Time to Reflect: Step 82

Once again I find myself turning to my good friend Mark Twain for the insight that comes when you have been dead for a hundred years. In one of his more profound moments he remarked that one must, “Get your facts first, then you can distort them as you please.” Every day I wake up with thoughts about what important facts from my past can I share with my readers.

Most of the time I realize the facts really are not very important, especially if they are merely things that happened in my little world decades ago. What is important is not what my friends or I did in some overcrowded high school, or even recalling the significant facts of history recorded in the newspapers of that time, but rather how those facts make me the person I am and enable me to relate a story to someone at this time.

As my life progresses it has become apparent to me people who have born witness to the exact same events at the exact same time as me do not see them in the exact same light. Actually, those who have known me the longest, my mother, brother and sister, seldom agree with the way I recount certain details of family events. Never accusing me of willfully distorting the truth, and often amazed at my ability to recall episodes they completely erased from their collective minds, they still manage to have an entirely different perception of facts. Fortunately, having served on juries for two different attempted murder trials I have seen how twelve intelligent individuals can watch and listen to the same witness and see and hear completely different stories.

Anyone who has ever worked with media knows the angle of the camera, the amount of light, and the placement of the microphone impacts the way an audience views a subject. Similarly, where we stand in relation to a mirror determines what kind of image we will see reflected.

Yesterday, as I read the preface to John Grogan’s follow up to Marley and Me, a second memoir titled, The Longest Trip Home, I questioned his ability to factually recount a conversation he had with his father six years prior to the publication of the book. My mental inquiry came about not because I thought Mr. Grogan attempted to distort what his father said, but aware plucking words from the past with precision without the aid of a recording device is nearly impossible.

Although I have yet to attempt recalling conversations from my past verbatim, the effort to remain true to the facts, only adding distortion based on knowledge acquired through time and hindsight, is one of the virtues of storytelling I value. So, when I hold the mirror up I am looking for an honest depiction reflected through the prism of time and rendered crystal clear through the filter on this writer’s tap. Nothing would be a greater honor than to have someone find wisdom in these reflections a hundred years after I am dead.

For All the Wrong Reasons I Still Couldn't Get It Right: Step 81

Before the concept of getting in touch with a feminine side, or for that matter the concept of a man having a feminine side was introduced to the world, a young man or teenager as the case may be was often considered genetically imbalanced if he showed interest in the arts. Certain musicians like guitarists, drummers and saxophonists might escape ridicule. But playing a violin, French horn or flute fueled the fire of homophobic teenagers and their unenlightened parents even if said musician’s sole interest was in watching the blonde with the lacy brassiere that showed through her thin white blouse pucker her lips over her mouthpiece hoping she would want to press them against his after rehearsal.

Choir boys, even those with deep bass voices, endured silent questioning about what went on under their robes, while actors were considered to bear no weight when walking in loafers whether or not they put pennies in them. One of the ironic twists was the perception of Rock Hudson as the kind of man many of these supposedly well-meaning parents would be proud to have their son be.

Amazingly, more than forty years before the show became an instant phenomenon on television the Glee factor was hard at work on yours truly. For those unfamiliar with this latest spin on Bye, Bye Birdie with a little Grease thrown in, the singing, or Glee, club of a fictional high school gains credibility and popularity when the quarterback and star receiver of the football team discover their love for all things musical and join the club.

So, even before making my misguided decision not to try out for the school play, I had determined to mount a counter attack to the notion my chromosomes may be out of whack. Needless to say, unaware of my own homophobic proclivity it never occurred to me to ignore such an absurd assessment, nor the impact my actions might have upon my male friends who were just becoming aware of their sexual desire for something other than the aforementioned stereotype. Nonetheless, as noted in the previous story about my attendance at numerous games during the Braves final season at Milwaukee County Stadium, the urge to play high school baseball had emerged.

Although there was the one great season of softball at Grantosa Elementary, I never participated in little league and only played one season as an outfielder in a Babe Ruth league. Knowing a number of players from last year’s freshman team were moving directly to the varsity team I thought I had a shot at making the sophomore team. When word spread that Coach Hytinen had selected a starting sophomore lineup but was looking for pitchers, I quickly ditched my bat and started throwing as hard as I could.

Noticing a number of boys who brought tennis balls to school to work on their grip I scavengered the garage and basement to find the tool I was convinced would make me a star hurler. I had learned the importance of a batting stance and using hips and legs to drive the bat through the ball when hitting, but a transfer of such kinesthetic principles to pitching never occurred, at least not prior to tryouts.

