words, words, words
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If I begin to detail myself here, will you understand?
P. I am me
Q. I don't always know exactly who that is
R. I am Quaker
S. I like words and playing with them
T. I like genmaicha tea
U. I like the word napkin more than most others
V. I spend time walking my neighborhood
W. I cook rice often
X. I sleep well most every night
Y. I eat large amounts of fruit and vegetables
Z. I munch, sleep, write, create, cook, bike, watch, walk, listen, hope, learn, drink, live, breathe, touch, know, question, taste, copy, read, stare, carry, talk, dance, finger, try.
raisin@gmail.com
albums:
Magnetic Fields: 69 Love Songs
Erasure: I Say, I Say, I Say
Depeche Mode: Black Celebration
The Beach Boys: Pet Sounds
Marvin Gaye: What's Going On?
David Bowie: Hunky Dory
George Michael: Listen without Prejudice
George Gershwin: Porgy and Bess
Yo La Tengo: And Then Nothing Turned Itself Inside Out
songs:
Wild is the Wind: Nina Simone
Come Undone: Duran Duran
Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini: Rachmaninov
My Funny Valentine: Chet Baker
Feeling Yourself Disintegrate: The Flaming Lips
This Must Be the Place: The Talking Heads
Hyperballad: Bjork
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Wednesday, June 30, 2004
As I said, spring of 94 was on of the best times in my life. I was excited about everything, about the track season, about football being over, and about high school coming to an end. My dad though, kept insisting I needed to talk to the football coaches at the Air Force Academy to help my application get through. The Academy receives a lot of applicants, some 14,000 when they only let in 1,300, so they try to medically disqualify everyone they can. I had a skin problem when I was a kid, excema, which had largely evaporated as an adult (as it usually does), but I was originally medically disqualified because of it. My parents and I had to talk to many doctors and ask them to sign releases for me, trying to get a waiver for a skin condition I no longer had. So while I had the nomination to the Academy from my Senator (Don Nickles), I had to work much longer to be accepted. My dad insisted that if I would just talk to the football coaches, they would be able to help me out. You wouldn't have to play, he said, it would just help you get in. That didn't make sense to me. Why would they help me if I wasn't going to play? If I needed their help, it wasn't worth going to the Academy.
After a month or two of my dad pressuring me, he came up with a packet he wanted me to sign. He told me it didn't mean much of anything, it would just be another track, a way of clearing the medical disqualification, but it didn't mean I would have to play football. And yet, it had to do with football. I told him no, that I wasn't playing football, that I wasn't signing it, that it wasn't worth it. He got my Mother in on the pressure, and both of them, for two weeks, daily told me how important it was that I sign the paper. I held out, I said I wouldn't do it, I knew it couldn't be a good thing. I was naive. I was hopeful. I was torn. Once again, my dad had me. I wanted to believe him. I wanted all the things my brother had told me about my dad to be false, all the ways that he had tortured my brother when we were younger, because my brother fought him. I wanted to believe my Mother, too. I wanted them to be so right because how do you honor and obey your parents if they're wrong?
My religion wasn't about reason; it wasn't about questions and answers; it was about faith. Blind faith of this wonderful God way up there who was so big and powerful and yet somehow still loving. I hoped that if I loved my dad enough, if I trusted him enough, he would become the man that I saw in him. I hoped that if I truly believed in him, he would see how much I loved him and would actually change in order to be the person that he projected, and that I wanted to believe he was. He had given me so much; he had treated me so much better than my brother. i thought it was because I behaved better, obeyed him better. I signed it. I put my faith in him again, hoping that he knew better, hoping that he had made a good choice for me, that maybe i just could'nt see what he was getting at.
I forgot about it, continued having my great semester. When football's spring practice came around in April, I laughed at it. The team was starting practice on the field in between the track we warmed up on, and we ran around them. That first day of their practice, I laughed harder than I have ever laughed in my life. I laughed because I couldn't have been happier that finally, here was this sport that had dogged me for so long, and it was over. Over. My track teammates looked at me very strangely, although they were aware that I would crack up laughing over nothing they saw, and weren't too surprised. But I laughed the best laugh I've ever had.
I got accepted to the Air Force Academy eventually. I got a phone call from my parents while lifting weights in the track gym. They told me there was something in the mail that they weren't opening, but I should come home soon and open it. Of course, I knew what it was, and so did they. i rushed off home, so excited, and sure enough, I had been accepted. I had spent the past year and a half filling out forms and sending off applications to reach this. I had wanted it so badly, and it was so good to see it. The next day, i remember talking to my friend Carrie about it, how happy I was. But especially, that I had proven my dad wrong. He had told me I couldn't get an academic scholarship, that I would have to play football. But now there were two colleges, two good colleges, offering me a full-ride to come and study (the Academy is free if you get in), both without me playing football. It really was over.
