No doubt there are those who never give it a second thought. They don’t question the world around them, and they never give lip service to questioning themselves about their integrity. The words and the wisdom of the elders had long since left indelible marks upon the psyche and the souls of those who long ago accepted that the words “because I said so” were all there really was to life. The reality that surrounded them was no more or no less complex than those words, and besides, it made life so much simpler. When the situation called for it, the rational and valid response could always be that that was what you had been told. Who could argue that it was your fault? And still there always comes a time when you know deep inside that passing responsibility for your actions onto another was at best a lie and at worst the coward's way out.
Men were not supposed to grow that big, not in the world I grew up in. At five feet ten inches in height, I took pride in having learned that I was slightly above average in height for males in the United States. There were no fast food places yet serving hamburgers from cattle filled with growth hormones and the like in the sixties in that little Wisconsin town. So for someone to be as big as he was really didn’t seem all together normal for a kid who was pretty sure he was starting to understand everything there was to understand about just about everything. To this day in my mind’s eye, I see him hauling a student down the hallway and into his office, and all the while the kid's feet never touched the floor once. What was truly intimidating was that the kid he was hauling away was older and bigger than I. There was no way I wanted that man knowing my name, much less taking notice of me. Thanks to others he never did.
It was nothing more than a cardboard box albeit a rather large one. My guess is that maybe a refrigerator had been delivered to the cafeteria, and for whatever reason the box hadn’t been hauled away yet. No matter, there it sat right in front of the gym doors and the entrance lobby of the high school. And there we were, Bob and I, not really thinking about much of anything and certainly not planning what was to come.Bob had been my friend almost forever. His folks actually owned the house I lived in, and all I had to do was walk across the yard to hang out with him most any time I wanted when we were in high school. We went to church and Sunday school and even did our years of Bible School together. He’d been one of the guys who’d pulled me off the kid who’d taunted me by calling me Wally in the church basement. We’d talked about girls, dated girls together, and would continue to through the weekends at Hillsboro and all of high school. He’d sat behind me in band and beside me in choir. In fact, he and I would spend my last evening in that town together, and in the end, the floor in the back of that Mustang would be devoid of Budweiser cans. Looking back on it today, he may very well have been my best friend, and I never realized it.
Finding us together after lunch in the lobby beside that big cardboard box in front of the gym doors shouldn’t have meant anything to anyone since it would have been something expected and certainly not out of the ordinary. We were just two friends standing there, waiting for the next class, talking to classmates, and doing nothing in particular--nothing that is until Kim showed up.
There are people in this world that are perfectly fine individuals on their own, doing whatever it is they do. The trouble is when these folks get an audience, there can be unforeseen problems for everyone involved, especially when they’re a guy, they’re maybe fourteen or fifteen, and they haven’t yet gotten their growth spurt, and all the while they think it’s funny to annoy upperclassmen.Today I couldn’t even begin to guess whether there was even a word spoken between Bob and me. The only thing I can say for certain is that one moment Kim was standing there in front of us carrying on like a Jack Russell Terrier on speed, and the next he was inside that cardboard box with our help. That box was big enough that Kim wasn’t getting out without the sort of help he’d gotten to end up in it. At first he demanded to be let out, but that lasted only a moment. Those who had witnessed the incident had found it funny, but now there were others coming out of the lunchroom unaware of what had just gone on. And Kim had realized there was an opportunity to garner even more attention.
Those new to the sight of the abduction and confinement had only an inkling that something was happening because of the smiles, the snickers, and the glances at the box. Kim had crouched back down and thus was completely unseen. In the end, if we had left well enough alone, things probably would have turned out differently, but Bob and I decided to add our own twist to the situation. There we stood on both sides of that box with fresh faces all around wondering what was going on. Why some things work the way they do in this world I’ll never understand, but in this particular scenario no one said anything about what had just happened.
I didn’t think it was the truth at the time, but later I would learn that I love a stage, and this was a chance I simply couldn’t pass up. In that moment I became something of a circus barker, encouraging those less than eager to step right up, to hand over their dimes, and to see the bearded lady just beyond the flap covering the tent's entrance. Of course in this case, the sideshow was looking down into a large cardboard box, but believe it or not, the effect was the same. The innocents before me had no idea what was inside that box, but they knew something was up if only because everyone else was standing there smiling and snickering. With encouragement from me, they crept closer and closer, almost shuffling their feet and holding one another’s hands, until they were about to look into the box.
To this day I don’t know how he did it, but Kim’s timing was so good, it damn near scared those of us who already suspected what was about to happen. The screams that rang through that lobby in that moment might still be echoing through those hallways. It was a thing of beauty, sheer magic hidden within a cardboard box, and the next thing there was laughter all around.
Things have not gotten better over the years in high schools, but even in that innocent little school back in the late sixties, hearing students yell and scream in the lobby at lunch hour is going to generate action from teachers and others in positions of power. This moment was no different because before the laughter had died away, there he was standing in the middle of all of us. All the while Bob and I hadn’t moved from beside the box, and so here we were, snickering once more-- students, Mr. Seefeldt, Bob, me and what appeared to be an empty cardboard box.
You’ve got to give Kim credit for having more courage than I ever would have because he stayed hidden for just a moment more while that mountain of a man stood there glaring just a bit unsure of what had just taken place. That’s when he took another step toward that cardboard box and up popped Kim. In the time it took for light to pass the distance from that box to our eyes, Kim was out and standing beside us. To this day I swear Mr. Seefeldt let a smile cross his lips, but just as quickly it disappeared to be replaced by the stern look of a disciplinarian, a part of the role he was paid to fill.
Why I was excluded from the roundup and the visit to the office, I will never understand. Bob would accept responsibility for everything and end up with detention for what had happened. Later we would talk about it, and he would say that he knew I had never gotten into trouble, so he just kept his mouth shut. He didn’t want to be the one to get me in trouble.
Life went on and things happened the way they did. There was much more that the two of us would do together over the coming months, but in the blink of an eye I would be gone from that place and those people. Bob would stay, and I understand he lives in the house I had lived in while going to high school.
Doing the right thing is something that isn’t always learned at the feet of one’s parents or other authority figures. Being an individual of courage doesn’t always come on a battlefield while facing death. Sometimes the true measure of a man can be found in a moment when what he should have done was walk into the principal’s office and admit his part in the indiscretion.
It would take me a lifetime to realize that Bob had been my best friend but I had not been his.