So, after throwing as hard as I could, developing a completely sore arm, and achieving a fairly high degree of accuracy, my velocity fell far short of those who knew how to get their hips and legs into the delivery of the horsehide wrapped sphere. Trying to save face I told friends it was the snow forcing us inside to throw on the flat gym floor that curtailed my speed even though I knew I had never practiced throwing from a mound. Well, I would just have more time to concentrate on my studies, at least until football season.

One Wonderful Lame Duck Season: Step 80

According to the law suit filed by Bud Selig the city of Milwaukee faced an identity crisis if the major league baseball franchise, the Milwaukee Braves, were to be disloyal and leave to go elsewhere. Shortly after I reached John Marshall Junior-Senior High School final word was received from the court freeing the franchise from any obligation to return to Milwaukee County Stadium. So, the team left for Atlanta where they have remained to this day. Five years later Selig would bring a new franchise to Milwaukee and eventually become the commissioner of major league baseball.

However, during the year the suit was argued an injunction was placed on the team forcing them to play a lame duck season in my hometown. Fans, most of whom could probably read the writing on the wall better than a fourteen year old boy, chose to stay home rather than line the pockets of the franchise’s disloyal new owner. This series of events proved highly advantageous for my eleven-year-old brother and myself.

Like many firefighters my father would work odd jobs on his days off to provide a better life for his family. Since my mother was working at this time, too, my parents agreed the ballpark was a safe environment for two adolescent boys while their parents earned a living. My father would drop us off in the parking lot a couple of hours before the game was to start and we would play catch, talk to the attendants and ushers, or visit with other fans who started showing up an hour or so later.

When the ticket office opened we went and purchased two seats in the upper deck for a buck and a half each. Although I am not certain we probably had the remainder of a ten-dollar bill to spend on lunch and snacks. It’s also hard to recall how many daytime games there were during the week at that time, but certainly many more than there are today.

Citizens of the great city of Milwaukee had become so disenchanted with the franchise, which had brought two World Series and a World Championship to the city just seven years earlier, that daily attendance numbered in the hundreds rather than thousands or tens of thousands. For my brother and me this meant we were able to walk down to the lower grandstand and have ushers actually show us where to sit in the second or third inning. Then, if the few season ticket holders that remained loyal failed to show up we were able to sit right up close to the dugout. Usually it was on the third base side, the opposing team’s dugout, but it still meant seeing future hall of fame players like Willie Mays, Frank Robinson and Roberto Clemente.

When a fan behind us threw his beer at Walt Alston after the manager had gone out to talk to the Dodger pitcher, we were glad to see the feisty Alston had the good sense to offer a few choice words and keep going into the dugout. We did turn to see one of our favorite ushers, who appeared to our young eyes to be frail and well beyond retirement age, escort the large boisterous waster of Milwaukee’s finest out of the park.

Despite the animosity between the city and the Braves front office the team still performed well and had a winning season. The great sluggers, Eddie Matthews and Hank Aaron, and the young pitching and catching combination of Tony Cloninger and Joe Torre were never a disappointment, especially for a couple of young kids staying out of trouble and enjoying America’s national pastime. There is little doubt in my mind this unusual set of circumstances influenced my decision to try out for the Marshall baseball team the following spring.

Avoiding Bruised Ego Builds Regret: Step 79

When I arrived at John Marshall Junior-Senior High School I had every intention of improving my life as a student. Not only did I plan to devote more time to studying in order to learn and achieve better grades, but to become a full participant in the various extracurricular activities which round out an individual and contribute to school spirit. In the academic realm this meant actually opening and reading English and social studies texts, writing themes and essays, and learning the meaning of terms, such as medulla oblongata, in Mrs. Suggs’s biology class.

Fortunately, Steve M, who would eventually become known to me simply as M, and who I’ll refer to as M from this point forward, helped me in the lab portions of the class. While I still had the notion I would one day be a fine surgeon it was actually M who had the steady hand and ran the scalpel the length of the frog. I was however able to pin back the skin exposing the sack of eggs in its abdomen and helping us both to answer the question of the animal’s sex correctly.