My dad still had the last laugh. The second week of basic training at the Academy, we had signed up for intramurals. The cadre had told us we wouldn't necessarily get our first pick becuase they had to fill up teams. i signed up for soccer and was surprised but not too upset to see my name on the list for weight traning. That hadn't even been one of the choices, but oh well, I can lift weights. Marching down to the athletic arena, Cadet Edwards asked, "is anyone here not been recruited for hockey or for football?" I raised my hand, but Edwards said, no, you're on the list for football. They had been football recruitment papers, the packet my dad had me sign. I panicked. Would I have to play football? Could they make me now? If I didn't play, would they kick me out? Was this all a sham, was I really not good enough to get into the Academy, was it only because I was recruited for football? Had my dad hid the real acceptance paperwork? If I told them no, what would happen? I'll have to leave, I'll have to give this up, all the work to get in and I'll have to leave. Maybe, maybe I can get my scholarship back for OU, maybe I can live with my brother because i can't see my dad again. How can i ever talk to him again? he must have known I was recruited, he must have talked to the coaches himself. he must have. he must have. My brother will help me, he always has. Maybe I'll get to go to his wedding now, his wedding that I'm skipping because I'm in basic training and can't get out. Maybe i can live with him and never see my parents again. He must have known, and he didn't tell me.
I wasn't going to play, it didn't matter if I was sent home, if I had to give this up. I wasn't going to play. I knew that in the first five minutes, those minutes I'll never forget walking down to the gym, I can see Edwards asking us, me raising my hand, and then my memory is blank, it's all questions, fears, and more panic than I've ever had. He had pulled the plug of my faith, and all of it, my faith in him, my faith in myself, my faith in God trickled down the drain. I talked to the coach, had to force myself, to tell him I didn't want to play. I was expecting him to be angry, to, I don't know, I was too scared to think about it. He was nice, and said fine, don't play. If you don't want to play, don't play. I didn't play, and they didn't kick me out. It went away. But my transcript still says it, recruited athelete, football.
10:37 AM
Tuesday, June 29, 2004
The doctor confirmed I had broken my leg the day after the game. I was happy. I got to wear a big robo-boot around my leg, and I didn't have to play football. Sure, I still went to the practices and the games, but I just stood on the sidelines, patiently waiting for them to end. My leg didn't hurt but a few times, and mostly, I enjoyed the break. I did heal though, before the end of the season, and had to put on pads again, but i was still weak, and unwilling to push myself to get back into shape. The differing advice I received seemed biased - those who cared more about football urged me to ignore the pain and get back into the game; those who cared about long-term health urged me to be careful and let my leg heal. I was pretty much just concerned with not playing in another game, and being naturally careful, I didn't push it. My coaches yelled at me a few times; I stared at them blankly. I just wasn't going to try hard any more. I was actually disappointed my leg had healed so quickly. i would have loved to have never had to put on the pads again.
The season ended up well. We won state, for the first time in eleven years. A few people asked me if I was upset I didn't get to be in the last game, and i just shrugged. I was known for being quiet, and it always helped me get away with just a shrug. After the state championship game (and a million pre-pre-pre-dinners), I was the first guy back in the locker room, taking off my pads. I couldn't help but have a huge smile on my face, which didn't matter anyway - everyone else was happy, too, though mostly because we had just won state. I actually missed a team picture on the field that's in the yearbook, and I'm still laughing about it. I just couldn't wait to take the pads off. I knew it was over. I promised myself, i would never play again. It didn't matter what I had to do to, not in college, not ever.
After the obnoxious ceremonies and congratulatory dinners, the state championship hats, the championship rings, I had the best semester of my life. I was on the track team in the spring, one of the captains of the team, throwing shotput, even sprinting a bit, to keep myself in shape for the Air Force Academy, hoping I would get in at least. I had to shed some weight - I had gained up to 220 pounds for the football season and wanted to slim back down to 200. Everything was golden. I was a senior, well-respected, still at the top of my class with a few others, and happy. Happy like I hadn't been since eighth grade when I thought i would never play football again. But this time, I knew it was true. I finally had enough spirit in me to say no.
Of course, my dad didn't stop trying. He still wanted me to play at the Air Force Academy. He still insisted that I needed to, that I couldn't get in without it. I told myself if I wasn't good enough on my almost perfect record and high ACT scores, i couldn't get it, and I would take my full ride at Oklahoma Univ. My brother was there, and I could live with him. Nothing would make me play again. Nothing I could see at least.
10:26 AM
Friday, June 25, 2004
I gained increased independence each year of high school, both at school and at home. My parents never put a curfew on me, and once I could drive, I was often responsible for everything I needed. We rarely ate a meal together during the week, my mother being very busy with her law practice, me with sports and school, and my dad, well, I never did know what he was doing. He was often helping out with the law practice, i guess. When my brother left for college, my last two years of high school were pretty free. My parents would often go to our lake house an hour away for the weekends and I would stay home because I didn't want to be up there without any friends. I ate chinese out often at Panda Express near my high school, or made something at home - I did at least half of the grocery shopping for our house it seemed. I loved it.
