After spending a year convalescing from the polio my being thirsted for involvement in everything that I could get into at Mendel. I needed to make up for lost time. Although the polio kept me from playing football I participated by going to the games. During the second half of sophomore year I became buddies with Stan Kantor, an old rival from Burnside. Stan is one of the tough guys from Avalon Avenue who went to Perry School. He and his neighbors liked to think they were meaner and tougher than the rest of us on Avalon. We were about the same height and weight. At Mendel, I learned that Stan was one of the nicest guys I ever met. He played quarterback position on the football team.
Father Theis started a booster club which I joined. We designed and painted posters advertising the football games. We hung the posters all around school to promote attendance at the games. Some of my posters were good enough to hang in places where the hall traffic was the heaviest all day long.
My ability to do the posters got me recognized in the school club scene, and Father O’Neil invited me to join the year book staff as art editor. On the yearbook I met some really nice guys who became great friends. One of them is Jim Geil. He and I became inseparable for several years after. Jim and I still correspond regularly by e-mail. because there are eighteen hundred miles between us.
The school dedicated a new chapel and monastery in time for the start of Junior year. The monastery led me into a new opportunity. One day, an announcement came over the PA about a job. I applied, and got the job as the monastery phone receptionist.
In the new monastery, each priest had a room with a pager. All of the calls came to a single phone in a small cell at the front door. The cell had a desk, a chair, a phone and a large light board on the wall. Each priest’s name was on the board. If the priest was in, and the light next to his name was on, he took calls. When the phone rang, I answered it, and determined who the caller wanted. I placed the caller on hold, and buzzed the priest. He answered and I announced which line his call was on. The priests let me know when they left the building, and I took messages. The job required that I be on duty four hours a day from four until eight. This meant that I got to screw-off after class until four. Sometimes I walked up to Michigan Avenue. Most of the time, I did homework, worked on a poster, or the year book.
In the spring, I tried out for baseball and made the fourth string. Father Burns placed me at third base. Throughout the time I played sandlot baseball, I always played second base. Third base was never my position but I was happy to play. I fielded the ball very well; in fact, I robbed some hot-shot hitters of line drives by spearing the ball on the fly. My reactions were very good. unfortunately for me, I didn’t have the strength to throw the ball to first base on the fly.
I also tried out for the tennis and made that. I often played against myself by stroking the ball against the wall of the handball court at Palmer Park. It was another way to fill time after school before answering phones. I never played a real game of tennis with anyone so when I joined the team I had to learn the rules as well as the strokes and the serve. That is when I met Jim Murphy. We became lifetime friends, and roomed together in college. Jim also stood up at my wedding.
Although I played tennis well in practice I never won a match in competition. Years later I realized why. During a match, I was so worried about making a mistake, I kept seeing myself missing the ball or hitting it into the net. That problem stayed with me until my forties when I finally realized the power of positive visualization, that is, “see it in your mind and believe it”. Why did it take me so long to realize that?
By the end of Junior year things were starting to come together for me. The effects of the polio were still there, but my sports and weight lifting helped me overcome any handicap that I had. Life was good.
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Filed under: Biography, Characters I knew, family, Memories, Sports | Tagged: Burnside, Eleventh grade, Games, Gregor Mendel, Mendel, Mendel CHS, Michigan Avenue, Polio, Priest, Roseland, Sports |
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