It may not have been during this dissection, but somewhere around this time we realized we were connected in multiple ways. Not only had I attended his bar mitzvah as the result of his being paired with Kerry who invited me, but also one of his mother’s cousins was married to one of my mother’s cousins making us something in Yiddish called machtaunim. Or, in the more standard Hebrew vernacular we were mishpacha, part of the extended family. If that was not enough, it turned out M’s father, a real estate developer, built the houses on Lancaster Avenue. It was his final endeavor in single home residential construction, and M noted his father’s efforts to satisfy customers like my mother regarding such things as plumbing was one of the main reasons he stuck to building apartments and commercial structures.

It would have been nice to have M at my side when a few weeks into the semester I went to Mr. Bielenberg’s classroom after school for the first casting call for the spring play. Walking into the room I found the popular Mr. Bielenberg surrounded by many students, some of whom I recognized from having mutual acquaintances. There were no familiar faces. No Cookie, no Lolly, no Gary, and Mike had moved back to Detroit.

Still, looking back there was no reason for me, the actor honored with a Sammy for his earlier performances and selected by yet another adult drama director at Samuel Morse Junior High to play the villain in the most recent production, not to feel confident my audition would earn me a role and a chance to act on the high school stage. But, that was not the case. All I saw was an impenetrable clique of friends who having performed in the Marshall spring musical were certain to land parts in the upcoming play. Fear and apprehension, even though totally unwarranted has a way of overcoming sound judgment, especially when an adolescent ego is involved. Without ever giving Mr. Bielenberg the opportunity to discover my talent I did the unthinkable I left never to return.

I'll Trade You For Two Jeffs and a Steve: Step 78

Walking to my homeroom for the first time I wondered what possessed the architect to place a courtyard in the center of the building. One had to wonder what the bench was doing in the glass-encased showcase since no one was ever seen entering or leaving through either of the two doors. Maybe he thought an eagle, the school mascot, would roost out there, but he would have to wait until spring because all the landscaping was covered with snow during most of the winter.

And, why an eagle? With a school newspaper and yearbook aptly titled The Gavel, following the simple logic of garnering a name from the profession of the person for whom the school is named, it seemed to me the football and forensics teams deserved something like the Supremes rather than being named for a bird. All right, so Diana Ross and the girls had the name, but not when the school opened four years earlier. At least Marshall Eagles didn’t seem as blatantly ridiculous as Custer Indians.

If designated up and down staircases and waste of space courtyards weren’t enough structural challenges for someone attempting to get acclimated to his new surroundings the numerous tentacles branching off the parallel corridors made me realize that even though my new classmates had been cordoned off in the junior high wing for the past three years they had a distinct advantage in knowing where to go when the bell rang again. Asking for directions was out of the question since any display of uncertainty marked a student as inept and the target for harassment and humiliation by their peers. I knew it was incumbent upon me to be able to distinguish the music room corridor from the industrial arts wing and the boys’ gym from the girls’ gym. Fortunately, my homeroom was next door to the library, so I had a good starting point from which to map out the rest of my daily route.

Due to the nearly four thousand students that streamed through the halls, everyone at John Marshall Junior-Senior High had to share a locker. While I am not sure with whom I shared a locker I know while others were busy putting away and getting out books and supplies I was already getting to know the students in Mrs. Shultis’s homeroom. Although Ron and Big Steve were in her homeroom, I would be next door for the next year and a half, a period that would see our relationship fade. Instead I started to build a relationship with the two Jeffs who shared a locker and had been close friends since their days at 65^th Street Elementary and Steve M. who would remain my close friend to this day.

Listening to the announcements in Miss Wallace’s homeroom, I started to wonder if my route would take me past the junior high wing and if I might get a chance to see Jan. Even though my path led right past the junior high wing twice that day I had no time to slow down and look because I had to figure out where I was going. It was probably a good thing, too, because in the days and weeks that followed when I did spot her she was not with Renee or Karen. She was with Debbie D, who looked right past freshmen and sophomores to boys in the junior and senior class. It took me a while to realize it, but my time with Jan had come and gone.

Get On the Bus To a New Beginning: Step 77

One thing I never understood was why my sister, Peggy, was so excited about my going to John Marshall High School with her. She had been there since the school first opened four and a half years ago, and from what I could tell was doing just fine without me. If the situation had been reversed and she was two years younger than me there would be no way I would want her tagging along with me. It’s not like we were super close, at least not since we grew out of our highchairs and she no longer took an interest in feeding me. I mean she was all right for an older sister, I guess, especially after she no longer was the tallest and skinniest one in her class with kids picking on her, but she was going to graduate in five months anyway.