I enjoyed my Mother's company, but my dad, well, he's never learned the trick of friendship. he's a good entertainer, and my friends often thought he was funny, but he never seemed to be able to have a close conversation. My best memories of him are when i was younger, when there wasn't a need for conversation. Maybe that's just the typical man though, who has loose friends based on sports and tech equipment, can't relate to his children, and mostly seems uninterested in much of the world. i want to paint my dad as a villain, someone who purposely and cruelly hurt me and my brother. But perhaps he's just a normal self-interested person who never cared much beyond his own needs. He wanted me to sit with him and watch sports on tv, but I never cared for that. I tried to interest him in the track meets I loved, but he didn't seem interested. He was often just there, at my football practices and games, on the couch watching tv, in the background. I know he liked me, and I know i was somewhat intimidated by him. I knew he could make me do things i didn't want to do; I felt I had an obligation to obey him, even if I thought he was wrong.
Our team couldn't lose my senior year. We hardly even had a challenge the first couple of games. Nice for me because since I started, part of the third quarter and the fourth quarter were left to the second string, so they could get some practice in once the team was clearly ahead. I just stood around and watched the clock roll down. All I could think of was the end of the season. I had started to make up my mind that I didn't need to play football in college. Regardless of what my dad had told me, I knew I could get a full-ride academic scholarship to Oklahoma University for being a National Merit Scholar. i was also working on getting into the Air Force Academy and was fairly confident it was going to happen, without having to play football. If i could just hold on until December, it would all be over, the five years I had put into football done forever. I had a sense of accomplishment about it, that I had survived something I hated for five years, that I had proved my ability to sacrifice for the greater good. That was my way of dealing with the pain. Did i serve the greater good? no. But i wasn't ready to face that.
But we did lose. To a team that had no business beating us. It was kind of funny, actually. At homecoming the weekend before, I had gotten hurt. I was near the bottom of a pile-up in the middle of the game, and when I tried to get up, my left leg didn't work. i didn't have any idea why, but it just wouldn't do anything. So I sat there - I didn't feel pain, I wasn't worried, I just knew I couldn't stand on my own. The trainer came out on the field; he and another guy helped me to the sidelines. He had me put my weight on my left leg to see for sure if I could walk, and that's when I felt the pain. i about fell there, but they held me up. Then i noticed the clapping. It's a weird part of football that when a player gets hurt, both sides clap them off the field, as a tribute or a reward or a hope that they'll heal quickly. It's a nice feeling, although, you sort of expect people to clap for you when you do something good, not when you simply get hurt. I sat around the rest of the game, with ice on my leg, shivering as the sweat dried on me. I remember my friends all concerned, rushing down to see if I was all right, and I just smiled at them and said I was fine. Of course, what was going through my head was that I wasn't on the field any more, and if my leg was broken, I wouldn't be on the field for some time.
Coach Lancaster, who never thought I did a good job on the field, decided not to replace my position. Instead, he put in a new linebacker, and tried to shift the line over a bit, expecting that since I hadn't been helping out the team anyway, they didn't need to replace me. When we watched the videos after the game, it was obvious what had happened. The fullback ran, almost every play, down the lane I should have been in. And because nobody was there to replace me, he made enough yards to get a first down. They ran that play the whole game, and won. The next game, the coaches put someone in my spot. It was the audacity of the coach who thought I was doing nothing that lost us the game, and lost our top ranking in the nation. It took me a long time to realize that; I was never keen on paying attention to the videos, and frankly, was just happy to not have been in the game. But I've been laughing for years at Lancaster for his bias against me which lost him a 14-0 record. Of course, the whole team suffered because of it, but then, the team generally suffered because of Lancaster.
5:24 PM
Thursday, June 24, 2004
I peaked in my weight lifting early, around when I turned 16. i still lifted with my dad quite a bit, and his weight program was the best i ever used. He and I never really did max lifts though, so I can't completely guage how strong I was. I am fairly sure I did 385 pounds with him, but that would have been after a workout, so I imagine I was stronger than that. I've always told people 365 though because that's the most I ever did while in the football gym while it was documented. A guy one year younger than me did come along and surpass my strength by the time i was a senior. of course, he was 6'5, had twenty to forty pounds on me, and unfortunately had a dense head. During our workouts in the offseason, he (Jerry Wisne), an offensive lineman, Dennis Junker, and myself worked out together. i hated the arrangement because Wisne was so dull and Junker, well, he was one of the stuck-up crowd, rude, cruel, and ugly. Strangely though, Junker and I began to talk. I had wondered if he was actually intelligent but just hid it - his older brother had been an incredible athlete as well as a scholar, and I figured he had to have some brains. He did, carefully hid underneath his bad-boy image. We got along.
