to administer licks to unruly male students. An avid sailor, Marilyn had a model sailing ship decorating the front of her desk and would require the offending student to bend over and place his hands on either side of the ship. As I went into my back swing, she would grab their hands ensuring that I had a stationary target…most of the time. There was one young man who attempted to crawl across her desk and into her lap…on my back swing.

Once I found myself in the position of thinking I might should have been on the receiving end of licks rather than administering them. In late April or early May, seniors are most often gripped by a disease characterized by a paralysis of the mind. This causes lethargy in the senior group that can only be combated by certain mindless activities such as the “Senior Prank,” “Senior Cut Day,” senior lunches, graduation parties and the like. It is called “Senioritis.” Bucky Trotter (Class of 1976) and many others from this particular group succumbed to the disease quite early and made many of us thankful that seniors finish up earlier than the rest of their classmates. Late in the afternoon one of the last days I heard the rattle of tiny wheels rolling up the hallway. As I glanced up I saw Cathy Fortune, now Slenski, go rolling past my door (sitting in a steno chair). She grinned and waved as she rolled by. As I stepped out, I noticed Bucky down at the other end of the hall with a big grin on his face. I grabbed the chair and with a hard push, returned it along with Cathy, to Bucky before stepping back inside of my room. Moments later, our principal’s secretary Sybil Babb popped her head into my room and alerted me that, “Ms. Koon needs you in her office.” As I entered the outer office I saw Cathy Fortune seated next to Sybil’s desk. She was not smiling anymore which was unusual. Oh my, this did not bode well. In Ms. Koon’s office sat Bucky. “Mr. Miller, please administer three licks to Mr. Trotter.” “What did you do Buck?” “Me ‘n Cathy were in the hallway, without permission, frolickin’.” Bucky was taking an SAT course and had a tendency to focus on certain vocabulary words and use them in interesting and sometimes unusual ways. I asked nothing else because I knew how they were “frolickin’” having just participated in the activity. I really felt bad and had I been a better man would have turned the paddle over to Bucky when I completed my “disciplinary actions.”

It has been four years since I have darkened doors of a high school class. My teaching voice wonders, “I can’t believe that classroom discipline has eroded to the level that I have seen in such a short of a period of time.” As soon as that thought is formed another voice in my head chirps, “But what about the erosion of societal values?” Finally the realist in my head voices the question, “Aren’t you glad you have finished your career instead of just beginning it?” Slowly my head nods in the affirmative as a fourth voice expresses its sorrow.

SANDLOT BASEBALL: A story about Indian Land from PATHWAYS

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I have spent a large portion of my life sitting on a tractor, riding mower or John Deere Gator doing nothing more than traveling in circles. Cutting fields or dragging infields for untold hours, always ending up where I started. Miles and miles going absolutely nowhere. Occasionally, I did try to cut in different directions so that I might unwind myself. My last field, a middle school field, in Greenville County, South Carolina, was a palace compared to any of the fields that I played on in high school. It was a different time on a different planet, it would seem. My statement doesn’t mean that I didn’t coach on some pretty poor fields.

Our field was no different from any of the other fields that we played on in that it was terrible. Like many other fields, it was built as an afterthought. It was, however, terrible in different ways than the other terrible fields. Every field has its own…ah…ambience for lack of a better word. Ours was a football field adjusted to accommodate a baseball field. The backstop was constructed from creosoted “re-purposed” telephone poles and chicken wire. A skinned infield was located off of one end meaning the right field fence would have been about two hundred and fifty feet from home plate…if there had been a fence. Instead of a fence we had a steep drop off that was studded with pine trees. The left field line went on forever following the general path of the football sidelines until it ended with a fence. While much deeper, at least there were no light standards to navigate in left although there were goal post to worry about. In right you had to worry about light standards and goal posts. David Jowers, a big, blond-headed lefty, ripped a line drive so hard that when it hit a light standard he was almost a “3 unassisted” at first base from the rebound. After striking the standard it one-hopped back to the first baseman.

