Repost of a Christmas Short Story: Enjoy the story and the season!

Last Christmas

By: Terry Donnelly

“One dollar and eighty-seven cents…two dollars and sixty-seven cents…three dollars and eighty-two, three, four cents.” The old couple counted out the assorted change that lay strewn about in front of them.  It was December 24^th and they had small gifts bought and wrapped for their grandchildren and one for the teen who always helped the old woman with her grocery bags. Three dollars and eighty-four cents was all that remained of the money they had to spend for the month.

“That isn’t much.” The old woman was sad. “I hoped to have enough to get a tree for our front window this year.”

“Come on Kitten, we can find something if we try.”

The old man had called his wife “Kitten” for over sixty years. They had been married in a different time. One that seemed simpler. They worked hard and saved a small amount of money over their lifetime, raised a family, and now lived quietly in their retirement years. They needed to count every penny every month, but voiced no complaints. Their spirits were generally upbeat now that they were approaching the end of their time on Earth. They both joyously agreed that they had led charmed lives together and vowed to revel in the simple pleasures they found daily.

Together, the old couple scooped the change back into her timeworn, leather purse, donned their coats and scarves, and headed out the door. Bundled up, they looked a lot alike as they walked–both a bit stooped over, each with a shock of white hair rising out from the wool scarves around their necks. They held hands as much for support as from love.

They turned down the sidewalk toward the intersection where shops and restaurants stood.

When they got to the corner it was nearly three o’clock and not many people were about. The old couple stepped into a fenced lot that was advertising Christmas trees for sale. The owner was preparing to close his stand for the season and go home to his family. His inventory had been pretty well picked over and only a few good trees remained.

He watched as the old couple sized up one tree after another. They turned the trees and stood back to take a better look. Each time, after looking at the price tag, they put the tree back–the prices were all too much.

As they were about to walk home without a tree, the old man noticed a small one tucked into a corner of the lot. It looked okay from a distance, but when he picked it up, he saw the backside was flat and without many branches. The tag for that tree read $5.

“Look!” He tried to sound happy about his find. “We can put this side in our window. It has some good branches.”

“I don’t know.” The old woman was not sure the sparse tree would make their apartment look any more festive.

“Will you take $3.84 for this tree sir?” the old man asked the tree lot owner.

“Sure, why not? I’m about to close up and no one else will be buying any trees this late on Christmas Eve.”

He took the handful of change not bothering to count it.

As the couple left the lot the old man noticed another tree sticking out of a barrel.

“What are you going to do with this?”

“Burn it.”

“Can we take it too?” the old man asked.

The old woman looked at him like he had lost his mind. This tree was worse than the one on which he had spent the last of their money.

“I sure don’t care. It’s yours if you want to haul it away.”

After wishing the lot owner a Merry Christmas and receiving returned greetings from him, the old couple dragged the two scrawny trees back to their apartment.

The old woman went into the kitchen to put some soup on the stove to warm for their dinner. The old man began to tinker with the trees in the living room.

First he began to braid branches from the flat side of one tree into the branches on the flat side of the other tree. After about twenty minutes of twining and tying string around some branches and securing the two trunks together, he crossed two boards and nailed them to the bottom of the hugging trees so they could stand on their own.

He stood his creation upright and stepped back for a better look. The result was amazing! The trees fit together like matching pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. Together, the complementary trees made one full, round, beautiful decoration. It was as if the trees came to life after they were introduced to each other–the faults and shortcomings of one made beautiful by the strengths of the other.

The old man was stunned. He didn’t expect something so magnificent to come from the two, broken, outcast trees.

“Kitten, come in here. Look at this!”

When the old woman emerged from the kitchen she dropped her soupspoon. She stood and stared at her husband’s creation. It looked to all the world as if the two trees were one elegant spruce.

After the old couple had eaten their soup, they spent the rest of the evening winding the two ancient strings of lights they had stored away onto the tree and finally topped it with the only glass ornament they owned. It was a shiny, round bulb with hand-painted stripes. The ornament had belonged to the old woman ever since she was a little girl–it was a prized possession. The old man carefully tied it to the top of the tree as the old woman plugged in the lights.

With many different colors of bulbs glowing, the tree leapt to life–dancing with light that illuminated its wondrous form. Together they lifted the little tree onto a stool so it would be tall enough for its full radiance to be seen through the window. They pushed the tree into the space that looked out onto the street. Next they carefully placed the few gifts around the stool under the tree and finally sat down on the threadbare, brown loveseat with its faded design to enjoy their new decoration.

Snow began to gently fall in big, white flakes as the day turned to night. All evening as people passed the apartment they stopped and took time to admire the glorious tree in the window. Each viewer took great joy in seeing the dancing lights on the tree made more vibrant when framed by the falling snow. No one guessed that it had been created from two cast offs that would have been without a home this Christmas had it not been for the old couple bringing them in and piecing them together.

After a few hours of admiring their tree and delighting in retelling stories from Christmases past, they reluctantly decided it was time for bed.

“Let’s leave the lights plugged in all night just in case someone comes walking by late who needs a holiday boost in spirits,” suggested the old woman.

After turning out the lamp and before heading into their room, they stood in the glow taking one more long look at their beautiful tree and the fabulous array of shadows the lights cast on the walls. As they did so the old couple hugged each other. As their arms and bodies intertwined they looked to all the world as if they were one. As if they were two matching pieces of a jigsaw puzzle fitting perfectly together–the faults and shortcomings of one made beautiful by the strengths of the other.

