I used to play football when I was a little kid. Okay, let’s face it. I was never really a little kid. I was always chunky, hefty, short for my age, pudgy, stout, tubby, round, robust, portly. You get the picture.
In fact, I was so big that I got to play football a whole year ahead of my friends. Our Mighty Mites football league didn’t have an age limit, it had a weight requirement. If you were heavy enough, you got to play. I was heavy enough at eight years old.
The only problem was, by the time I turned eleven I was too heavy. You had to weigh a certain amount to start playing, and if you weighed too much they made you stop.
Not playing would have been just fine with me. I would have been happier sitting at home reading a book.
But Dad was one of the team’s big sponsors and friends with the coach, so I figured quitting wasn’t an option. I went, day after day, week after week, and year after year . . . until I was eleven and weighed more than two hundred pounds. I thought that would be the end of it, once and for all. And, in a way, it was.
To make sure each kid was under the official weight limit every Saturday, the referees lugged doctor’s scales around with them to every game. All of the “chunky” kids had the honor of joining the referees before each game to weigh in.
If the scales tipped past two hundred, off went the unlucky player’s cleats. Then the helmet and the shoulder pads. Sometimes the jersey and the pants, and even the undershirt and the socks! Coach knew I was heading for trouble the day I had to step out of my underwear just to make weight. So he came up with a bright idea. The very next practice he presented me with a T-shirt made out of a black garbage bag.
“Put it on,” he grunted, pointing out the ragged holes for my head and arms. “Start running around the practice field and don’t stop until I say so.”
I’d wave at him questioningly after every single lap, while my teammates sat on their helmets and talked—in between laughing and pointing at me, that is.
“Keep going, Fireplug,” Coach would grunt around the mushy cigar in his mouth. “Fireplug” was the nickname he had given me. Although no one ever explained it to me, I figured it had something to do with me being shaped like a fire hydrant.
Every day at practice, I had to run laps in that stupid garbage bag. I’d hear it crinkling beneath my underarms as I stumbled through the stickers and weeds lap after lap. My short, stocky legs weren’t exactly graceful, and often I’d trip or fall. The other players would laugh, but not as loudly as Coach.
I used to sit in class toward the end of each school day and dream up excuses why I couldn’t go to practice. Nothing worked, and so there I’d be, stumbling around the practice field with the sound of my plastic shirt drowning out my ragged breathing.
When the garbage bag T-shirt didn’t exactly work wonders, Coach arranged for me to use the sauna at one of the local high-rise condominiums.
I rode my bike there the next Saturday. Coach handed me my garbage bag T-shirt and wedged me into a cedar-lined closet with two benches and a red metal shelf full of glowing hot rocks. He poured water on the rocks to build up the steam, and then shut the door on me with a wicked smile.
Outside the little porthole window, I could see him chomping on glazed donuts and sipping a cup of coffee. My stomach roared. Since it was a game day, I hadn’t eaten since dinner the night before. Nor would I be eating again until after the weigh-in, when, as usual, I would be too weak to do anything much but sit there and pant until Coach shoved me full of candy bars from the concession stand so I could play ball again.
I sat there swimming in sweat and wondering how long this could go on. I’d been trying my best to lose weight ever since I was ten years old. I brought a bag lunch to school and skipped breakfast, but nothing seemed to work. I tried to be strong, tried to be brave, but there I still was . . . teetering on the brink of two hundred pounds and hoping to make it through yet another weigh-in.
Periodically, Coach would pop his bullet-shaped head into the steamy room to see if I was still alive.
I sat there dripping in sweat and realized something was very wrong with this picture. It was Saturday morning, and there I was, sitting in a sweatbox while the rest of the team chomped on Frosted Flakes and watched cartoons. They were still in their pajamas, while there I was in a garbage bag sweat suit! Why?
Was I being punished for something? Wasn’t the running, sweating, hunger and pain enough? What more did they want? I suddenly realized that I’d been knocking myself out for something I didn’t even want to do in the first place! It was then that I decided that I didn’t have to do it anymore.