I found myself “camped out” in right field my sophomore year as the starter. Proud to start, normally right is where you put your worst fielder if you are playing on a little league team. Thank goodness this wasn’t little league or I might have gotten my feelings hurt. I think I played in right because I was the most expendable. No big loss if I ran into one of the light standards or got tangled up in a goalpost.
My first start was not on our terrible field, however, it was on someone else’s terrible field, Mt. Pisgah I think, and my first start was almost my last. Their field was not a football-baseball combination, it was an afterthought stuck behind the gym which took up a lot of the area of right field along with its high brick staircase that led up to court level. Just behind the infield a hard-packed dirt road ran through right and on into left field. Did I mention the outfield grass had not been cut and mounds of clover pushed up through the dormant Bermuda? To further complicate my field of dreams, the fans brought their lawn chairs and sat in the shade created by the high gymnasium walls and the tall staircase. If there were any ground rules involving fans I was not told them.

Early in the game a ball was hit over my head. I thought I could reach it…back then every ball that was hit I thought I could reach. Doing my best impersonation of Willy Mays at the Polo Grounds, I spun to my right and sprinted to the point I thought the ball was going to land. All I could see in front of me was a sea of fans…well maybe not a sea, more like a small pond of fans. All I could hear when I looked back over my left shoulder for the ball was the SNAP, SNAP, SNAP of lawn chairs being closed as fans vacated the area. No, I did not catch it. I watched the ball pass cleanly between my extended glove and my nose right before I stepped into someone’s green and white lawn chair. At least they didn’t have to cut me out of it.

Late in the game a flare was hit between me and the second baseman. I decided to field it on its first bounce but the ball didn’t bounce. Instead, it died in a clump of clover and my glove passed harmlessly over it. Slamming on brakes I then fell down, got up, overran the ball again before the “third time being the charm” came into play. All I could do was hang my head. When we finally got them out Coach Gunter met me at the bench and asked “Do you need to take a stick with you?” “Sir?” “So you will have something to hit it with!” Yeah, maybe. Later a popup between the second basemen and myself would turn into a double as I waited for it to come down…AFTER IT BOUNCED! The ball hit the hard-packed dirt road. Momma, I want to go home!

Thirty plus years later I would find myself standing at home plate behind Lockhart High School thinking about the fields that I had played on and wondering if I had just stepped through a time portal. In the spring, their outdoor athletic facility was a football field that doubled as a baseball field. In dead centerfield was a press box with bleachers that extended into left and right fields. Both sets of goal posts were in play as were several light posts that ran behind the bleachers. The right field foul line actually split the goal post which made them in play. The infield was placed off of what would have been the actual football playing field but dimensions were strange. Somewhere near four hundred feet down the left field line, nearer to five hundred down the right and a mere two hundred fifty feet to dead center if you hit a ball over the press box. What really bothered me was the water spigot with the bucket turned over it in center field and the hole filled with tires beyond the right field goal post. The coach had used more chalk to lay out the out of play areas than he had used to line the field. During the longest ground rules meeting in the annals of baseball, I was told that if a ball rolled into the hole filled with tires it was a ground rule double. I was more concerned with what happened if my right fielder fell into it. This game was a tort liability waiting to happen. I decided the best thing for me to do was to put the outfielder I could most afford to lose in right field…just like my coach had done thirty-plus years before.

Pink Stars and Scarlet Q’s

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Pat Robertson, God love him, didn’t really say that Lesbians and Gays should wear special colors did he? This is just one of those libtard or troll sites trying to stir up more trouble. Isn’t it? What? Should they all be sporting little pink stars their clothing or a scarlet Q’s on the forehead? If that was stereotypical I am sorry it wasn’t meant to be. It must have been a liberal site stirring up trouble because they mentioned Nazi’s as being bad. Okay? Glad that is cleared up.