Book Review: Winnie-the-Pooh: Stories for a Lifetime

A Book Review for Life

By Terry Donnelly

If one could own only one fiction book for a lifetime let me suggest Winnie-the-Pooh by A. A. Milne. The collection of short-stories, published in 1926 impart meaning to listeners and readers from age four to 104.

The book doubles as an instruction manual for parents. Christopher Robin gets read to all the time. Ask any teacher and confirm that the one single most valuable activity for developing a child’s literacy is being read to.

In the beginning no small child can resist hearing the wonderful flow of language created by Milne. The characters chase woozles, or is it wizzles? And then they hunt heffalumps. The prose is poetic (Isn’t it funny, How a bear likes honey? Buzz! Buzz! Buzz! I wonder why he does?), which enhances a young person’s sense of how language should sound. A friend relates his grandson’s oft-repeated request, at age four to “Read Pooh!” I recall my own children’s similar requests/demands.

Once off to elementary school, kids still love the stories. I defy you to name one eight year old who hasn’t gathered family and friends, donned hats, turned blankets into capes, stuffed any article that could be a makeshift backpack with provisions, and struck out on an “expotition” to the North Pole after a session with Pooh and the gang.

The stories appear to be targeted at six to nine year olds, but so much more is left for a more critical mind. We are not done exploring the depths of Pooh merely because we can also read Catcher in the Rye and War and Peace.

Exactly when was it that I discovered the depth of the writing? I can’t give you an age, but it was when I realized that there was one kangaroo living as two in the home of Kanga and Roo. The yin and yang played out with Kanga, the overbearing mother, keeping Roo, the rascal, inquisitive son, so close that their names mergee into one.

On yet another level there is pure, pun-loving droll humor. Pooh lives “under the name of Sanders”–not because of witness protection, but literally with a sign nailed above his door. Piglet’s grandfather was Trespassers William. That bit of genealogy came from the logical conclusion reached after finding a broken piece of an old wooden sign in his belongings that read only “Trespassers Will…”

Droll humor isn’t your bag? Then how about slapstick? Pooh eats too much honey and subsequently gets stuck in Rabbit’s front door. The ensuing days find Pooh fasting and all the friends in a row (large to small, ending with Small, a beetle relation to someone) pulling Pooh out while Rabbit makes the best of a bad situation by using Pooh’s legs as a towel rack. The scene rivals any Three Stooges film.

Want some nostalgia? Playing Pooh Sticks is a metaphor for any lazy summer day when there was nearly nothing to do–a couple of friends just hanging out watching clouds form, trading some baseball cards, or I guess, being in proximity of each other listening to different I-Pods.

As we age further, we learn of the character’s flaws–their humanity. The sage Owl can’t really spell his own name, but has everyone in the woods convinced he has any answer required. I’d propose that he was modeled after the Beatles guru, Maharishi Yogi, who inspired the song “Fool on the Hill”, but Owl came first.

The terminally insecure Piglet would have been constantly cowering in a corner had it not been for one, rock solid friend–Pooh. There is also the clinically depressed Eeyore. A loner who eats thistles and loses body parts is one to pity, except for the care provided by his neighbors. They act communally, as the model for Habitat for Humanity and provide him with shelter, plus free medical care with a surgical tail reattachment.

Finally, there is the anti-Peter Pan moment when we must accept that the routine changes as we grow up. Christopher Robin, the creator and caretaker of this Kibbutz, has to leave the woods and take the next step in life–kindergarten for him–but any transition will apply.

The hope that is present in all good literature remains because Milne argues with Thomas Wolfe and suggests that one can indeed go home again, get together with old friends, and take up anew. Isn’t that the measure of a true friend–one who can be absent for long periods of time, but nary a heartbeat seems to have skipped upon reuniting?

I am fortunate to have a few such friends and I am fortunate to have spent the entirety of my life with Winnie-the-Pooh. Or, is it Winnie-ther-Pooh? Bear isn’t quite sure.

And Now There Is One -- Repost from "Mesquite Citizen Journal" commemorating the death of Mercury 7 Astronaut Scott Carpenter

By: Terry Donnelly

Oct. 14, 2013

On April 10, 1959 seven men crossed the threshold from total anonymity to face the nation and instantly become the country’s biggest rock stars. That day, an everlasting impression was etched into the life of a thirteen-year-old boy. Seeing the Mercury 7 astronauts being introduced for the first time, none of whom he had ever heard, by an agency, NASA, that was equally obscure, became his first life intersection of fact and fantasy.

Those were the men who would touch our imaginations and take over the roles of science fiction characters Buck Rodgers and Tom Swift. They would be the real life heroes who would conquer outer space and walk on the moon. They did not disappoint. Live television coverage and film footage on the nightly news would replace the fantasy novels with frayed covers and well worn pages now left resting, unused, on my bookshelves.

By necessity these men were of average height and weight–they had to fit into a small capsule to complete their missions–but in my eyes they seemed like giants. Seeing them that day in civilian clothes was soon far outstripped when in later photos they showed up in their space suits. Awesome!

Scott Carpenter has died from stroke complications at 88 leaving John Glenn, oddly enough the oldest of the group, as the sole survivor of America’s pioneer spacemen.

Carpenter was born in Boulder, Colorado on May 1, 1925. I lived in Boulder for 25 years and had a constant reminder of the city’s native son when passing, and often making use of, Scott Carpenter Park on the east side of town. Upon leaving Boulder, he became a military test pilot, as were all seven men, before becoming an astronaut. After a split with NASA, Carpenter became an aquanaut and explored the ocean’s floor in SeaLab II in1965. He remains the only human to witness both. Upon retirement, he returned to Colorado and lived out his years in Vail.