My heart fluttered and my stomach flip-flopped, but I finally stood up on wobbly legs and walked out of the sauna. At the time, it didn’t exactly seem brave. It just seemed right. It made sense. I had finally realized that there was no law in the world that said I had to keep knocking myself out just so Coach would have another strong player and my Dad could have extra bragging rights!
“Did I say you could get out of there?” Coach bellowed when he returned from the pool deck a few minutes later and saw me sipping on a cup of water and enjoying one of his glazed donuts.
I shook my head, but Coach was waiting for an answer. So I told him.
“I quit,” I said in a shaky voice that had nothing to do with heat stroke.
“You quit?” he fairly laughed, looming over me. “You can’t quit. What would your dad think? Don’t you want him to be proud of you anymore?”
But that was just it. If my Dad couldn’t be proud of me for just being me, then what was the point? I was a good kid. I stayed out of trouble, made good grades and even made him a Father’s Day card every year. Did I have to torture myself, too?
I shook my head and told Coach it was over. All of it. I wasn’t going to starve myself anymore. I wasn’t going to make myself try to throw up anymore, or run around the practice field in a garbage bag dress while the rest of the team pointed and laughed.
That was when he called my dad. But it didn’t matter to me anymore. I had finally made up my mind. It was time to be proud of myself for a change, no matter what anyone else thought.
After Coach had explained the situation to my dad, he grunted and handed me the phone. Although my hands were shaking, I was glad I wasn’t doing this face-to-face!
“Son,” my dad said quietly. “Is what Coach said true?”
“Yes,” I whispered into the phone.
“You don’t want to play football anymore?” he asked simply.
“I never did,” I gasped. Well, if I was going to do this, I was going to do it right.
Dad’s laughter surprised me. “Then why did you go through with all of those shenanigans?” he asked. “I thought you wanted to be the next big football star!”
I hung up the phone and headed for my bike. Coach just stood there fuming as I pedaled away.
I started carrying myself differently after that. Respecting myself more. I grew a little, shaped up, learned a lot, and eventually, the name Fireplug just seemed to fade with time.
Except for one night, that is. My family and I were waiting for a table in a local restaurant when Coach sauntered in. He greeted my Dad rather coolly and then eyed me with open disdain. “What’s the word, Fireplug?” he asked.
Dad looked at me for an instant, and then he finally corrected Coach. “You meant ‘Rusty,’ right, Coach?”
Coach grumbled something through the mushy cigar in his mouth, but it didn’t matter. Our table was ready and Dad kept his hand on my shoulder the whole way there.
And no one ever called me Fireplug again.
Rusty Fischer
Nice Catch!
When I do things without any explanation, but just with spontaneity . . . I can be sure that I am right.
Henri Frederic Amiel
From the moment Kyle heard the loud crack of the Red Sox bat, he was sure the ball was headed over the fence. And he was ready for it. Without ever taking his eyes off the ball, he reached up and pu
lled it out of the air.
“I caught it!” he yelled to his dad and his grandpa. “And I caught it with my bare hands!”
It was opening day of spring training and they had come out to the ball field to watch the Red Sox play. Kyle’s grandma and grandpa lived near Ft. Myers, Florida, where the Boston Red Sox come in late February to prepare for the season.
Later, on the way home to Grandma’s house, Kyle kept his head down. He tried to think of a way to convince his parents to stay a few more days.
“Wish we could go back to the ballpark tomorrow,” he said. “Maybe I’d catch another ball to put with my Little League trophies and stuff. And maybe I’d even get some autographs.”
“You know that’s not possible, Kyle,” his dad said. “We’re flying out early tomorrow morning.”
“I know, I know,” Kyle said, rolling the baseball around in his hand. “I just thought you and Mom might decide to stay a few more days. We don’t go back to school until Monday, and tomorrow’s only Thursday.”
“We were lucky to get that flight!” his dad said firmly. “The airlines are booked solid this week.”