Perhaps the greatest thing about treating people with love and respect is the way they respond to it. There are some who mocked me for being so nice, but most softened to me. I've noticed many people who others thought were a jerk, were callous or self-interested, showed themselves to be good people around me. Junker surprised me. I didn't realize just how nice he could be until he defended me while lifting. An annoying guy whose name i don't remember heard me grumble something while doing squats. Because i was the goody-two-shoes of the team, this guy pounced on the grumble, saying I had just cussed, that for the first time, he had finally heard me cuss. I told him I hadn't, that it was just a grunt. He pestered and pestered, and I did my best to ignore him, but Dennis told him to shut up and get away from us, then turned around and said, "you didn't say it." It would have been more like Dennis to laugh with him at me, but he told him off, knowing it was a big deal to me. I've never been more shocked at a change in someone, and that one tiny bit of understanding has let me trust so many more people, hope that i could find the better parts of them.
I said before, the head coach, Lancaster, and I didn't get along. You could hear it in his voice when he yelled at me. I felt he could see through me, that I hated football and everything about it, that I couldn't want to hit guys like the rest of my team. I avoided him as much as possible, except for once, when I tried to change the situation. My dad and I had been talking about football, and in one of his rare understanding moments, he seemed to catch on that i didn't like it. He suggested that maybe I try another position, that defensive lineman was really all about hitting, that maybe as a linebacker, i could use my head more, and perhaps enjoy the game. Both of us should have realized it was too late in high school for me to be changing positions, that i would have to actually learn how the game worked instead of just the simple lineman plays. I don't know how I would have responded to that position - it was a leader's job, encouraging the team, making sure things went well. I may have taken on the leader's mantle, like I've done in other situations where someone put me there. I never wanted to be a leader, but when I was, I often did well. I spoke to Lancaster alone in his office, petrified. He had become my enemy, some physical embodiment of the distaste I had for the sport. Going to him felt like begging, letting him know that I was utterly miserable. But i did, asked him to change. he said no, he needed me on the line. I was one of the strongest and certainly the fastest on the line. He may have meant it as a compliment, i don't know. But he quashed the hope i had of making the situation better for myself.
Senior year, we were gonna win the state championship. Over half of our starting team in 92 became seniors in 93. Our team was ranked in the top 5 nationally. Towards the middle of the season, we moved up to a number one ranking, based on our record, our coach, our team. Every speech from the coach, every dinner the night before a game - the booster club held a dinner the night before every game at different local churches - held up the state championship for us to grab. I still didn't see this as a good thing. The more games we won, the longer the season would drag out. Football basically took over my life that fall; I barely had time for much else. "All it takes is all you got" was our slogan; the gramatically incorrect statement was everywhere, on the many t-shirts the booster club provided us, on banners around the school, and of course, in every speech. I was on the starting team and just relegated myself to the fact that we were gonna be playing into December, no matter what.
11:19 AM
Monday, June 21, 2004
I don't want to pretend high school was miserable. In fact, most of it was wonderful - i had a great time, especially my last two years. Because I was so much bigger than those around me, guys never messed with me. I gained enough confidence from the weight room and my own parents to feel comfortable about myself. As much as my parents pushed me, they also tried to make me feel good about myself, telling me how handsome I was and how proud of my grades they were. Perhaps it was to balance how disappointed they were in my brother. At the time, I blamed how they treated him on his bad behavior. He was the unruly one, who didn't believe in their ideals, who saw through them. I was quick to defend them either to my brother or to myself. At the time, I thought my dad was truthful, or at least hoped he was. i was willing to not examine things closely, to accept him and hope it was best, like my mother always has in her life. My parents were awfully permissive with me about staying out late and hanging with friends. They trusted me as well, and I never considered taking advantage of them. So long as we didn't talk about football, we had a good relationship. But of course, it was even better when my dad started working more often with my mother in her law office. I was often the only one home my junior and senior years, and i loved the solitude as well as the freedom to go whereever i pleased without asking for permission. I had similar freedom at school because my teachers liked me, and those who didn't know me assumed I was a teacher because I looked so much older. i would skip through the hallways and sing strange songs, and never had a second thought about it.
I separated myself. I never talked about football, and if any of my friends asked about it, i would shy away from the questions, shrug, simply avoid it. it worked powerfully, but of course, it cost me. I turned much of myself off in order to separate parts I enjoyed and parts I hated. When you block some parts of life out of your brain, you inadvertently block other parts out. Blocking out the emotion I had over football blocked out emotions altogether, and I never had feelings for a single person, not one crush, during high school or for years afterwards. But I was happy. Nobody could have looked at me and seen differently. I was a good athlete, at the top of my class, I had many friends and was generally well-liked. My life was incredibly easy so long as I could ignore football, and my mother told me i would eventually find girls interesting.