So, I walked with her up to the corner of 76^th and Hampton Avenue and boarded the bus with her, and let her introduce me to all her friends. They were friendly, as I recall, but I don’t think any of them shared her enthusiasm over my arrival. When we got off the bus at 64^th and Congress Street I tried not to seem ungrateful as I put some distance between Peggy, who engaged in a conversation with one of her friends didn’t seem to notice, and myself as we walked the three blocks to the school entrance. Since it was winter students were allowed to enter the building prior to the first bell, but we had to walk past the entire length of the school because only the main entrance was unlocked.

Typical of huge structures built in the Midwest as soon as a student moved away from where a draft could be felt coming from the open door all jackets, scarves, gloves, and often sweaters had to be removed to avoid heavy perspiration stains from forming under arms and ringlets of sweat from pouring off the neck and forehead.

Once my attire was in order two things conspicuous to my novice view of the jam-packed foyer were the constant drone of kids talking to their friends that sounded like a string section of a philharmonic in a perpetual tuning session and the piercing eyes staring down from the portrait of the school’s namesake. Justice Marshall as the first chief justice of the U.S. Supreme Court was well known for using his firm interpretation of the newly minted constitution as a way to keep both the administration and exuberant lawmakers in check. Similarly, his stern gaze from the canvas told all those who entered to think twice about what route they were going to take to class.

Up the Down Staircase by Bel Kaufman, about an English teacher in a fictional high school in New York, had become a best seller that year, and would be made into a major motion picture of the same name in just another year. Standing in my new surroundings, imagining what my first day was going to be like, realizing I did not want to be caught going the wrong way on a one-way staircase, it became apparent to me that the mythical institution in New York could actually be John Marshall Junior-Senior High School in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

From Where I Stand: Step 76

With the responsibility of watching my seven-year-old niece comes the inability to play volleyball this morning. So, while she digests another episode of ICarly on Nick I will attempt to update my readers on the latest status of current events from where I stand. Of course, living in southern California one could sense the communal sigh of relief as the Lakers pulled it together Friday night to quash the upstart Thunder in Oklahoma and move on to the second round. Speaking of Oklahoma what is with a state that decides to protect doctors who fail to disclose fetal abnormalities to pregnant women. Apparently after Arizona pushed through their antagonistic law designed to incite hostility among law enforcement and those of foreign descent, other states such as Oklahoma feel compelled to act in an unfair and out of balance way knowing Fox-news will help get the story right, emphasis on the right. Meanwhile, protesters took to the streets in a May Day celebration of anger over the new immigration law in Arizona and calling for the federal government to take immediate action to bring about immigration reform. Elsewhere these protests are seen as an effort by the well-connected to draw attention away from the battle among senators, members of the Securities and Exchange Commission and New York state authorities over who will be the first to prosecute and convict Goldman Sachs and its executives of not only fraud, but stupidity in the way they brag about their deceptive practices in their emails. Feeling left out after the Southwest stirred up immigration, the boys in OK land thumbed their noses at women, and the Northeast derived a way to undo derivatives, the Southeast climbed on board by having an oil well bust up and blaming London-based BP Industries for the slick that threatens their coast in the Gulf of Mexico. Coming close on the heels of the disaster in West Virginia where twenty-nine miners lost their lives deep below the surface of the earth attempting to provide one of the substances we use to fuel our lives, the explosion, death of oil rig workers and ensuing rupture of another substance we use to fuel our lives, serves as a reminder how important energy reform ought to be. As the layer of black gold draws ever nearer the shoreline with even the greatest doubters of climate change aware of the devastation and ruin this catastrophe will have upon not only the environment but the economy, my mind is clear on why an oil man like George W. Bush supported drilling in the Arctic but completely baffled when a supposed liberal like Barack H. Obama supports offshore drilling. Change does take strength and commitment, and there must be well thought out systematic methods of transition developed, but true reform, especially moving away from oil, which has been the center piece of global conflict, and coal whose dust has filled our air with carcinogens and other harmful substances and sent too many West Virginians to an early grave, requires sacrifice. At a time like this it would be refreshing to hear the president step forward and explain how each of us must take every step we can to reign in our consumption of petroleum and coal based products. In other words, it is time to call for a national effort to walk, bicycle, carpool, utilize public transportation, limit driving, replace incandescent lights, and whatever else an individual can do to change energy consumption and preserve the planet for our children.