Each of these originals was daring, lively, and possessed a child’s insatiable curiosity. They had to love living life on the edge to face the dangers of pushing the envelope of aviation during the first fifty years of flight, but each had human frailty just the same.

Carpenter made just one trip into space and that came in May 1962 when he successfully orbited the earth three times becoming the second human to do so after Glenn did it ahead of him. Carpenter recalls being anxious looking straight up into space and realizing he was sitting on a Roman candle burning at inferno temperatures propelling him into darkness and uncertainty at warp speeds.

In later years he would speak of overcoming those fears and in doing so, gaining the experience of seeing Earth from space and feeling the weightlessness he called his alpha life accomplishments.

On his trip Carpenter became the first to eat solid food in zero gravity in the form of Space Sticks. I can only imagine them as a first attempt at granola bars.

His humanity showed on the trip when he neglected to turn off an important switch and used up too much of his fuel before reentry. He discovered his error when he started to return to earth and had to manually fly the capsule to its sea landing, missing the intended target by over 200 miles. This error caused much concern as it took nearly an hour to locate him. When finally found, he was serenely floating in his rescue raft with his feet propped up on the sides. He casually offered some of his Space Sticks to those who came to pluck him out of the ocean.

This cockiness and casual attitude got him in as much hot water as he was in salt water. He never got back into NASA’s good graces. Later, he broke his arm in a motorcycle accident that was conveniently used as an excuse by his bosses, and he never flew another mission.

Carpenter may be as famous for his send-off to John Glenn when Glenn became the first to orbit the earth as he was for his own flight. As Glenn was being thrust away from Earth’s gravity, Carpenter wished him “Godspeed John Glenn” as a bon voyage. He didn’t coin the word, but used it because it contained both God and speed–great speed being the primary force needed to break our earthly bonds.

Now it is my turn. Godspeed Scott Carpenter.

Freshman Football in 1964

Football at a Small, Pastoral College; 1964

By: Terry Donnelly

“Show of hands please. How many have voluntarily entered a maximum-security prison to play a game?”

“I have! I have!” That’s me waving my arms wildly.

About 30 of my Olivet College freshman teammates and I did just that in September of 1964. The Michigan Intercollegiate Athletic Association (MIAA), the oldest athletic conference west of the Appalachians, the conference that boasted Michigan State University as a member until 1948 when it jumped ship and joined the Big Ten Conference, had no other schools with a freshman only football team. Olivet had to find competition on its own and they did that by agreeing to play prison teams.

Our coaches found Jackson Prison, the maximum-security facility willing to pit its inmates’ skills against those of a bunch of 17 and 18 year olds. So too was Ionia State Prison, a medium security prison, and more on our level, Cassidy Lake Reform School. We played six games, two times against each prison team. Jackson and Ionia were both away games for us. The inmates couldn’t get weekend passes to come to our field. Does that go without saying?

The authorities did let the Cassidy Lake boys come to us, so we had one at home.

Our first game at Jackson Prison was the most memorable. Rattled to his soul was this 17-year-old, brand new, college freshman.

“How is it possible they are sending us into a maximum-security prison to play football? Don’t prisoners make knives out of chicken bones and stale bread sticks? I’m sure this isn’t safe.”

Our treatment upon arrival didn’t make the issue any easier. After we got off the bus, we had to take our uniforms and gear bags into a holding cell, be locked in, and dump everything out on the floor to be inspected, detected, and possibly rejected by a stony faced, all business, Bluto clone, jail guard. Then we had to pack up and do it again for a second security guard who acted even more stoic. I think this second one inspired Hannibal Lecter in the movies.

Nightmares ensued.

The team blamed the double scrutiny on one of our quarterbacks. He was a star from a Detroit tech school and brought a strong throwing arm to our team. He also brought an address book of acquaintances that included several prior Motown neighbors residing within the walls. As we entered the facility, more than one inmate whistled and called out to him by name, trying to get his attention. He meekly waved back. We all went about our business, but not before logging the information that Bobby had “connections”  into our memory banks, in the event we needed protection or issues settled in the future.

After we finally were allowed into the locker room and got our buttons buttoned, snaps snapped, and laces laced and tied, we headed out to the gridiron. The playing field was in the middle of the prison grounds and had bleachers. It was a privilege for the inmates to attend the games and they bet cigarettes on the outcome. Most bet on us, so we felt we owed them a good effort. It was even more of a privilege to be on the team, so they played tough but by the rules–for the most part.

When the game finally got started we all were a bit nervous. Not only were the inmates watching, the coaches had eagle eyes on us to see if anyone could qualify to be moved up to the varsity team and escape the cycle of jail-bound road trips. At that point it seemed like the competition of other MIAA college teams would be a tad easier than what we were facing on this stark and Spartan field. 

Yours truly was the kicker, so I’d be the first to touch the ball on the inaugural play of our team’s journey through four years of college football. I felt the enormity of the situation. Translated: I thought I was going to throw up. Coach Cutler informed me that one of the players was a former Michigan State standout running back who had gotten in trouble and would be doing the “Jailhouse Rock” for a number of years here in Jackson Prison.

He casually suggested that I avoid kicking the ball to number 24.

As I stood on the field my instincts took over. I counted the players–five to my left and five to my right, plus myself; to be sure there were eleven. I raised my arm indicating that I was satisfied we had the correct number of players on the field and that I was ready to start the game. I heard the referee’s whistle indicating he was ready for action too. I turned my attention to the football and stared intently at the lower third of the pigskin teed up ten yards ahead of me.