I had simply delayed much of my adolescence. Most teenagers start to question who they are and why their parents have control over them. i refused to; it wasn't necessary. i didn't understand why people would ever be sullen; I couldn't understand the rebellion in my brother or anyone else. I was strong, or at least the walls around me were. This was my family's version of strength, carrying on no matter what, putting a happy face to it. Strength was not introspection, it was staying the course. I recognized my family in Tennessee Williams' The Glass Menagerie. My mother, a strong southern woman who could ignore everything around her that might get in the way of her purpose. She knew how things were supposed to be, and that was the way they were going to be, that's the way they were, if you listened to her often enough. That's the way it would be for me as well, as I grabbed hold of the old time religion.
1:47 PM
Thursday, June 17, 2004
My defensive line coach, KJ, took me aside during a water break once, to try and find out what was going on. He was probably the coach I liked the best, and the one i spent the most time with. He knew I was reluctant to play hard and wanted to know why. I told him it had to do with me being Christian. I couldn't fully explain, but it was kind of him to want to find out why. i always felt he genuinely cared. he said i should talk to others on the team who were also Christian, to see how they dealt with it. He said it shouldn't be a problem. After that many years of football, I figured he was right. i figured that all my attempts at being loving were foolish, that it was me who had the problem. But I still couldn't do it. I couldn't hit like i was supposed to, i couldn't get myself angry and want to beat on other guys.
My mother, too, tried to get me to play harder. She wanted me to get tough and angry, she wanted me to pretend the other team were attacking her. The metaphor was lost on me - they weren't attacking her, so why worry? I'm not sure I would have fought them anyway. I had so eradicated my anger, that I didn't know how to be angry. The temper I had against my brother had practically died, and I was happy for that. I had taught myself on a deep level that violence wasn't an option. Except now, I was trying to teach myself that controlled violence was ok. Most of me didn't buy it, and I never had the commitment to that work like I did to control my temper. But the alternate sides of me yelled at each other often, mocked, derided, implored, questioned, and shot arrows at each other. every day.
Some of these memories remind me of other guys talking about realizing they were gay, trying to be like the other guys, and not being able to, etc. I of course, had ideas that I was gay in high school, but I hardly wrestled with it. I suppose I could only handle one huge struggle at a time and could dismiss the lesser one. Perhaps if I had been surrounded by guys I was attracted to, I would have felt differently. I never saw high school guys as attractive, still don't - as i said, i was much bigger than most guys, and they weren't interesting. The football guys were either very heavy or skinny, short, underdeveloped. I rarely noticed them. Had I been attracted to them, too, I'm not sure if I could have handled the combination.
The best parts of fall though, were the two hours after the Friday night game. I would meet up with friends of mine and go hang out at a pizza place or something. just sit around, talk, laugh, realizing that I didn't have to deal with football until Sunday afternoon. i always had a few sore spots, but i didn't much care. it was never the pain that bothered me. We would never talk about the game, and I could just relax.
1:21 PM
Wednesday, June 16, 2004
I had already learned to hide my feelings, growing up in a family that didn't express much. But football made me better at it. The fear of people knowing why i was actually playing, the fear of them knowing that I actually hated it, kept me quiet. Once in high school, I never told anyone. How could I tell them what i was doing? Who would believe that I was doing so much just to please my dad? I think this may have been my biggest mistake. Had I trusted someone enough to tell them what was going on, they might have talked me out of it, but more importantly, they would have helped me deal with it. I wouldn't have felt like such an alien. But, like my mother, I just tried to ignore the pain I had. I dealt with football when it came around, and tried to ignore the anxiety in my stomach during the school day. I usually hoped we lost towards the end of the season, so we wouldn't have to play any extra games. But it never really worked.
I got better at football, just by doing it. I really did try to be good, but I had a fundamental block. I tortured myself over that, too. I wanted to like it, like the other guys did. I wanted to do well at it, like i knew I should have. I wanted to do my best, and I knew that for some reason, I wasn't able to. I tried so hard to get over my dislike, but I never could. But since I was so strong, my coaches had extra incentive to try and make me good. During spring practice (only lasts two weeks without pads), I was often put against the upcoming seniors, because nobody else was as strong as they were. I hated that feeling, losing all ability to hide, knowing i was going to have to accept a major role for the next three years.
A new coach came in after my freshman year. Ron Lancaster. i can hardly even look at the name, I detested him so much. Lancaster was good. The administration brought him in because our football team wasn't good, and we should have been. My high school was consistently the best in the state, winning around 10 state championships every year. But we hadn't won football since 1986 or something. Lancaster came in and changed everything, created an incredible system of money and support for the football players. The money spent on us, the locker rooms, the giant tvs and filming equipment to watch the games we had played, to watch games of our opponents to see how they played. All the coaches had radio communications on the field and at least one in the box office to better see the game. Lancaster was a fanatic, and he had money to spend. He overtook our lives with practice, with game-viewing, with booster-club dinners. Sunday afternoon, for at least three hours, we would watch the game from Friday night. Every game I played from them on, I watched repeatedly, to obsession, watching every play, going over the strengths and the weaknesses of our technique.
