Don Growing Up 4

If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs and blaming it on you… Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it. And what’s more you’ll be a man my son.                                                                                    --Rudyard Kipling.  I became aware of one of my greatest joys in life – music - in the late 1940s. I probably inherited my love for music from my mother. She loved to play the harmonica,  sing and dance.  My first memories of music - other than my sisters playing the piano – came from the radio and the 78 rpm records my sisters bought. I loved the “Hit Parade,” and listened to it constantly starting with songs like  “Button and Bows,” “Manana,” and “On a Slow Boat to China”  in 1948 to “Dance With Me Henry” “Autumn Leaves” and “Sincerely,” all in 1955.

My biggest regret living on a farm was that our regimen left no time to be a real kid  -- to play baseball in town in summer, to go on vacation and to spend time with friends. Almost every kid in school was my friend, but I had no real friends. Not one family lived within a few miles of us who had boys my age.

My family sponsored a family of Germans - George Meier – from Germany in the early ‘50s, and their three boys – George, Leo and Eddie - became my friends. My best friend was George, a nice looking, dark-haired kid, not Germanic blond, a few months older than me. The only problem is they did not live near us, and I only saw him a few times a year.

          I can recall only one time in my entire life going to another kid’s house to play The kid was Tommy Lucky, and I went with him after school in the sixth grade and stayed for dinner. It was great.

          I never had a real birthday party where you invite other kids, and they brought presents. Not once. My mother always baked each of us our favorite cake, and we sang happy birthday to each other.

            I think – I may be wrong – I went trick or treating once in my life. I dressed in some kind of costume, and my parents took me to town, and I went around with friends. I think it happened, or it is just wishful thinking. The strange thing is that I never thought about this when I was a kid. I lived with my family, did what I was told, and I didn’t know any differently.

My real social life was school. I started at St. Anthony’s Grade School late in February of 1949 – and I loved it – both St. Anthony’s and school. I loved school from the moment I stepped inside its doors because it meant, if nothing else, that I was not back home working on the farm. I loved everything about school. I loved the teachers, the other students, the building, the playground, the church and the classes. I loved English, history, geography, spelling and music. I liked religion okay. I tolerated arithmetic and art. Anytime anything needed answering my hand was up. It got so that teachers would not even look at me any more. Other students did not either. They knew my hand was up.  Can’t anyone answer a question besides Don-nie?

            After Sister Carmela was boss in the third grade, Sister Hilarion rode herd on us in the fourth, Sister Laurentia in the fifth and sixth (escaping the clutches of the vicious Sr. Nathaniel), a lay teacher, Bill Bennett, in seventh grade and likable but tough Sister Wilfrid in the eighth. (These are all true names, and I am sure all gone, but I cherish them. I also finally know what Sr. Wilfrid meant writing in my report card: “Keep up your lovely school spirit.” )

            I started playing basketball competitively in the fifth grade, the same year the school’s new gym was built. I loved that gym. It had glass backboards, and you could make a layup without crashing into a wall. I was always one of the best players although that was not saying much. I remember the starting five in eighth grade  – Larry Deganhart at center, Dick Tetsell and I at forwards and Mike Engraff and Jim Kaiser at guards. I don’t even remember Kenny Hochnadel and Bob Wolf, stars in high school, playing at all.

            I loved everything about basketball, especially practice. The only thing I hated was having to shower afterwards. I was embarrassed showing off the skinny bod. We used to play public school teams in all the little nearby burgs.  Many had brick walls right under the basket so you could make a layup putting your foot against the wall.

One of the greatest disappointments of my life happened in the eighth grade. We were scheduled  to drive to Denver on a Saturday morning for a weekend state Catholic Grade School Basketball Tournament. We would stay overnight Saturday and come home late Sunday afternoon. It was a two-hour drive, and I looked forward to that more than anything in my life.

But we had a fierce blizzard. I was waiting with my Dad in the car with the heater on for the other guys to arrive Saturday morning. Coach Larry Schmitt (a star high school player and really nice guy) arrived to say our trip was canceled. There’s no way we could have negotiated the 120-mile, two-lane highway to Denver in a blizzard. He was right, of course. I was so stunned that I didn’t say a word driving home. I have never cried about that day, but I obviously have held it in my heart.

          Tragedy also struck when I was in the  6^th grade. I was home one evening when I received a phone call. It was the first time I talked on a phone in my life. One of my closest friends, Billy Immel, 11, was killed when a circus water truck backed over him as he watched the preparations from his bike. I have never forgotten him.

  Don Lechman is a former reporter, critic and editor for the Daily Breeze. He teaches writing at Harbor College in Wilmington.