All football players get nervous before every game, but all of that melts away after the first good hit–it acts like a slap across the face from an insulted date.

I started my approach toward the ball at a trot. I was what was soon to become an obsolete icon. I kicked the ball with my toes from directly behind the ball. My right shoe had a square toe. The soccer style, sidewinder kickers who use the instep of their foot to smite the ball rather than toes, would soon put us straight on kickers out of business. They could get the ball airborne quicker and most could kick it farther. I don’t blame coaches for getting on the side kicking bandwagon. Michigan State had a straight on kicker from Hawaii who could make a fist with his toes and kicked barefooted. The Detroit Lions professional team had a straight on kicker, Tom Dempsey, who had a deformed stump for a right foot that fit into a special shoe that looked like the business end of a nine-pound sledgehammer. He could kick it a mile. He held the National Football League record for field goals at 63 yards for a number of years, and George Blanda kicked field goals and extra points for the Chicago Bears and Oakland Raiders until he was about 100 years old. Some of us were characters even if inferior to the soccer-type guys.

Upon my eventual arrival at the teed up, rich brown, leather quasi orb, I swung my leg forward and heard the satisfying thud I’ll never forget. The sound is permanently ingrained in my memory from thousands of rehearsals and game-time, live action kicks. Naturally, I sliced the ball, much like many of my golf shots, and none other than the once regaled Saturday afternoon standout, number 24, received my kick-off.

He effortlessly began his journey back toward our end of the field, gaining speed with every step. All eleven payers whom I had just counted lined up across the field, including me, tried to do our part in this game of strength, speed, and deception by tackling him to the ground. We failed–miserably. My shot at him ended with him hitting my helmet with his knee. He swiveled his hips past the rest of our squad and sauntered into the end zone. He scored a touchdown against us on our very first collegiate play. My first game lasted just that one play. Any details of this game I have beyond that knee-to-helmet instant were gleaned from teammates. My next memory is riding on the bus back to campus. We lost that game, but were proud to go back three weeks later with two more games under our belts, less awestruck, much more sophisticated after nearly a month as seasoned college men, and win the return match.

The next Friday we traveled to the western side of Michigan to the Ionia State Prison. Even though the security level there was yellow to Jackson’s red, the setting was even more daunting. We were ushered directly into the locker area, which made for less stress than the double gear check to which we had been subjected the week before. But, seeing the field was a shock. It was enclosed inside 15-foot high, cement block walls that rendered an area not much larger than that needed for a 100 yd x 60 yd. football field. There were no spectators but for the armed guards on top of the brick wall surrounding the field. All the anxiousness we felt in Jackson came rushing back with the sight of automatic guns in the hands of, once again, stony faced, all business, grim looking prison guards.

Any attempt at a field goal or extra point on this field had to be kicked in the direction of the one goal post that stood in the north end zone. The south zone had a goal post painted on the bricks, as there was not enough room to erect a standard goal post at both ends. Any kick would have bounced off the wall at the end of the field like an oblong pinball.

We lost our second game at Iona too. The bus trips back to campus were not fun. On the first one I was still in a daze and had the headache from hell after playing only one play. The second was spent in contemplation about whether or not we were ever going to win a game. The games themselves weren’t a lot of fun either and I began to reconsider my choice to play college level football at all.

…………………………

I graduated from a Class A high school the previous June. My high school had a much larger student population than Olivet’s enrollment of just under 900 students. I was not a super star player, just one who loved to bang heads around and enjoy the camaraderie of teammates who could get excited and focused as all get out on Wednesday about an impending game on Saturday. Being on a team was fun because of the people surrounding you.

I incorrectly figured that being from a big high school, going to a small college would qualify me to be a top dog on the smaller team. I have never been more mistaken about anything in my life–before or since.

When I arrived on campus for early practice two weeks before classes started, only freshmen were there for the first two days. My sense of superiority was already beginning to wane when I began talking to all-conference guards, an all-state quarterback, several first and second team all this-and-that’s from both the Detroit and Chicago areas, farm boys who had amassed great strength by effortlessly hoisting bales of hay all their lives, and the occasional just plain tough guy who loved knocking heads way more than I did.

As we sat around in the first of many bull sessions on Sunday evening before our first practice, scheduled for six a.m. Monday, discussing all these honors, it eventually came to my turn.

I said, “I was second team all-school last year in Kalamazoo.“

I was shocked when no one laughed at my joke. They thought I was serious. I was, but I thought it was funny too. There isn’t much that is funny about preseason football camp.

Just as I was getting comfortable with my freshmen mates, the upperclassmen started to show up. In the fall of 1964 Olivet College boasted the heaviest line average in the state of Michigan. Olivet is what eventually became a Division III college. That is small! In 1964 there were no such division distinctions, but that is the brand we hold today with a student population just over 1,000. We were the smallest college in our conference and our line was bigger than either of the behemoths, Michigan State and the University of Michigan.

Anyway, this small school had both offensive and defensive lines that seemed to stretch from horizon to horizon, and darken the sun when standing broad shoulder to broader shoulder. These guys were huge! One guy was over three hundred pounds and ended up being drafted into both the National Football League by Papa Bear George Halas himself, and the American Football League Boston Patriots. Being from the East Coast, George chose Boston (now New England).

Another was a 245-pound California surfer who looked tan, lean, and ready to eat nails. Yet another had a size eight plus head. I could put my big head into his special order football helmet and spin it around. Another guy was six foot six inches tall, weighed 280 pounds, and was in such exquisite condition that he looked skinny. My size thirteen shoes and two hundred pound girth didn’t even cause a ripple of interest.