Before my junior year, and right after I got my driver's license, my dad made another deal with me. If I started on the varsity team that season, i would have his Chevy 454S truck. It was a black truck, and almost frighteningly fast for a truck. I did want it, but I mostly just wanted a car. I started on the team, and got the truck, a mixed blessing. Having a great car, having to play through most every game. Fortunately, after about four or five games, my coach gave my spot to a senior, and I still got to keep the truck. My dad attended every game of course, and many of the practices I had, those last two years. He was the homemaker while my mother worked, and with my brother off to college, he stopped cooking much and, well, i'm not sure what he did when he wasn't at my practices. I played shotput those last two years, too, and loved the sport. i would always come home and tell my dad about how it had gone, and was very excited about it. I never did as well as I probably should have, considering my strength- i'm just not coordinated or quick enough. but i loved shotput. My dad didn't care much. Although he found time to be at so much of my football life, he attended maybe two of my meets during my junior and senior years.
1:01 PM
Tuesday, June 15, 2004
I told my dad I would play football on the way to church, an evening about three weeks before high school started. I convinced myself I would play through high school and college, that i would get an athletic scholarship, that this was the best choice. I felt sheepish telling him, giving in to him after such a long time - I didn't even get the $300 he had tried to bribe me with the year before. I told him from the back seat, where I couldn't see his face. He took care of the rest, and I started practice soon afterwards. Kirk, a guy I had known from seventh grade football, asked me why I was there. I had confided to him during the last year that I hated football and never wanted to play again. I looked at him and shrugged, too ashamed to tell him why I was there, too convinced by my dad to stand up for myself.
August in Oklahoma is hot. Sweat from the heat inside my helmet would roll down into my eyes, burn my contacts. Practice was bad enough; i still did my best to hide, stay in the back of the line, get out of the scrimages, just stand around and watch if I could. I would dread it all day though. From the time I woke up, I knew that practice was coming. Around 5th period, I would start to get nervous and quiet. Quiet. I was quiet about why I played to friends who looked at me and said you're a nice guy, you're not a football player. I tried to be hollow, so they couldn't see what was inside me. i just kept my mouth shut. i didn't have many friends anyway - i didn't trust anyone and mostly kept to myself. I never talked to the football guys, not really on the field or off the field. The first year was the hardest.
I can't tell the stories on the football field. full of hitting drills, and more hitting drills, hitting other guys, hitting the pads, hitting other guys. i don't want to relive the memories. I don't want to feel ashamed - I hated being the biggest, strongest guy out there (by the time I was 14, a freshman, I was the size I am today, 6'2" and 200 pounds) and not knowing what to do with it. i couldn't hit hard, I couldn't get myself to move past my fear and my reluctance. I knew that I should have been the best. And so did my coaches. But I could sprint. I loved it. I was faster than most of the guys on the team. As a defensive lineman, only a few guys on the team were faster at a 40 yard dash than I was. I loved to push myself in sprinting. It hurt my quads with that I'm so fast feeling. And sprints were at the end of the practice, so I knew no more hitting would follow.
I threw the shot-put on the track team in the off-season and lifted weights with my dad at Bally's. I hated the music they played there, songs like Can you Take me High Enough, etc. but I gained even more strength. At the end of my freshman year, I was back in the football lockerroom, moving our lockers, and had an encounter with a senior guy. He was insulting and pushing around a friend of mine, one of the only guys I liked on the football team. I'd like to say i beat the guy up or somehow caused some dramatic scene where I finally figured out what to do with my strength. But, i think I actually did something better. I told the senior to stop it and got in the way, offering myself up instead. the guy picked me up from behind and held me, like he wanted to crush me or something. Then he let go and walked away. Probably the only 'fight' I've ever been in. but i won, and nobody threw a punch.
2:21 PM
Monday, June 14, 2004
i learned to like lifting weights, after a couple of years. The response to my body became more and more positive around me. During the summer after my eighth grade year, as i turned 14, i benched 285 lbs, and word traveled fast. At a weeklong summer camp, random guys would come up to me and try to verify my bench pressing - they even convinced me to do a bit of showing off in the gym, although i refused to go very high because i didn't trust any of them to spot me. I've always been a cautious person. i did one-armed push-ups for show, did push-ups while people sat on my back, and largely enjoyed the attention. Except, it was still hurtful, still something that I had no control over, something that I was only learning how to be proud of. It's like having a famous grandfather of dubious reputation, people always want to make sure that the rumors are true, that you really are someone's grandson, blame you. and as much as the attention was flattering, it felt hollow and embarrassing.
