Greetings!
I hope you had a great weekend. You’ll find out what I did in this week’s story above or below.
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and now…Where did the Time Go?
It’s 5:30 AM and I’m on a Southwest 737 pushing back from the gate at the Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport. I’m booked on a 7:30 AM flight but overestimate how long it takes me to drive from Flagstaff to Phoenix. On a side note, on that two-hour drive, I pass the largest roadkill I’ve ever seen. A horse. I guess only in the Arizona desert. In my hunt for coffee after getting through TSA, I notice the early Nashville flight is boarding. I go to the counter and ask if there is room on the earlier one and there is. Mercifully, the flight is half-filled. I have a preferred seat for writing, right side window. Nobody can bump my right arm. The middle seat is blessedly empty.
I’ve just spent the weekend with two old friends. Old, in that I’ve known them for a long time. Old, in that we’re all old now.
Guy Wilson has been my friend the longest. Well, maybe not as my friend, but because we went to the same church, I’ve known him the longest. He is a year younger. We carpooled my senior year of high school and played football together for two years. We also worked together at Calvary Church Christian School. Daycare supervisors. You read about this in my story As the Tables Turn. Guy Wilson is Coach Wilson.
Rob Green was the first friendly face I found as a freshman in high school. We met just before summer football practice. He attended this Jr/Sr high school the year before, so he knew everyone. He introduced me to everyone. Still, we were lowly freshmen so thankfully we had the size for football.
Well Rob did anyway. He was much taller, lanky and a little clumsy. We played on the JV team for Coach Joaquin. The Varsity was coached by Coach Cupp. Varsity sucked ass. They rarely won. JV on the other hand was a scrappy little team.
California CIF rules required any transfer kids to stay off varsity for one season. So, we had some juniors and one senior from public school on the JV team that would have been starters on the varsity. We often held our own when we scrimmaged the varsity. That season we won most of our games.
Rob and I both returned our sophomore year and again were on JV. Coach Joaquin moved up to varsity to coach under Coach Cupp. The season started great. We lost our first two games, but Rob and I were beasts. We looked forward to a full season of ass whippings.
Until Monday’s practice when Rob and I and Scott Johnson got pulled up to varsity. Now we were the rookies. I didn’t feel welcome. Even less so when I blocked starting linebacker Will Travis in a scrimmage and broke his shoulder. But by then end of the season, Rob and I were starters.
Junior year was going to be great. Our new Iranian teammates would make their debut. My best friend Buzz transferred from public school and would play. He was huge. As tall as Rob, but a hell of a lot bigger. It was Buzz at center and me at left guard. Rob played on the defensive line. And we were a force. We didn’t make the playoffs but knew our senior year we would be ready.
Our team, junior year. That’s Rob on the top left, #74. I’m in the middle, #78. Buzz “Terror” Bolton is on the far right, #77. Coach Cupp is on his left.
Until that was future was derailed by Dr. Bahnsen. No, he wasn’t an evil scientist, just a theologian and ethicist brought in to teach Bible 3 and 4 to the upper class. And he was no joke. Bible 3 went from the easy A class to the reason Buzz left in December to go back to public school. We were assigned long essays and required to memorize large sections of bible verses and apostle’s creeds and passages from books. I failed it my junior year and had to go to summer school at the end of my senior year to get my diploma. Sort of like a diabolical Vacation Bible School, I guess.
Senior year finally arrived. We had new uniforms, more organization, and a sense of anticipation. Since Buzz was gone, Guy moved to guard and Rob stayed mostly on the defense. His hand and foot speed were dangerous. He could make linemen miss blocks and look foolish. Then he made you pay for it by taking your quarterback’s head off. Several rising juniors had talent, and we started strong. We came close to finally beating the Buckley School, but a holding penalty took the go-ahead touchdown off the board and broke our spirit. You may remember the Buckley School as the one attended by Michael Jackson’s daughter Paris. We had a two-game winning streak going into the playoffs and thought we had a chance of going far.
Senior year. Guy is on the top left, #60. Rob is in the middle, #74. I’m on bottom left, #50.