As I watched them come back onto campus after our first two days of practice, I just stood in awe as one then another would first darken the door opening, come into the dorm, and deposit their bags. When the senior quarterback finally arrived with a nose that had more twists and turns in it than Lombard Street in San Francisco, I began to wonder if there were a bus going back to Kalamazoo any time soon.

I was even more in awe the next day when I saw them in full football gear. It took rotating my head both from side to side and up and down to take in the entirety of our all-MIAA, 320-pound, offensive and defensive lineman, who would, starting the next season, be playing on Sundays on television for the next dozen years. He was monstrous! For a seventeen-year-old freshman, the sight was frightening. I thought about my mother for the first time in weeks.

The football team was on campus two full weeks before anyone else showed up. We were scheduled to have three practices a day and two meals. As stated above, the first one was at six a.m., the second for three hours starting at 11 o’clock, then an evening practice under the lights at dusk when it was cooler. Wedged between the three were two training table meals. This didn’t sound right to me. I was thinking more on the lines of at least three meals and two practices, but fortunately, thought better of voicing my opinion.

I was a bit skinny for football at 180 pounds when I graduated from high school. After making the decision to play in college, I figured I better put on some weight. I began to drink a powdered supplement called Tiger’s Milk and work out on my own. I ran and lifted weights. I practiced a couple hours every day kicking the two old, scuffed up footballs my high school coach had given me. I hoped to be kicking shiny, brand new Rawlings specials in games that fall.

Mostly I practiced kicking the ball alone by kicking from a tee. That was fine for kicking off, but kicking out of the hold of a quarterback for extra points and field goals was different. I talked my girlfriend into holding the ball for me. It took a week for her to trust that I wasn’t going to kick her hand and that flinching didn’t help one bit. It was a bit like a Charlie Brown and Lucy moment in reverse. I think she really would have preferred to pull the ball away just as I was about to kick it. 

She finally got the hang of it, but wasn’t too thrilled about spending two or three July and August hours each day on the school lot chasing after one or another of my old footballs. So, I spent most of my practice time in solitary drill and contemplation. 

All in all during the summer after my high school graduation, I gained 20 pounds. I was now at a respectable six foot two inches tall and 200 pounds. My waist measurement was 33 inches. I could run a mile in under nine minutes, which is not in anybody’s record book but my own. I felt invincible–until I started to meet the biggest, toughest looking individuals I had ever seen. To make matters worse, they were all in a three-point football stance in a row across the line from the football, which was resting innocently enough on the practice field, about to devour me as a freshman strawberry tort.

Then, when I heard that I was only going to be fed twice a day and was to practice football with these behemoths three times every day for two weeks, it was a real blow to my system. It was nearly a deal breaker.

I have to give the cooks credit. They really knew how to feed us. During our two-week encampment, I went from my paltry 200 pounds to 215. I kept my 33-inch waist and loved every pound. I thought I surely was getting close to looking like those other boys on the team.

…………………………

Football players can get serious about playing a game, but about not a lot else. The older guys were mostly 21 years old and could go into the local bars. A couple of the guys had been in the military and were really old, like 23! The coaches didn’t condone it, but I doubt they had a lot of say-so in what those guys did when not on the field.

A favorite hangout was a bar just outside a neighboring town. The bar was named The Green Top. It had a green shingle roof–clever. This wasn’t the college bar where students were the majority of clients. The patrons here were mostly farmers local to the area. When school was in session a handful of my new, big friends would occasionally venture in to see if there was any mischief to stir up. There usually was. But, by now they were a known commodity and when they came crashing in, the clatter and din of the normal bar atmosphere dulled as no one wanted to get the boys riled up and start any sort of melee. That had been done on several other occasions and the result was usually broken furniture and the police shutting off the lights.

On the Saturday night that the three-a-day practices mercifully ended, one of the older players found me and invited me to go with some of the team for an evening of a few beers. I was only seventeen, way under the legal drinking age, but he assured me that there would be no questions asked if I were with them.

Craning my neck upward to speak to him, I felt compelled to agree. I really did think it would be fun.

The method of their madness in inviting me was that they knew they would not be able to start any mayhem because none of the patrons in the bar would take their bait. So, they planned on sending me in as a front man. It turned out I got the nod to accompany them, not because I was the coolest, most talented frosh player, but because I was the smallest player they could find hanging around the dorm.

“What am I supposed to do?” I queried.

“It’s easy. Just go in, walk up to the bar and chug down of one of the farmer’s beers.”

“Are you kidding?”

“No. I don’t think so. It’ll be great. You drink his beer. He gets pissed and wants to fight you. Then we come rushing in and we all get to have some fun.”

I really couldn’t see an up side in this for me other than getting a free beer. I could only think of two scenes possibly playing out. The first was that when I drank the farmer’s beer and got him pissed at me, all my football buddies would stay outside, looking in the windows, laughing their asses off because I’d get the snot beat out of me as a sort of team initiation. The second was that they would all come in and start fights with everyone in the bar and we’d all end up in jail.

What actually transpired was something to behold.

I screwed up my courage and walked into the bar alone. Trying not to look seventeen and in awe of being inside a dive tavern for the first time. I went straight to the bar. There were several locals there with many more at tables with wives and dates listening and dancing to the live band on the stage. Others were playing pool. They all were enjoying their Saturday night out.