During my eighth grade year though, my dad worked on me. He would watch a football game and make me sit with him, talk to me about it, explain to me better how it worked. It was a friendly gesture, but I couldn't talk to him about football, couldn't get over the anxiety I felt in my stomach every time I saw a football game, every time i heard a whistle, or a coach. I was scared of football, and scared that he would find out, would broadcast that fear to my Mother, that they would make me growl in front of them again, make me pretend to be tough. i would say it was all about my morals of not hurting others around me, but it was of course also my shame about them ridiculing my very nature. i listened to my dad's speeches about football, how it was my only way to college. They don't give full academic scholarships, and we don't have enough money to put you through college, my dad told me. You have to play football in order to get to college, you need to play during high school and during college, or you'll never get an education. He told me there was no other way. You want to go to college, right? You'll never make it otherwise. i would just look down at the floor. Fine, don't listen to me, what do i know? He would lecture me about God and country, about how a young man has to give back to his school, how he is expected to sacrifice for God. My parents loved the phrase "to whom much is given, much is required." My dad used it against me, arguing that since I was the strongest guy in my class - almost in my high school before i even entered - I had a responsibility to play football. There was no other way.
i wanted so badly to not listen to him, to be sure he was wrong. He twisted every belief in me that year. I wanted to be a good son, to do what he wanted me to. I wanted to be a good Christian, to do what God wanted me to. I wanted to be good in school, to be a good citizen. He painted it as a sacrifice, and I fell for it. I tried not to, I tried to remember how bad it was, how useless I was on the football field. I wanted to believe him though, he was my father, and I wanted him to be always right, even if it bothered me that he cheated in card games, even if he never did seem fair, I wanted him to be fair. I wasn't an easy target that year. He worked on me almost every weekend, not letting me escape the conversation, forcing me to listen to the speech repeteadly, that it was my duty to play football, that other kids weren't blessed with a strong body, that they wouldn't be as good as I would be, that because I had such potential, I had to use it. And i wanted to please him. I had few motivating factors in my life. Loving God, obeying and honoring my parents, learning as much as I could . . . I wanted to please him. i wanted to do what was right, and he had used the right word, sacrifice. Once he convinced me it was a sacrifice for God and for the other students, i felt I had to do it. I trusted him and assumed that I was wrong.
5:32 PM
Sunday, June 13, 2004
I've got bug bites all over my body.
That just means it's summer.
I've got hair coming out the wazoo,
that means i'm a civilian.
I've got eyes for all the men around me.
That means I'm alive.
I've got tons of food in my fridge.
That just means I'm not poor.
I've got a nose for all the smells around me
That just means I'm high.
I've got air in all my bicycle tires.
That just means I'm lucky.
1:37 PM
Thursday, June 10, 2004
When the season was over, I told myself I wouldn't play again, but before I really got a chance to think much about it, my dad started me on a workout program. He bought a weight set for upper body work and we went to the gym for lower body work. My dad worked with a lot of trainers, used a lot of pills and weight-gaining drinks to remake my body. for the next two years, i spent two and a half hours, five days a week, exercising, working out with him. At 12, I was just starting puberty, and my body expanded extraordinarily. i still have stretch marks from gaining 30 pounds of muscle in three months. I still remember teh wonderful black pair of jeans my dad bought me before I gained the weight that I only wore for two months.
Lifting weights was far easier than football, but I still detested my dad for it. I would hide when I got home from school, open the back door very slowly and quietly, hoping he wouldn't be in the living room and wouldn't hear me sneak into my room. He'd find me soon enough, knowing what time i got home from school, and we'd start the weights. oh we did weights, we played basketball, my dad had me wear these wonderful shoes that had a big heel on the front of the foot, so i guess it's not a heel, but it essentially was meant to work your calves, because you're forced to be on your toes. so i played basketall in the torture shoes, and felt like an idiot. here i am in a college gym, running lay-ups in ridiculous shoes. My only consolation came from the strength of my legs, which, thanks to the years of skiing and biking, after only a few months of doing squats, could handle more weight than most of the guys in the gym.
Of course, my dad tried to get me to play football again for eigth grade. He said I was stronger now and wouldn't get pushed around as much. I never minded being pushed around, it was having to fight back that i couldn't bring myself to do. He went as far as to offer me $300 to play that season, but i refused. I wouldn't have known what to do with the money anyway. What surprised me that year was my classmates somehow knowing that I was strong. i don't remember telling anyone before people started asking me about it. maybe I mentioned it to someone without realizing it, maybe my dad talked to people about it (he was always good with gossip), but suddenly, people began asking me how much I could bench press. i can't pretend that was a bad thing - they liked me for it, and everyone enjoys being liked. but at the same time, they liked me for something that clearly wasn't me. i wasn't the one dedicated to lifting weights so much or so hard. i was only resposible for obeying my dad when he told me to lift the weight, when he told me i wasn't working hard enough. The kids liked the part of me that I considered to be alien. The muscles I had were my enemy, the embodiment of forced labor, of submission to my dad's will. i was a stinking bookworm, a nerd whose closest friend was my english teacher. putting up with other guys' admiration stung because they liked nothing of what i was and only what my dad had forced me to become.