I do truly understand the religious side of the argument. One man, one woman. I get it and I don’t guess I want my friends Wally and Delmer getting hitched in my church…actually I don’t care but I understand that you do. I also want them to have the same matrimonial rights before the law that I have and come to think of it, no homosexual male has troubled me nearly as much as my two heterosexual ex-wives and the woman I dated who threw me over for her lesbian lover, now that was painful.

In the best book that few people have read, FLOPPY PARTS, I wrote the following:
I have a pink IPOD which for some reason has become the object of debate. I realize that I don’t coach in one of the more progressive areas of the world but find it thought provoking that even the mature kids that I coach ask, “Why do you have a pink IPOD?” They ask this while giving me the old fish eye and nodding as if they know something that I don’t. Well, they probably do know something that I don’t but they do not know the reasoning behind the pink IPOD. I do not know why some men and boys have a homophobic fear of the color pink. I have several gay friends who nicely counterbalance the homophobic friends that I have, and none of them wear pink any more, or less, than anyone else. I also have no femininity issues unless they are latent. What if they are? I am in perfect tune with my feminine side and do not feel the urge to wear frilly feminine underwear…at least not yet. So, what is the reason for a pink IPOD? I know you are all on the edge of your seat anticipating the answer. Drum roll please! TA – DAH! You see, I can find it more easily when I lose it. Unless I have lost it on a pink flamingo or pink Cadillac, it is easily seen. No other reason at all. It is easy to find! Now if you feel the need to discuss pink being one of my favorite colors or my lack of concern when I wear pink knit shirts, pink ties or flowery Hawaiian shirts in pink motifs, we can talk about it. I do so love pink flamingoes and would offer a body part to own a Fifties model pink Caddy convertible. I just believe that I am a progressive thinker. Okay, not THAT progressive! It would have to be a body part that comes in twos.

Few of my homophobic friends, or homosexual friends for that matter, have a fear of wearing pink …that I know of. I do find it humorous that some of my homophobic friends, one especially, are so adamant about “I don’t want them coming around me!” In my wisest teaching voice I ask, “Ken, are you afraid it is going to rub off on you? You know it is not like the flu. You can’t catch it.” I loved it when he offered the explanation that, “I don’t want them coming on to me.” Why did I love it? Because I got to ask, “Do you have a problem with the women coming on to you, because unless you are having to beat them off with a stick, you are probably not going to have to worry about men coming on to you.” I know I just missed a wonderful opportunity for a pun.

I also question the concept of being against homosexuality if you are a heterosexual male. Doesn’t that improve the odds of hooking up with a heterosexual female? Mathematically that would be two guys you wouldn’t be in competition with. Shouldn’t men be railing against lesbianism? No, we all have this dream that we can convert them. Ken would say, “It’s Biblical.” I guess I would agree but couldn’t help myself and asked, “What about ‘spilling your seed upon the ground’ Ken?” Ever been guilty of that? In a study I read, of the ten thousand men polled, ninety-nine percent admitted to doing it and I would suggest that the remaining one percent are liars. He looked pensive for a moment, nodded his head before turning it to the side and weakly asked, “What’s with the pink IPOD, man?”

It is my guess that Ken would prefer the pink star or the scarlet Q even though he is not very Nazi like. Come to think of it he is not very Pat Robertson like either.
If you enjoyed this except you can find the complete story in FLOPPY PARTS, downloadable on Kindle for $.99 at http://goo.gl/q3XjJ4 or if FLOPPY PARTS are not your cup of tea you might want to try “WINNING WAS NEVER THE ONLY THING…” at goo.gl/dO1hcX

Second Chances

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Sometimes I get to work too early. The sun had not made an appearance as I drove around the gym toward my parking place. I would not have been able to see Ole Sol if he had been up as it could not have been foggier if I had been in an old werewolf movie. We were still a few days away from the official start of school and were in the middle of the mandatory teacher workdays that, despite its name, allow teachers to get no work done. As I pulled into my parking place I noticed a car parked next to the fence separating the parking lot and the baseball field. I saw movement off to the side near our activity bus. It turned out to be a young man carrying a gas can and a cutoff garden hose. Hummmmmmmm. I wonder what he could be doing. Give the kid credit; he walked right over like he was supposed to be carrying a gas can and garden hose.