I thought if I hesitated I wouldn’t be able to accomplish my mission. So, I nudged past the biggest beer drinker at the bar (Why not?) and took a long swig out of his icy cold mug. The look on his face was priceless.

“What the…?”

To my everlasting joy, just then the seven other players came rushing into the bar making quite a clatter. The farmer looked away, freezing in time with his huge, work callused fist drawn back in preparation for slugging me. He turned his attention to the ruckus going on in front of the stage.

The six-foot-six, “skinny”, 280 pounder grabbed the microphone from the lead singer and announced to everyone that he wanted the band to play the song “Money”. My team liked it as a theme song because to them it meant: “here comes trouble, hide all your money.”

“Money” is an old Motown song, the company’s first hit single, and staple of every bar band in Michigan, if not the whole country. So, I think the leader lied when he responded that the band did not know the song and could not comply.

“Play ‘Money’ or we’ll break all your fucking instruments!”

I guess the bandleader believed him and whether or not they really knew the song, the band started in with the lead guitar riff to the tune. I never got to hear if they knew any of the words or not because my teammates decided the rendition wasn’t good enough and unplugged the amp cords out of two of the guitars.

The bar din suddenly went silent–silent as being deep in a cave–silent as being in a law school library.

That act immediately got the locals up and a melee ensued. I just watched as no one was paying any attention to me any longer. I worked my way over to the door, and after a few minutes of mayhem, the players suddenly just stopped the fracas and left the building. I was right in front of them. We got into the cars and roared away, leaving the bar in a mess.

That was not my finest moment as a human being. The local bar patrons were doing nothing to deserve the assault. But, the football lineman got a huge adrenalin rush and laughed all the way back to campus. I had passed my loyalty test and was, from then on, exempt from a lot of the hazing some of the other players got during practice and especially at training table meals.

Freshmen had to fetch drink refills and carry trays of dirty dishes back to the kitchen after each meal. I still had to do that, but, occasionally, one or two had to stand and sing their high school fight song and then be criticized for still thinking like a high schooler. The team would then stand and sing the college fight song, have a good laugh and go back to devouring plates and plates of food. I could sing a little and wouldn’t have minded, but I never had to do a solo.

The practices were a grind. The early morning practice consisted of drills and conditioning activities. We ran laps, drilled on calisthenics, and did isometric exercises. One isometric drill was specific to neck strength. We would pair up and one player would get down on all fours in front of the other. The standing player would press down on the back of the kneeling player's helmet for about thirty seconds while the other forced his head back against the pressure. The coach’s whistle would end this push/pull standoff. Then the stander would interlace his fingers and cup his hands upward. The exerciser would put his chin in the cupped hands and each would force against the other as mightily as they could with hands being forced upward and chin down. I could feel every muscle, tendon, and ligament in my neck tighten and strain during the drill and then relax when the pressure was called to a halt. We would then reverse positions and do it again, and again, and again.

When I started the two-week run, I wore a size 16-inch shirt collar. When early practice was over my shirt collars were getting pretty snug. By the time my freshman year was over, my neck measurement was 17 and a half inches. I had to buy all new dress shirts. That was an issue because we had to wear a coat and tie to dinner after football season was over when we were in the general population again, and on road trips to away games. Another problem was that shirts didn’t often come in size 17 1/2-inch necks. I had to go to the Big and Tall store.

After the morning workout we went to training table breakfast. Food was abundant, varied, and plentiful. We could eat our fill of fruits, vegetables, carbohydrates, and protein. Oddly, no milk was available. The thinking was that milk left a film in your mouth and would make you thirsty during heavy practice–we called it cottonmouth. This was before Gatorade, so we drank gallons of fruit punch.

I should clarify here that cottonmouth would make you thirstier as the coaches’ thinking included not letting us drink water for fear of players getting sick during practice–how about heat stroke instead? Or, dehydration? That, along with another big change in healthy training habits not done today, was the mostly logical idea that while working so hard and sweating we would lose too much salt from our bodies. So, we were to eat several pills the size of three stacked quarters that were pure salt. They weren't a lot smaller than the salt-licks in a every cow barn. It is a wonder none of us went into shock. No one did, but that practice is long gone from the more modern game.

After breakfast and a rest, we went back out for about three hours of regular football practice. We worked on technique for our positions and worked on plays as a unit. The main duty of the freshman team was to be tackling dummies for the varsity. We were to give a good battle, but not enough to get anyone on the A-team hurt. It didn’t much matter what happened to us.

One of our plays called for everyone to come running in one direction around one end of the line or the other. It was simply “student-body-left” or “student-body-right” in the huddle. I was stationed in the outside defensive linebacker position. The play was called and when I recognized it, I was to come across the line of scrimmage and was supposed to hold my ground against 10 other players so that someone else could tackle the lonely halfback carrying the ball–theoretically, now defenseless with me corralling the other 10/11ths of the team. The defensive strategy never worked. That’s why the play was so good. I’d get one guy, two on a really good day, but that still left eight or nine to block for the runner.

On one occasion it had been raining and the field was muddy. It was November, late in the season, and getting cold and dark as we were winding down practice. I took my stance and knew full well student-body-right was coming my way as soon as the ball was snapped. I hurried to get into my spot so that I could get credit for trying and not running to the bench when the mass of humanity headed my way. As I took my first step I slipped in the slop and fell face forward into the mud. The offensive line had just as much trouble with traction, and they began falling like dominoes over my downed body. By the end I had about seven guys on top of me and the halfback had been tackled behind the scrimmage line for a loss of five yards.

