Evansville, Indiana
1978
The social pecking order was decided and on a daily basis reinforced in one place during fourth grade. The two most popular kids in the grade were in charge of the lunchtime ritual (regardless of whether they were in Mrs. Johnson's or Mr. Stone's homeroom). From the decisions made by those two most popular, the next popular in rank were also evident. Each day at noon the order was decided during the picking of teams for the daily football game.
Two grades previous, my rank as the newest kid at Perry Heights elementary was near the bottom for the first month, but over time the miracle of genetics had me not only as the tallest in class, but one the earliest picks as well. Within the top third of picks my place was reinforced daily as "above averagely popular". There my position would stay as the tallest, strongest and fastest (although not necessarily very good and thus never being one to pick teams).
In late summer of 1978, just before the start of fourth grade, the Tomlin family moved in across the street with an total of three children, the oldest of whom, Jay, would be in my grade (though in Mr. Stone's group and not with me in the far hipper because she was African-American and thus very interesting Mrs. Johnson's).
Jay was a natural athlete and due to socialization during Little League that summer entered the school year immediately popular. So popular in fact that within two weeks he was regularly chosen to pick a team, replacing the long tenure of Amy Braun who over the summer had become 'girly'. On Jay's coattails I too rose in the ranks, becoming the first round draft pick.
Be it complacency to my place in the order or simply a self-awareness that my football ability was just slightly above mediocre, my new rank confused me. So one mid-October Saturday afternoon while exploring the woods behind the Tomlin house my curiosity became conversation.
Jay's words stuck with me: "Rod, you're fast and you can catch. If you believed in yourself more you'd be a great player." It was then that I decided that football was awesome, Jay was awesome, and maybe I could be awesome too.
We would practice plays every day and argue about his Dallas Cowboys and my Denver Broncos. We also did some studying together and terrorized some of the neighbors as a team. On Halloween we had a course set out so that we could hit all of the houses we knew would be providing well based on my foreknowledge of the neighborhood.
We met on the corner of Brookdale Court and Upper Mount Vernon Road and headed for the wealthier parts of our suburban sprawl. Jay's costume was actually his Little League uniform, showing either Jay's lack of creativity or his family's lack of money. My costume was a clown costume that my mother had sown two year's prior to the annual Bowling League's Boo-lo-rama and then resown down to size showing both my mother's creativy and my family's lack of money.
As we finished with the best houses on Brookdale we headed for the Springdale cul-de-sac, careful to avoid the "freaky" Gertsen home which was handing out apples which certainly hid razor blades. Almost on cue to the odd nature of passing the Gertsens, Jay was suddenly terrified but not from something emanating from the house, but from something from the sky.
Being a neighborhood nestled in the woods but isolated by fields and factories, there were not many woodland creatures other than birds, mostly tiny sparrows and large crows. Had our aviatic attacker been a sparrow, things might have ended differently, but this was not. It was a decidedly large crow that had from above seen Jay's baseball costume and chosen it as the perfect place to land what may have been the largest amount ever of bird crap.
Jay instantly reached up to where the poo had landed on his shoulder, thinking he could quickly wipe off the offending feces. What instead resulted on Jay's royal blue uniform was a smear of purple, white and black. Furious, Jay wanted to immediately go home, but my insistance was that we persevere to at least to Cochise were reports were that the Reichkinds were handing out full size Snickers bars. My advice was to incorporate the poo into the story of the costume. Besides, I thought it was funny.
The neighbors agreed with me with every door opening to stares always led to either out-loud laughter or mothers offering solutions. His Haloween ruined, Jeff was ready to give up wanting me to go back with him through the trails of the woods so that he could change into another costume and we could start anew; however, my plan and path were perfect and my plan was well-designed so I offered instead to meet on Tree Top Lane to continue our collections.
I never saw Jay again that Halloween night. Being a Halloween story, there might be an expectation of something happening to Jay in the woods, but it was more a case of his pride being wounded.
Never again was I the first round pick for football or any other sport at Perry Heights.