Despite recent true life horror stories, I have really never felt fearful in a school environment. This was not a normal school environment and I freely admit to certain feelings of, ah, trepidation. When he spoke I could actually smell gasoline on his breath. Rather than point out the dangers of huffing gasoline I just asked him what he was up to. He was good, I admit it, as cool under fire as any twenty year combat veteran. “Man, I just ran out of gas and the coach just came by and said I could get some gas.” Really, can you describe him for me? “Ahhhh, it was so dark and foggy I didn’t get a good look.” I decided to take a direct tack and told him what I knew to be true and who I was. Realizing he needed gasoline I was going to let him have it but at a price. He would have to return before five o’clock that afternoon with gas or money to replace it. If he didn’t I would call in his tag number to the police and have him arrested. He agreed but of course never showed up. I called his tag in and found out it had been reported stolen. Imagine that.

The following Wednesday, school started for real. I walked into my first period class ready to impart my vast knowledge of driving to the impressionable young minds that were now in my charge. As I called the roll I noticed a young man sitting on the front row trying to make himself look invisible. When I called his name he raised his hand and continued to think invisible, really invisible. “Son, do I know you?” He replied, “No Sir.” “Oh I believe I do and providence has delivered you right into my hands.” I told him to hang around when the bell rang. We came to a quick understanding since I had a name and access to an address. He returned the stolen car tag and spent the rest of the semester doing all of the odd jobs that I cooked up for him. He did such a good job I enlisted him to play football the next year.

This is a short excerpt from “Winning Was Never the Only Thing…” The complete book may be purchased or downloaded at the following link: http://www.amazon.com/Winning-Was-Never-Only-Thing/dp/1500597732/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1446497350&sr=8-1&keywords=winning+was+never+the+only+thing

THE TEE SHIRT

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It is time to go through all of those tubs containing old tee shirts. I have somehow collected hundreds of them over the years. Some are old athletic tees that date all the way back to my first years teaching and coaching. Many are tattered and yellowed from age, others carry what I hope are grass stains. Some are covered in memories which is why I have a hard time getting rid of or “repurposing” any of them. I am drawn to one, almost forgotten, which brought back memories of the player who gave it to me. It was actually off white from its conception, not just with age, and has a prominent hole in the back. On the front there was a design including a Kiwi, the bird not the fruit, surrounded by the logo “Kiwi Country.” Underneath the logo, screened in block letters is “New Zealand.” Wow, I had forgotten all about this particularly beautiful fashion statement.

Back in the day, before charter high schools, academies, online schools or magnet schools became a way to give children and parents more choices and teachers more headaches, Riverside High School could be found on lists next to the elite public schools as it related to overall test scores, graduation rates and whatever additional standards were incorporated by the state for a given year. Actually Riverside still finds itself on those all important list of list. At or near the top in the county and state, many times, dear old RHS would find itself in the top fifty or one hundred public schools. Today, with everyone embracing private schools, charter schools or whatever this year’s “school de jour” might be, the statement that you are a top one hundred public school might be like saying you don’t sweat much for a fat guy. Before I digress to my “soap box”, Riverside’s lofty standing made it a desired destination for foreign exchange students. Over my twelve years there I was lucky to have several and all were very memorable.