Freshman Coach Cutler came running to me looking like he was about to hug me. He didn’t, maybe because I was one big block of mud, but he was elated with my performance.

Slapping my helmet enough to make my ears ring and pounding on my shoulder pads he exclaimed, “Donnelly! Great job. That’s the way to defend that sweep. Don’t let those sissy offensive players get the better of you!” And on and on. 

Now that I think about it he may not have said "sissy", but that will do for now.

I didn’t have the heart to tell him I slipped and fell–just couldn’t do it. He was too happy. I was so caked with mud that I had to go into the shower with my uniform on to rinse as much mud away as I could enabling me to find my snaps, buttons, and laces so I could be freed from my football pads.

Exhausted after the rigorous practice, we all went in for the second training table of similar fare as breakfast. There was much less hazing and horseplay. Following lunch was another, longer rest period where a lot of us napped, read, or played cards, but nothing too strenuous. I finished a book of John O’Hara’s short stories during that time.

About dusk we would once again assemble, but this time in helmets, tee shirts, gym shorts, and our football cleats for a special team practice. It is etched in stone, a true commandment, that when on a football field, whether in full pads or not, one must wear one’s helmet. One could choose to be naked, but for the ever-present helmet atop one's bean. These practices were a lot of fun as we wound down from the grueling day. The other two practices were held in an empty lot next to the playing field, but the evening practice was under the lights on the real McCoy–enchanting!

I wanted to fill the duties of place kicker on the team. I knew I wasn’t as good a player as the others, but I was pretty adept at kicking. First, I needed to make the team and then the specialists would be chosen. I had kicked the two scuffed up old balls around the playground at home all summer. Now, I had someone to hold for me who didn’t flinch, and those huge teammates to block while I tried to score points for the team with a field goal or an extra point after a touchdown.  We practiced pass routes, slow motion blocking assignments, and kickoff and punt returns too. But, I felt like the whole practice was staged solely for me to kick the ball.

I must admit that even though I had been playing organized football since fourth grade, I learned more about the game and how to play it in those two weeks than all the rest combined. By the time three-a-days were over, football was fun again. Plus, as of Sunday there would be coeds on campus. I had a definite edge on the other freshmen because I knew my around campus and I was a lean, mean defensive linebacker and kicker to boot.

…………………………

The freshmen Fighting Comets of Olivet College (Yes, we were Comets. How fierce is a comet you may ask? Well, I think they generate a lot of heat and that million-mile tail can do some real damage!) finally won their first game at Cassidy Lake Reform School. These were kids our age and younger who had gotten in trouble and were assigned by the court to this live-in facility. Not only was this a more relaxed atmosphere, we were getting better and better as a team as the weeks went by.

We returned to both Jackson Prison and to Ionia Prison and won games there.

Our final game was a return match with the Cassidy Lake team. This was a minimum-security facility and none of the boys had done anything too heinous, so they were allowed to come play at our field. We finally had a home game.

Our home field was small. It only held a few hundred fans. There were about a dozen rows of bleachers with a press box on the home side and only about five or six rows for the opposing team. I do not recall any time when there was much of an overflow.

The stadium area was smaller, by far, than the field I played in during high school. Reed Field had one truly odd aspect for football fields–it faced east and west. Every other football field I have ever seen is situated from north to south. There is a reason for this. East and west fields have sun problems. With the sun going from east to west across the sky, there are times when the sun would be in the eyes of players on one side and not in the eyes of the other, giving the team looking away from the sun a distinct advantage. On north and south facing fields, there may be sun related problems, but it is equal for both teams. Also, prevailing winds are generally across from west to east. This allowed a punter from, either Alma or Adrian College, I can’t recall which, to punt the ball with the wind, 98 yards. The NCAA record seems to belong to Pat Brady from the University of Nevada, Reno in 1950 at 99 yards, but I remember this one as if it were yesterday. The punter kicked it over or receiver’s head by some 40 yards. My college now boasts a more traditional north/south field in the area where we used to practice and the old field area is gone, replaced by a fine field house, something we never had. Ours was a no frills, block building that held showers and lockers–period. Our weights and training equipment were on a stage in back of the basketball court. I’ll save that story for another time.

Our final freshman game with Cassidy Lake was not much of a contest. We won the game 77 to 7. As the kicker, I played 23 plays in that capacity alone. There were the eleven extra points, the eleven kick-offs after the touchdowns, and one kick to start the second half. That many plays by a kicker is unheard of.

We had worked hard, learned a lot about football, and were now ready to join our big upperclassmen teammates for the final two games of the varsity season.

The season ended in November about the time of my mud caked slip and ensuing success in defending the “student body right” play during practice. I then joined my freshman class in the regular hum of college life. I was glad that football was over so I could participate more in normal college functions and not be tied up with curfews and travel to away games on Fridays or Saturdays.

That thought should have been an omen for me. There were several others that foreshadowed the end of my football career. One was that I never became a first-string player. Those who played for fun played flag football with the fraternities. Another was the fact that the other players thought it a bit strange that I was reading John O’Hara instead of participating in bull sessions between practices. I wasn’t a square peg trying to fit into a round hole, but close.

None of that withstanding, when sophomore year rolled around I was excited to go back to three-a-day practices and twice daily meals. I was no longer a freshman tackling dummy. I was going back as a known commodity and would be treated more respectfully–or so I thought.

When we were freshmen we treated the upperclassmen with respect. I expected the same from this new crop of young players. Once again, I made a poor assumption about a football situation. Early on during August practice I lined up across from a good sized youngster with the name “Tero” written across his helmet on white first-aid tape. We all had our names on our helmets so the coaches could yell at us without any confusion about who was being chastised.