Sadly, we lost all three of our last games, our league games. After our last loss, 22-0 to Liberty Christian, Rob and I sat on the grass at Mile Square Park, listening to the coach drone on some bullshit about trying harder next season. Guy would have that season. He was a rising senior. Rob and I silently contemplated life after football.
Rob and I never played again. Guy went on to have a great senior year, played a year in college, and himself became a high school football coach and history teacher. He is now semi-retired, starting his Substack and hopefully, as a result of me busting his balls all weekend, will tell his stories. Rob does some secret shit that he gives vague clues to so I know it must either be important and classified, or non-existent.
Earlier this year, Guy asked if I would come out to Flagstaff to celebrate his 60th birthday. The way he said it told me it was very important and so I agreed. I would not make his actual birthday. Barb’s is that same weekend and she’s also turning 60 so no coin toss necessary. We agree on the weekend of July 11. Rob will be there too. He still lives in California, so he’ll drive out.
On the flight out there last Friday, I admit I was a little nervous. I’ve seen Guy a few times over the past few years when he lived in Florida. I’ve only seen Rob once since high school, back in 2009, I think. Rob and Guy have remained very close friends over the years. I wondered if I’d feel like a third wheel. What would we have in common after all these years?
I land in Phoenix at 2:30 and drive the two-hour journey in 100+ degree heat. As I drive up the mountains, the temps drop into the 80s. Then it gets greener, and the scrub brush gets taller. Then, you blink, and the pines appear. This is Flagstaff. I haven’t been here in 34 years or so.
I park my car and walk into the lobby of the Hampton Inn. The digital key is active, so I walk in and head to the elevator. Then someone shouts.
“Hey, over here!”
I turn around and see two large old men rising slowly from the couches. It’s Guy and Rob. We hug and tell each other how good we look and how good it is to see each other even though it’s evident to all of us that we are no longer those vibrant, strong, forces to be reckoned with we used to be. But I knew when I hugged those guys that they were the same guys I hugged after games. We had aged and we had changed, but we were still the same.
Rob, Guy, and me. Guy is the only one who still has hair.
Guy’s wife drove us all to dinner. Since Guy and Rob and I are of California lineage, and I’ve told them Tennessee Mexican food is caca, they take me to their favorite place. I have a carne asada burrito that is so good it makes me a bit emotional.
I always wondered why, when I get upgraded to a suite at Hilton, it has a couch and coffee table and end chairs. Who would ever entertain guests in a hotel room?
Turns out I would. I got the sense Guy’s wife didn’t want three old men telling loud stories until 3AM at his house so we went up to my room and hung out until, jetlagged, I tapped out. Rob took Guy home and I slept in until 4AM. I wrote for a few hours then Rob picked up Guy and we went to breakfast. We drove out to Guy’s house and spent the day telling stories. Lots of them. Guy has two big dogs. He kept asking me if I’m ok with big dogs. I have two. Yes, I’m good. He was insistent. I told him dogs are fine. Then I wondered if it was because his dogs would bite. I saw his big dog, Dinsdale, a mastiff. Now I’ve always felt a sixth sense and deep connection to animals, but particularly to dogs and cats. And the occasional lemur. I was hoping it would work with his dog.
Guy instructed me to sit in the recliner and then he let Dinsdale in. He was huge, his head the size of a small seedless watermelon. Slobber drooled off his jowls. He slowly walked toward me. I looked at him softly. I was hoping he could read my mind telling him he’s a good boy.
He put his big head on my hands, and I rubbed his neck and shoulders. He seemed to relax. But damn that head was a big one. And there was a big jaw attached to it. He walked away and then returned. We repeated the ritual. On the third time, he seemed friendlier. This is when I expected the worst. He would nuzzle me and then bite my face. I wonder what I’d look like without a nose.
But he was fine after that. We talked all afternoon, then went out to a sports bar for one last bit of unhealthy food and some bourbon. I headed back to the hotel at 7 after we shared a long hug and vowed to do this again soon.
And, as I always do after telling a tale of some adventure that interests only me, I’ll share what I learned.
