Flashback Friday

Your youthful blogger at age 19.  I look at this picture and in many ways seems like yesterday.  The picture says May.  I'm at home with long sleeves so it was probably taken during Winter/Spring and processed in May.  What can I tell you about this moment in my life?  Just a few months prior to this being taken I participated in an-ill conceived plot to get out of school for an afternoon.  Me and three other conspirators called in a bomb threat.  It was December 7th.  And actually it was just me that made the call.  I signed out to go somewhere, went to a phone booth next to the courthouse in Aledo and told someone there was a bomb at the high school.  It didn't take long for weak links to shatter the plan and before the Star Trek episode I was watching after school was over, I was taken by police authorities to be questioned.

I was never arrested and punishment was meted out by the school.  130 hours Community Service time to be done at the school on weekends and school breaks, a 2- week suspension.  I one-upped the school authorities and personally apologized individually to each teacher at the school.

It was determined that any of the three who failed to abide by these stipulations would not graduate in the Spring.  The main area of work was a beautification project on the west side of the football field along the curve in front of the school.  I completed my obligation to the school, as did two others.  The fourth quit school.  George Pratt, the principal of Aledo High, whenever he saw me for the rest of the year always gave me a small, wry smile.  It was a smile saying, "You screwed up, but you did well, and now you are a man".  That was George Pratt for you.  He was a longtime football coach and  knew hard work and sacrifice was the price one paid for success.  I like to think that out of that mess, lessons were learned.  Hard work beautified the grounds, and for the first time ever that area of land bloomed into something beautiful.  Much like, maybe, our own maturation process from stupid high school kid to college man.  

Behind me is the area we conspirators would beautify.  After we were done, many people commented how how nice it looked.  Unfortunately, it later grew back into weeds.  Some of the pines we planted were still there a couple years ago, but I'll be darned if I remember what it looks like today.  Wonder why I haven't paid more attention.

Letter to my folks letting them know I complied with all the obligations and therefore, the case is closed.

During my two weeks home, Marj and I would hop in the car and take trips to everywhere.  On one occasion we went down to Macomb to see a long lost relative in a nursing home, I forget who.  She commented that she had been putting off the trip and sometimes its too late if there is dementia.  We opened the door and the relative started talking about butterflies in her room, and she looked up at me and said, "We're too late."

There was always joy in the house.  Never heard my folks argue or fight.  The kitchen table conferences.  The fireside chats.  The summer porch sittings.  The basement ping-pong and model building.  Marj was the ringleader of fun,  the master of laughs.  Her shtick was to look shocked, ever so shocked at the antics of her sons. That would, of course tend to make us ever more gross, or whatever the occasion called for to get her ultimate shock reaction.  To scream with revulsion at the off-color joke, the sexual innuendo, the off-hand crassness that attempted to penetrate her armor of educated culture and morality.

Besides that bit of kerfuffle, I was getting ready to work on the small farm that belonged to my Uncle.  This would be the second summer of my work there, and would continue for 5 more years and even then on sporadic weekends for another 10.

In August of this year, just 5 or 6 months away, the draft lottery would commence with the Wombie and I drawing number 186.  Good enough that we didn't have to worry.

By now I was seeing the current Mrs. Blythe when I was not cruising around with my classmates, mostly with Eddie Johnson, but he was getting heavy into Pam so it was a hit and miss thing.

That summer we would once again, don our gloves and play Church League softball in small-town Seaton.  Seaton, where we could be gone most of the day as kids and no one would get worried.  It was where I understood what "It Takes A Village" to really mean.
Where we knew everyone and everyone knew us.  Seaton wasn't so much a town as it was an extended family.

Marj would attend every game and honk whenever we scored or any of her kids do well.  Her physical ailments would become worse with each passing year. She would later have double hip surgeries that would not be successful and in about 7 years, more or less, she would develop diabetes.  She would, in a couple of months, have to navigate the empty nest syndrome alone, and knowing what I do now, wish I had made more calls home.  

In the fall of that year I would head out with my Wombie to college.  We would apply for acceptance into the social fraternity Phi Delta Theta.  There we would both hold various offices and the Wombie would become the #1Pledge for that year.  In a couple years I would receive the "Phi Delt of the Year Award".  For what I have no idea.  Perhaps it was for organizing a campus fraternity/big sister blood drive, and determining  that as organizer I should be the first to give - failed.  It would not be the first time the sight of blood would thwart my inner angel.  But I would cherish, and still have, my honorary "I Gave" pin.

19 years old.  Just by a couple months.  That face, which now has seen so much more, shows clearly the innocence of youth, the carefree clear-eyed look of a full future.  I was lucky.  Growing up in a small town is a blessing big-city kids can't fathom.  My family was extraordinary and we were raised to think for ourselves,  to do what we thought best but know the reasons.  Marj, bless her heart, taught us to be classy and smart, and to stand for an idea, if that idea was important to us.  And I guess I have in various times.  Having a twin was equally neat - we always had an audience, a partner in crime, a playmate, someone to fight or wrestle with when that felt necessary, a father confessor, and soul-mate-in-perpetuity.

Having an older, but not that much older brother was fun, too.  It was at times, like having another parent, but mostly, we learned a lot about comportment from Phil.  He was always the cool older brother with the cool high school friends.  The fact that he had the convertibles and the Wombie and I had to share a car simply made us whine to the folks even more.

That 19 year old face, full of promise, full of ideals, mirrors the universality of youth.  I doubt if I was even asking the right questions. Would I turn out to be a good man?  A good husband?  A good father?  Would I be gentle and sensitive?  Would I make the choices that benefit instead of hurt?  Would I be respected?  Would I be an honor to those who raised me, and those whose teachings I carry with me still?  I can see the picture, but I can't see the kid.  All I see now is the kid who is creaky, graying, and too far from home.