Anyway, I lined up across from him and made some snide remark about his status as slop-bucket runner and as soon as the whistle blew and the drill began, I found myself on my back looking into the sky around the smiling face of Gustav Tero. Gus and I became good friends and fraternity brothers later that year, but what I didn’t see coming was this South Chicago all-star who wasn’t at all excited about playing prison teams and wanted to be a factor in Saturday games from the beginning. It turned out that Gus was the role model for his younger brother, Laurence. Laurence came into fame several years later and everyone called him “Mister” as in “Mr. T”. I had insulted Mr. T’s older brother and I was the fool to be pitied.

I played through both sophomore and junior years mostly because I didn’t know what to do with my fall afternoons if they were not spent on a football field. When senior year arrived, I went to early practice without a lot of conviction. After three days, I handed my uniform over to Gary, the laundry manager, informed the coach that I wouldn’t be playing this year, and headed out the door. I walked directly across the street that was U.S. Highway 27. I stuck out my thumb. I had played my last football game and was hitchhiking to Ann Arbor and the University of Michigan to see if I could catch up with a woman I had been thinking about.

Follow-up to the MLK "I Have a Dream" Celebration - Repost from Mesquite Citizen Journal, Sept. 16, 2013

Remembering Iconic Civil Rights Moments

By: Terry Donnelly

September 16, 2013

Less than three weeks ago we, as a nation, commemorated the 50^th anniversary of the March on Washington and celebrated Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech. Unfortunately, that August day with a quarter million or more people on the Washington D.C. mall didn’t end the fight for integration and equality.

In fact, the march and the speech did little more than provide inspiration.

Now, less than three weeks after our celebration of the Southern Christian Leadership Council’s model of organization and Dr. King’s mastery of the spoken word, it is time to revisit that era for another golden anniversary.

This scene is not the Federal Mall, but a stone place of worship in the black section of Birmingham, Alabama–one of the iconic cities of segregation and hatred in the old Confederacy. On Sunday, September 15, 1963, four young girls; 11 year-old Denise McNair and three 14 year-olds, Carole Robertson, Addie Mae Collins, and Cynthia Wesley were in the basement of the 16^th Street Baptist Church taking a break after Sunday School when a bomb planted by the Ku Klux Klan exploded. The blast ripped apart the church and took the four little girls’ lives. Dozens more were injured and later that same day while citizens were protesting the bombing; two more black children were shot and killed. Police shot Johnny Robinson, 16, and two white teens shot Virgil Ware, 13.

Klan related bombings in Birmingham were so common it was dubbed “Bombingham”.

There are reasons for one or another of the thousands of these criminal acts to withstand the test of time and become a symbol of the cause for which it is remembered. The reason for this particular act of terror to stand out is surely the fact that these four girls were absolutely free from any guilt. They were young, innocent, with their entire lives ahead of them. They were killed solely because of the color of their skin.

Former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was eight at the time and lived in Birmingham. She often speaks of her friendship with Denise McNair. Her father was a minister and his church was about two miles away. The bombing could have just as easily been in his church and we could be remembering Dr. Rice for being a child martyr rather than National Security Advisor and Secretary of State–we’ll never know what Carole, Addie Mae, Denise, and Cynthia may have become.

The summer of 1963 was the first time any concentrated efforts were made to get masses of black citizens registered to vote. So few Black Mississippians were franchised, no one knew if they were interested or not. The Student Nonviolent

Coordinating Committee (SNCC) organized a mock Freedom Vote. These local organizers along with help from a handful of students from Stanford and Yale (called “outside agitators” by the white locals) worked to bring together as many black citizens as possible for a trial vote.

The success was overwhelming. Tens of thousands of potential black voters filled out a simple registration form and voted for a slate of candidates to run for office in a mock election.

The experiment in Mississippi was so successful that SNCC organized groups of college students to travel from their homes and to try to legally register voters across the south in what became Freedom Summer of 1964. Along with the Summer Community Organization and Political Education (SCOPE), organized by comedian Dick Gregory from a base in Chicago, they did it again in 1965.

The killings weren’t over. On June 21, 1964 three SNCC registration volunteers; James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner, were arrested for speeding on their way to investigate the burning of a church. Police detained them for several hours and then, under cover of darkness; the boys were delivered to the Klan. It took until August 4, over six weeks, for citizen search parties to locate their bodies.

March 7, 1964 became “Bloody Sunday” when an MLK lead group tried to march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama to show support for the voter registration efforts. Dallas County Sheriff Jim Clark and his deputies stopped the marchers on the Edmund Pettus Bridge. Clark distinguished himself by always wearing a button on his uniform that read “Never”–meaning never to segregation. The group was beaten and dispersed. The march finally happened, with the assistance of a federal ruling, five months later.

President Lyndon Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act on July 2, 1964 and the 1965 Voting Rights Act on August 16 the next year.

Any legal restraints to equalize voting rights had been felled. But, as we see today, states are still trying to keep certain voters away from the polls. This is why we need to keep these incidences clear and in the front of our minds so the American spirit of inclusion with its basic tenet of everyone having the right to vote is maintained.

Terry Donnelly is a retired teacher and the author of First You Hear Thunder; historical fiction retelling events and history of the civil rights movement, and Unfinished; a novel focused on a photojournalist’s coming of age and living life on the edge. Order both in either print or e-book format from Amazon.com. For more of Terry’s writings, both opinion and fiction, go to www.firstyouhearthunder.blogspot.com.