Whispers

There were whispers in the hallways that someone walking among us had one. There were even a couple guys who claimed they’d seen it.

“Yeah, he went to Chicago last summer and that’s where he got it.”

But I never saw it and no one I knew and really trusted ever said they saw it. The others claimed to have seen it and even held it but they were the sort of guys, underclassmen at that, you were never sure you could believe because we all knew they mostly talked to hear themselves.

I have to believe that it was as much from being raised in that Midwestern culture as the built in from birth fear of being found out that comes from living in a small town that fights in our high school were few and far between. Most every problem I ever knew about was taken care of to one degree or another with a lot of yelling, a couple choice swear words and only on rare occasion shoving, a bear hug and two guys falling to the ground and wrestling around in the dirt. And that only lasted as long as it took for a teacher or two to come running out to break it up.

In those days teachers didn’t have to worry about “takin’ on” the kids because everyone knew who was going to win – the teachers. In those days, in that little high school the fact was that if the teachers didn’t prevail then the principal would and he was someone you didn’t want to have to deal with. The truth of it really was that there was nothing for teachers to worry about when it came to reprisal unless there was a sale on toilet paper and then someone might get their front yard decorated in streams of Nekoosa’s finest white paper product.

There was nothing that today would be called a gang walking through that hallway; cliques yes but the concept of a gang, their colors (other than our school colors) and the like was unthought-of. In the end we were one if and when it had to come to it. When push came to shove we wore the blue and white of New Lisbon and we were one.

Not that a thing or two that we sometimes take as common place today didn’t go on back then in that little town. It certainly wasn’t known as “tagging” but on occasion spare paint was put to unintended use. Typically the prime recipient of a bit of “extra” paint was the towns’ water tower. The signage was always different but the theme was always the same, either “Class of (fill in the blank)" or simply the graduating class year.

Though I had no way of knowing for certain I always thought there was a mix of something akin to frustration and admiration for the desecration of town property. Everyone knew it was coming just as sure as the first snow fall and no one ever seemed to catch the perpetrators in the act. The town would go to sleep one evening only to wake up in the morning with huge blue letters painted on the side of that water tower for everyone to see.

There were those like me who simply marveled at the bravery it must have taken not only to do the deed but to simply climb to the top of that tower. The thought of getting up there carrying enough paint to create those huge letters baffled me. And there was no question but what the act had to have been committed by more than one because the only way to get letters that big was to put someone on your shoulders. I was certain that no single soul could be so stealthy as to climb that tower carrying both a gallon of paint and a ladder. For crying out loud the police station was right there! Then there was the coming down and getting away unnoticed and more importantly unseen. And it was thus that overnight an unknown defacer of public property became something of a mythical legend.

Oh, there were whispers and a bunch of guessing about who might have done it but I never knew for certain. In the middle of football practice no one every boldly proclaimed that he had done it. Secrecy surrounded the event better than whatever went on inside the Baptist Church on Sunday evening. Still, as in any small town someone knew and finally somehow those that needed to know knew. And within a day or so the tower had been repainted just as covertly as it had been defaced. My theory always was that the perpetrators had been found out and the punishment had been handed out.

One year there was a huge “sign” on one of the roads outside town. On that black asphalt for all to read the white paint letters proudly proclaimed “Class of ‘68”. It didn’t have the same effect as those signs of years gone by high above the town for everyone to see but then again trying to figure out how to get the ladder to the top of that tower never became an issue and no one ever had to paint it over.

Being “bad” in those days didn’t mean what it means today. Being bad wasn’t about intimidation or threats or even bullying. Being “bad” was about maybe stepping ever so slightly outside the lines that we all had been raised with.

It wouldn’t be until years later, in Barcelona, Spain that I would see my first switch blade knife and then it would be resting against my Achilles tendon. Whether those whispers were true or not I never knew.