That night, a huge snowstorm moved into the Northeast. When they arrived at the airport early the next morning, they were told that all flights into Logan Airport in Boston had been cancelled for the day.
On the drive back to his grandparents’ house from the airport, it was obvious to Kyle that his dad was upset. It was definitely not a good time to bring up going back to the Red Sox ball field.
But by the time they were back at Grandma and Grandpa’s house, Kyle’s dad began to joke about the cancelled flight.
“Another day in sunny Florida isn’t so bad,” he said. “I’m in no hurry to get back to Boston, where my car’s probably buried in snow.”
“We could go out to the ball field again,” Grandpa said. “Unless there’s something else you’d rather do.”
“The ballpark’s fine,” Kyle’s dad said with a grin. “I’d never go against the wishes of anyone with so much power over the weather.”
It was mid-afternoon when another loud crack of the Red Sox bat sent a ball flying over the fence. Again, Kyle reached up and caught the baseball in his bare hands.
As he rubbed his fingers around the ball, a small voice from behind him called out, “Nice catch!”
Kyle turned around to see a small boy in a wheelchair. Without a moment of hesitation, Kyle handed him the baseball.
“Here,” he said. “You can have it. I already got one.”
The grin on the boy’s face was a mile wide.
“Thanks,” he said. “I never held a real baseball before.”
Kyle’s dad and his grandpa looked surprised—very surprised.
But they were no more surprised than Kyle was himself. He couldn’t believe what he’d just done. But he wasn’t sorry. He could never forget the happy look on the small boy’s face. It was worth a million baseballs.
“I’m gonna get some autographs,” Kyle said, rushing off to meet the players as they came off the field.
With three Red Sox autographs in hand, Kyle walked back to the parking lot.
“Think the Red Sox will have a good season?” Grandpa asked.
“They looked pretty good today,” Kyle said. Kyle’s dad tapped him on the shoulder.
“You looked pretty good today yourself, son.”
And three avid Red Sox fans left the training grounds, each carrying with him a special feeling of pride. The proudest of all was Kyle.
Doris Canner
The Gorilla Syndrome
I wouldn’t have believed that I could ever be so embarrassed! I was sweating, my heart was pounding like a bass drum in my head and I felt as though the entire classroom could hear it!
Josh, the cute, blonde boy sitting next to me, my secret crush, was looking down at my extremely fuzzy legs! I could feel the heat of his stare. It seemed as though a force field was drawing his dark brown eyes downward to my legs. I swallowed hard and tried desperately to pretend that I was completely enthralled by what the teacher was saying. In reality, she could have been telling me that Martians had invaded the earth, and I would not have reacted. Oh Lord, please don’t let Josh be looking at my hairy legs!
Time seemed to stand still. The conversation I’d had the previous day with my mother kept whirling through my head like an amusement park ride that wouldn’t stop spinning.
“Mom,” I said, “Every girl in the seventh grade shaves her legs! I’m the only one who hasn’t done it yet! I can’t possibly wear a skirt tomorrow unless I shave. I look like some sort of gorilla!”
“Oh, Liz, don’t be silly. No one will even notice your legs. I’m telling you, once you shave your legs, you’ll have to shave them forever. Your hair will grow back thicker than ever after you’ve shaved them, and trust me, shaving is not a lot of fun.”
Oh, why did I listen to her?! She couldn’t possibly know how I feel!!
It seemed an eternity had passed when at last I could feel Josh’s eyes moving away from my legs. Inwardly, I breathed a sigh of relief . . . and then it happened. He said the words that I will never forget as long as I live. “Your mom won’t let you shave, huh?”
It was too much. My mouth suddenly felt as though I’d spent forty years in the desert. I couldn’t remove my tongue from the roof of my mouth, but somehow I managed a weak smile and shook my head.
He gave me an understanding look of sympathy, but couldn’t stop his eyes from, once again, glancing down at my very hairy calves that were now wrapped like giant furry caterpillars around the back legs of my desk.