“Hobby” Hobson or Hobart R. Hobson had a thick and somewhat odd English accent and the coaching staff decided to pronounce it as a cockney would, ‘Obby Obson’. I don’t think he was very impressed. Hobby was also not impressed when I began to sing “Walzing Matilda,” the unofficial Australian National Anthem. I would have sung the New Zealand National Anthem had I known it. Oh yeah, it’s “God Save The Queen” I guess. Hobby was from New Zealand and while New Zealand is in the same “down under” hemisphere as Australia and was settled by the same Imperial Power, Great Britain, I found that they were more than thirteen hundred miles apart in distance and even farther apart in culture and mind set.

Hobby seemed to be a very serious and quiet young man; much more mature than his American counterparts. He was quite unlike the Crocodile Dundee character that I was still attempting to compare him to and he really never understood why I continued to belt out “Tie Me Kangaroo Down” after his repeated denials of the existence of Kangaroos in New Zealand. Physically dark, with brown hair and a sturdy build, he looked and sounded nothing like Paul Hogan. This did not stop me from kidding him with questions about “shrimps on the Barbie” or “What did your didgeridoo?”

Hobby found that his serious good looks and exotic accent gave him an advantage when it came to man’s favorite sport, girls. Hobby was a “chick magnet” despite his quiet demeanor. They all seemed to want to take him gently into their arms and crush him passionately while lining up as if on a bill of faire at some blue plate restaurant. When questioned about this week’s “menu choice” he would just smile and add that New Zealanders were more gentlemanly than their Australian counterparts. Never having met an Aussie I don’t know.

Hobby played rugby and therefore thought he wanted to play football. Of medium height and stocky build, physically he was typical of Riverside athletes, undersized for a linebacker or defensive end and too slow to play defensive back. That sounds like a typical Riverside player, small and slow. We moved him from position to position until he settled in as an outside linebacker. He would hit you if he could get into position but there is a learning curve in football and sometimes we found him curving in the wrong direction. It began with the simple act of dressing. Did I mention that Rugby players don’t wear equipment? The game of rugby involves blocking and tackling, all without benefit of the equipment that we associate with our game of football including helmets and shoulder pads. This might explain why when “Googling” rugby I saw so many smiling rugby players without all of their teeth.

Once he learned how to dress, and made it to the field, we decided to limit him to defense because of the learning curve involved with offense. In addition to never having played football, Hobby had also missed all four weeks of preseason practice. Defense is more about alignment and reaction than having to learn a play with all the terminology that is involved. “Bunch Right-Liz-Move-Combo Veer-On Three” is akin to learning another language in addition to acquiring the technical ability required to execute the play. He did find a place to play. Despite his disadvantages, Hobby would run as hard as he could and was not afraid to cause a collision. This made him perfect for the kickoff team and he became a good “wedge buster.” Unfortunately this was not one of our better teams meaning we might not get to kick off but once due to our propensity for being shut out. As the season drew to a close we also put him on the kick off return team which gave him many more opportunities to play.

The end of football season also meant that Hobby and I did not run into each other as often. At the fall athletic banquet he presented each member of the coaching staff a wall hanging of a New Zealand map which was divided according to their rugby teams and each of their team uniform shirts. After the banquet there was limited contact until one day the following spring that I saw him in the hallway and we paused long enough to catch up on how well he was doing and to remind him that I still thought he was Crocodile Dundee despite his protests. He was dressed in typical teenage faire, which is universal it would seem, blue jeans and tee-shirt. This particular tee shirt featured his county’s name and logo and I made a big deal about how much I liked it. That is how I got the tee shirt; not that day but later in the spring, the day after graduation. After bidding the seniors a fond adieu, the next day would be spent completing those tasks that teachers must complete before we can run, cheering and dancing to the closest bar as we close school for the summer. I had completed my list of duties and had wandered to another room to try and assist another teacher. When I had assisted or interfered all I could I wandered back to my room and found the tee shirt neatly folded on my desk. There was no note but I got the message loud and clear. It would also explain why I have held on to it all of these years, hole and all.