I Never Did Make It to Paducah

This is not “A Tale of Two Cities.” But the books’ iconic opening line does sum up my sophomore year in high school, “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.”

Of course, I had no crystal ball in August of 1962. So, I rode that roller coaster of “discovery and wonderment” with nary a hand on the wheel.

I stumbled through my freshman season. In awe of the upper classmen. How cool, calm, and collected they were! They eased from class to class; life, school, dating, sports, everything…came as natural as breathing to that group. Good golly, didn’t none of them ever even break a sweat!

I spent that first year thinking if I can just survive until next year, I’ll be just like them.

Four weeks into being an “upper classman” I knew my way around a bit better, but deep down I was just as lost as ever. My locker was right next to Jane Hill. Wow! I wanted to tell her how pretty she was. How good she smells. But I couldn’t get the words out. She’d smile, I’d smile, then came the awkward silence I was becoming accustomed to hearing all too often.

If the floor could only open up and swallow me….

The coaches singled me out at football practice, “Get the lead out! You’re not a rookie anymore. It’s time to grow up and help this team.” The problem was, I didn’t feel any different than the year before. Was it always going to be this way?

My despair had sunk lower than a whale’s belly. I was destined to a life of solitude, a misfit, with no light at the end of the tunnel. I was thinking about hopping a freight train to Paducah and disappearing from life forever—

“Class,” Miss Barbara Clark interrupted my getaway plans, “this morning we are going to start reading ‘Great Expectations’ by Charles Dickens.”Good grief, I’ve got to find a train schedule!

But an amazing thing happened. Miss Barbara was so excited about Pip and his “expectations” that she carried me along with her. She introduced me to Edgar Allan Poe, Longfellow, and the “Highway Man,” who came riding, riding, riding….

She taught us it wasn’t about grades; school was about learning.

Ann Carol McCaleb invited me to a party at her house. She was a year older, but cared enough to include me. It was mostly juniors, but they treated me like an equal. I will never forget her kindness. Or the feeling that I belonged.

I made a tackle in the game against Greenfield. Of course, we were way ahead and it was late in the fourth quarter. I didn’t smash him like the coaches taught us to do. But I got him on the ground!

My Bunsen burner blew up in chemistry and I near ’bout set the room on fire. I accidentally cut off a frog’s leg in biology trying to scrape a few scales away to show the blood circulation. Don’t think I had “found” myself by any stretch of the imagination.

I was sitting at lunch, alone, feeling a bit lost over some stupid thing I’d done or said when the prettiest girl in the senior class sat down beside me. I was dumbfounded. She said I was a cute boy and a good athlete and my future was unlimited. You talk about an uplift!

Two things leaped to mind immediately. I was in love with this girl forever. And I hoped Jane Hill was looking!

Basketball practice started the day after football ended. I tried out for the team. I was a mediocre basketball player at best. Coach John Camp ran us 23 miles the first day. And we didn’t touch a basketball! He ran us twice as much the next day.

I was thinking again about that train to Paducah.

And then I made the team. Barely. I was the tenth man on a ten-man team. And that is not false modesty, I still marvel to this day that he picked me.

He worked me as hard as I’d ever been worked in my life! Relentless. He didn’t quit on you and he wasn’t about to let you quit on him, or anything else. Listen, I am still in shape today because of all the running I put in during my sophomore basketball year in high school!

Two things stood out as I grew tremendously during that season. Coach Camp treated me EXACTLY like he did our star senior player. That is a lesson I have never forgotten. And he got me into the games. He trusted me, the least guy on the team, when I sometimes didn’t trust myself.

You grew up fast when Coach Camp had a’hold of you.

The whole sophomore experience would sure put a body to thinking. It was such a transitional year; a bridge between who I had been and who I was becoming. And it sure didn’t happen overnight. I had prayed that prayer a thousand times!

It taught me that growing up is a collection of small, ordinary, seemingly insignificant moments that add up to lifetime. We need to enjoy the ride.

Boy howdy!

Respectfully,
Kes
kesley45@aol.com