When Josh looked up, our eyes locked, and the embarrassment I felt nearly immobilized me. Somehow he knew I didn’t want to talk about it, and to my great relief, he looked away.
My face felt as hot as a July sun, and I cringed, thinking it had probably turned as red as my hair. My life, as I knew it, was over. My mother had just ruined my life . . . the sweetest guy in the world had noticed my woolly legs, and felt sorry for me! Oh my gosh!!! I can’t believe this is happening. He feels sorry for me . . . how embarrassing! How am I ever going to look at him again? How am I going to make my mother understand what this has just done to me? I won’t recover!
I did recover. Slowly, slowly, my pounding heart began to calm down, and little by little I could once again hear the sounds of the classroom around me. I didn’t think it was possible, but somehow I made it through seventh period and made it home again.
After slamming the front door, I made a beeline for my bedroom and proceeded to throw myself back dramatically onto the bed. With one arm slung across my forehead, I closed my eyes against the image of the expression of sympathy on Josh’s face as he was looking at my legs. Ughhh . . . was this some sort of nightmare or did he really ask me if I was allowed to shave?!
I rolled over onto my stomach, crossed my traitorous legs at the ankles, and wished I had about a pound of rich milk chocolate and two cartons of hot, greasy, French fries.
Instead, I thought hard about what my mom had said about shaving, thought hard about the consequences . . . and shaved my legs anyway.
There. I’d done it. My legs were smooth now—except for the half dozen or so cuts. They were shaved though, and I felt extremely pleased with myself.
I did notice, however, that my legs seemed even more pale than before I shaved them, if that was possible. Maybe it was my imagination . . . no, they definitely glowed. Great, that was just what I needed, even milkier white skin that showed my spattering of freckles even more. Oh well, I thought, at least they are shaved! I would never have those gorilla legs to look at again.
After pulling on a pair of jeans and a T-shirt, I headed for the kitchen for a long-overdue snack and a phone call to my best friend, Krista.
Although I was exhausted from my ordeal, my sleep that night was restless. I dreamt of Josh and gorillas. He was trying to help me shave their backs and legs. It was absurd, and I was very relieved to wake up the next day.
I was also relieved that the weather had turned so cold that wearing a skirt was out of the question. I was able to hide my war wounds with jeans.
I stumbled to my drawer and dug out a stuffed-in pair of jeans. They were only a little wrinkled. As I pulled them on, I noticed something weird. My legs weren’t even smooth anymore! I ran my hands down my legs, and then I knew. My mother’s words came back to haunt me as I stared at my battered-up, white legs with their newly formed stubble.
Closing my eyes, I sighed and tried to pretend that it wasn’t true, but to my dismay, my legs were covered with tiny, black whiskers that were darker than I ever remembered my leg hair being.
I threw myself back on the bed in disgust. Great, now instead of fur-balls on my legs, I have whiskers that feel as sharp as daggers.
A week later, I found myself standing in a cluster of giggling girls on one side of the gymnasium at school. It was the school’s first dance for the year, and the excitement among my friends and myself was at an all-time high.
Of course, the boys were all on the opposite side of the gym, some trying to look bored, others wrestling around and acting tough. Only a few of the most popular kids were brave enough so far to actually have danced, so much to my dismay, the teacher announced a game where everyone would have to be asked to dance.
My heart began to slam in my chest as I realized that I could be left standing until the very last, and I found myself panicking at the humiliation of it all. I think it’s time to go to the bathroom.
I began making my way through the crowd. Suddenly, a faint scent of spicy cologne filled my nose, as I felt a small tap on my shoulder. Fully expecting to turn and find that it was my friend Krista who had done it, I nearly fainted when I discovered Josh standing only inches from me.
Still unbelieving, I turned my head from side to side, sure that I’d made a mistake. Surely Josh didn’t tap my shoulder . . . did he? I had no more than formed the thought when he chuckled shyly, and asked, “Do you want to dance?”