Up until about a year ago when Ben Stiller made a farcical movie about professional dodge ball players, I had assumed that the sport had died out, vestiges of which only remained in backwater junior high schools where a few sadistic gym teachers still enjoyed the display of fear and pain that accompany this terrible game where the object is to violently hurl rubber orbs at fellow students while attempting to avoid being pelted yourself. Despite this premise, I have a soft spot in my heart for the game for what it taught me about both myself and the nature of fear.
Being an adolescent of very little girth and even less natural athletic ability, dodge ball seemed a cruel punishment for crimes I had yet to commit. The unfairness of the very concept was magnified even more than usual by the presence in my gym class of one of the gods of dodge ball: Stan Callister. At 13-years-old, Stan was what you would call an early bloomer – hair in all the right places and muscles bulging from everywhere else. We were about the same height, but that’s where the physical similarities ended. If we had ever been standing side by side, it would have been like miniature versions of Stan Laurel on a hunger strike beside Hulk Hogan in his prime.
Unfortunately, we were rarely standing side by side. As fate would have it, we were usually facing opposite sides of the dodge ball arena. Those picked to be on Stan’s team were generally gleeful, while those on the opposing team trembled. For Stan could throw. His wind up and release was a thing of terrible beauty. He threw with such speed and accuracy as to suck all the air into the ball’s trailing vortex and leave you breathless if you were anywhere in the vicinity. And heaven help you if you were his target. Had he not perished a few years later from Leukemia, Stan would have been pitching in the majors for certain.
I, on the other hand, had little to offer in the way of offensive firepower. My skinny arms could not muster the kind of speed to overpower an adversary, so if I was to throw at all, I would have to go for stealth and angles. My straight-on throws were easily caught. I would have to concentrate on Defense if I was to be of any help to my team. Being thin was an asset in this regard as I presented less of a target to the opposition. My reaction times were not bad either so I would bob, jump and weave with the best of them. I became an artful dodger. I thus found myself, quite often, as one of the last pins standing in this human bowling arena.
That is, until Stan locked on to me as his target.
--to be continued
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*In the LDS church, the Young Single Adults (YSA) program is designed to support the single 18- to 30-year-olds and provide opportunities for both spiritual and social development (read: help them find a mate and get hitched).
Looking forward to part 2:
ReplyDeleteI remember Stan very well, just as I recall the morning when I took roll in my homeroom class the day following his death. Stan had a habit of arriving late for school and had assured me a few days earlier, during one of my admonitions to him, that he would be on time from then on.
I still have feelings of guilt as I recall the comment I made on that ill-fated morning, during roll call, when I said something like, "Wait until I see Stan. He's in big trouble now," at which time, I noticed several students begin to weep openly while one of them uttered in a muted voice, "Stan died last night, Mr. Mathis."
I didn't know what to say. I was devastated. I recall stepping out into the hall to collect myself and also to prevent my students from seeing the tears that welled up in my eyes since I was the product of a generation which believed, unfortunately, that the public display of emotion, especially by males, and most especially by males in a leadership position, was a sign of weakness and immaturity.
Thankfully, I grew and still continue to grow, as we all do. I now cry at sad movies, all patriotic occasions, the birthdays of my grandchildren, when speaking at funerals—and weddings, while proposing toasts at dinner, and sometimes upon running out of milk during breakfast.
I’ve become a crier and I’m proud of it!! I thank God, however, that I have never been required to shed tears resulting from the worst nightmare that could befall a parent: The loss of a child, although I have shed tears on at least a half-dozen occasions over the past forty years upon learning that one of my students had passed away, vicarious experiences that come as close to losing a child as I ever hope be.
Over the years, I've expressed the sentiment on numerous times that I never taught a student whom I didn't like. The truth is, however, that the affinity I have always felt toward my students runs even deeper: I have never taught a student whom I didn't perceive with an affection akin to that of a younger sibling (during my early years of teaching)or a son or daughter (during my second and third decades of teaching).
One of the reasons, I suppose, that I can make the above statement without failing a polygraph examination is that I choose to gorge myself on positive affirmations like life, living, and love, as opposed to negative affirmations like death and dying, and despair. For the most part, I’m able to perceive proverbial containers as being half full without thinking much about it—unless it’s a container of milk, in which case, it’s half empty when it’s three-quarters full and time to buy another one.
Well, Yarstrulli, digressions aside, what I enjoy most about your biographical prose is not just the manner in which you engage the reader with stimulating imagery, a skill that all good writers must master, but the manner in which you texture your images with feelings, a skill which all great writers must master since, without emotion, writing has the soul of a grocery list. Among other things, good writing is directly proportionate to two things: The degree to which the writer’s words reveal the writer’s heart to the reader and the degree to which the writer’s words reveal something about the reader’s heart to the reader.
You manage to do both with equal dexterity, and so I am anxious to hear the continuation of your biographical piece about Stan, for what your words will reveal about you to me and what they will teach me about myself. Please don’t wait too long. I’m still hungry.
What he said.
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