The Power of Gratitude. Guy isn’t in the best of health. It prevents him from doing what he loves most: coaching football and leading young men. I couldn’t attend his real birthday, but Rob did. Coach Wilson’s former players, many of them now fathers of young men, gave him many tributes. I could still see the emotion in his eyes and hear it in his voice when he told me. It lifted his spirits. I could feel it. And I could see that if there was anything Guy would want, it would to be back on the sideline.
Lesson learned: If you have something nice to say to someone, say it now. If someone has helped you grow personally and professionally, let them know. And especially, for those of you who have someone whose changed your life for the better, Let THEM KNOW. You may have no idea how bad they need to hear it.
Our Memory is Shared Only with Us: If you’ve ever played sports, performed in front of a group, or did anything that pushed you a little and made you grow, you probably have a linear memory of how it happened. The older I get, the less I think about playing high school football. It seems like it was just the other day, but it was nearly half a century ago. I thought I remembered quite a bit of it. Until I sat down over a few drinks with Guy and Rob and we started telling football stories.
While many of our stories linked up with each other’s recollection, many more didn’t. Some of them I was shocked they couldn’t remember. Even the names of some people. The sequence of events and even the year they took place. The names of some of the best teachers. Well, it wasn’t they couldn’t remember anything, they just remembered what impacted them enough to make it last in their memory until this weekend.
When I realized this, I felt a sense of relief. Spending time with my mom each week makes me hypersensitive to any hints I might be forgetting things.
Guy sees his experience in high school, with us and football, through his lens. Rob and I have done the same. Where we have shared memory, we can now piece in the parts we learned from others. I left with a much better recollection of those football games. I think if we had a few more days, we might discover far more.
And one last interesting observation. When I went overseas to Australia in 1984, Guy and Rob recorded a letter on a cassette tape to me. I was so happy to hear from them since there was no email and texting. It was all letters and very expensive phone calls. On the tape, they talked and joked and laughed and even recorded the Monty Python classic The Penis Song. When I told them this weekend how much that meant to me, they couldn’t remember sending it. HOW CAN YOU FORGET YOU SENT YOUR FRIEND A CASSETTE TAPE OF YOU PLAYING HIM THE PENIS SONG?
And then I remembered my memory is not theirs. But now they can experience my gratitude.
Lesson Learned: Question your memory, not for sanity or viability, but push yourself to remember those key events that shaped you. Then, if possible, find someone who shared or knew of that experience to help you discover more from those events.
And do something that makes someone else happy. You may never know how much it meant to them. Even if it involved having to listen to The Penis Song.
Telling Stories with Storytellers is Like Untangling a Big Wad of Christmas Lights:
You know I’m a storyteller. My preference for introversion means I usually don’t initiate a story, but I’m always happy to tell one.
Guy is a storyteller. A great storyteller. Guy has a strong preference for extraversion which means he’s happy to initiate conversation, or stories, or most anything. And, for you folks who took MBTI with me, he’s an intuitive thinker, with a preference for perceiving. Which means Guy Wilson can take a conversation from a particular football teammate’s name and somehow, we end up trying to figure out what might happen if they started putting people who cut the tags off mattresses into the Colorado SuperMax prison. Then that would turn off into yet another direction.
Rob is also a storyteller. Because he and Guy have been close friends for many years, they share many of their football memories and of life after high school. They have remained close even when Guy moved to Florida and then Arizona. He was with him when he was dealing with one of the craziest ex-wives on the planet, even worse than mine. They have memories and stories. Rob tends to keep Guy focused. Not an easy job.
Then enter me. An introverted storyteller. I tend to start a story, then they take off with it. We talk all weekend through stories. We all tend to look up as we’re remembering and imagining things from the past. I wonder how much of the remembering is imagining.
And I realize now, as my plane is descending into BNA, that in spite of this, there is so much I have missed over the years with my friends. I don’t know how many more times we can do this, but I don’t want to let these guys go into obscurity. I realize I need them. I think they need me. We need each other.
Lesson Learned: Reconnect with Friends. Better yet, don’t allow yourself to become disconnected.
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