Week #4—It takes two to tango

Two are better than one because they have a good reward for their labor. For if they fall, the one will lift up his fellow, but woe to him that is alone when he falleth, for he hath not another to help him up.

Ecclesiastes 4:9–10

Spring to Summer 1964

You met Norman last week. With his wiry black hair, he carried himself with a swagger. Unfortunately, that swagger lost its punch when you saw his pudgy 120‑pound frame. But walking beside the Tanker, people stepped aside, giving the pair room to pass. Not that I was nasty—just wide as I was tall, leaving little space on the sidewalk (lol). We played together, rode bikes everywhere, and spent long afternoons at Norman’s house—remember, no parents were home all day.

Auburn may have been a sleepy farm town, but the angelic boys of Grace Lutheran Church added color. We sat through daily devotions, endured catechism classes, sang in the youth choir, and carried all the trappings of parochial school life. Yet beneath it all, we had our devious sides.

The softball season was about to open. Opening day, spring rain turned the diamond into a swamp. As game time neared, the field needed raking, and guess who stepped up—Norman and I.

Mr. Laider—principal, teacher, and maybe not the sharpest tool in the shed—always let us volunteer. Then again, with only nine kids in class and five of them girls, he didn’t have much choice.

Raking mud was a pain. Muck sucked at our shoes and caked on our rakes . But Norman and I decided to automate the process. I climbed onto the rake, balancing on its tines, while Norman leaned into the handle and dragged me across the infield. My weight carved grooves through the muck, peeling back the soggy top layer and exposing the firmer dirt beneath. Norman heaved against the rake, shoulders hunched and muscles burning as mud splattered up his legs. And there I was, perched on the rake like a conquering hero in a chariot, slicing through the muck with triumphant ease.

The scene could have been out of a Laurel and Hardy comedy.  Here’s Norman, one hundred and twenty pounds soaking wet, trying to pull me—a two hundred pound Arnold Schwarzenegger look alike (well, not quite).   Struggling with every step, he slipped and slid.  Losing his footing, he fell face first into a mudhole.  All the while, I’m yelling encouragement, Come on, Norman.  You can do it.  Pull harder.

Norman responded with superlatives of his own, G.. D.. this, f__k that, #$@&%*!?. Being true to himself, he never gave up—never admitting he couldn’t step up to the challenge.

Algebra class was fast approaching, and Mr. Laider would not let us miss that.  Out the back door of the school, he came marching.  With receding hair mixed with some gray, he wasn’t a big man, but his scowl was intimidating. 

What he saw turned his cheeks red.  Scrawny little Norman pulling the grossly overweight Tanker around while standing on the tines of a rake.  The field looked more like a plowed cornfield ready for planting.  As the mud dried, 6-inch ruts were gouged across the infield.  Not only was the field unplayable, but it took a local farmer several hours dragging it with a screen to clean it up.

I won’t go into what Mr. Laider had to say to us, but I ended up in front of the class having a metal ruler applied to my butt.

Well, the moral of the story is that there’s good and bad in all of us.  How often does the little devilish voice in the back of our heads win out?  Maybe it’s just little things—salting our speech with G__ D__ this, f__k that or throwing in an OMG to add an element of surprise.  Luke 6:45 says, The mouth speaks what the heart is full of.  Paraphrasing a well-known credit card commercial: 

What’s in your heart?