My dad and I didn't talk much while we worked out; I was mostlly sullen about what was going on. We argued over the word focus though - he would tell me to focus and concentrate on the weight i was lifting, and I didn't want to understand. Was I supposed to stare at the bar, think hard about the amount of weight i was lifting? The trick of obedience is to do the task but put your mind elsewhere. I had learned in class as any kid does, the freedom of daydreaming, of wandering off to somewhere else because you don't want to be where you are. You can't do that lifting weights, not if you expect to improve. My dad must have known i was somewhere else, wanted to be somewhere else, and so he began to work on my mind. Not only did he expect me to be there physically, but he wanted all of my attention.
2:22 PM
Wednesday, June 09, 2004
So I played football. practice was at 6pm, well after school, and i dreaded it all day long. I remember strange parts of it, the shape of the practice field, the smell of fall and freshly-cut grass (both of which I still hate today), putting on a jock strap for the first time underneath the white football pants and my brother mercifully telling me that I needed to wear underwear underneath the jock strap so the other players wouldn't make fun of my naked butt. I remember how the fat head coach (they always seem to be heavy) yelled my last name, yelled it - i had never been yelled at before, and now my name became the invisible hook that brought me into the spotlight away from my safe invisibility, trying to hide behind the other players. I was always too tall to hide anyway, but i guess i didn't realize it. I would look forward to hearing my dad drive up by the field in his Volkswagen Thing- you could always hear that car coming. if he was there, practice was sure to be over soon, except for those times he came to watch. To watch me in my humiliation, the one that forced me to be there, to watch me in my utter confusion, not knowing how to play, not knowing how to hit, trying to hide how much i hated it because i was embarrassed, utterly embarrassed at every part of me. I think shame may be the most difficult part of life for kids to deal with, the fear they don't measure up to the other kids, to their parents, to themselves. that first season of football was shame, laughing at me every day.
I didn't have any friends going into seventh grade. I was beginning a new school and had lost all my other friends from my last school, had lost my best friend because she had become too good for me, one year older, a teenager when I wasn't. Because of her, I had sworn off friends in general, had told myself I would never need another friend again. Some people told me football would help me make friends, but it only increased my alienation, being around boys i saw as cruel and horrible, knowing they saw me humiliated every day, not wanting to admit that I was playing because my dad made me, that i secretly hated it. i didn't enjoy seventh grade.
I suppose other boys might have disobeyed their dads, might have refused to play. I was a trusting, obedient boy, always hopeful that my dad was better than he was, that what we said was truth, that he only wanted the best for me. I played because he told me to, and never thought a second about disobeying him. To obey is better than sacrifice, I Samuel 15:22, as my Mother constantly reminded me. She meant to obey is better than to have to come back, apologize, and make amends (to sacrifice an animal to God), but of course, obedience is sacrifice, giving up your own desires for the love of someone else. So I played for him but would never admit it. But I only played the first year because he told me to, and although it was a dirty trick how he got me to play, i didn't realize until later the length he would go to convince me to play in high school.
12:35 AM
Tuesday, June 08, 2004
This is the first time i've talked about football, trying to tell the story from start to finish at least. the idea frightens me, though it's been over ten years since I last wore shoulder pads. these memories are buried deep, and most of them, i have never told to anyone. no, not my brother or my friends or even myself. I have never spoken of most of them, except for the one time i babbled to two people i trusted very much - i didn't get much out because i was sobbing. I hoped the memories would disappear, but they haven't. They still taunt me, in my dreams, in the smells of fall and freshly cut grass. so i have to deal with them, just to take the air out of them, to cut them down to the size memory ought to be, small and far away. but it's like opening the door to a very full closet - if i'm not careful, the contents will spill all over me and i'll be lying on my bed crying beyond my ability to stop, like i did the first time.
i sound like an exaggeration, how could anyone be this concerned over football, over being godly, over childhood troubles? i'm wrestling with that too, wondering how these fears are so real, even today. we all have events that shape us, we all have ideas that envelop our heads and fashion the way we see the world. I'm not blaming football here, not even some the coaches i see as bad men. As much as I don't like football, I can't decide whether it encourages violence or allows boys to let their aggressions go in a sanctioned game.
I have so much doubt in me, wondering if I'm crazy, if i'm leaving myself open to become a laughing-stock, the boy who couldn't handle football. I have to tell myself though, that this matters, that I won't ever be able to forgive my dad and move on until I face his actions and the difficulty it caused me. I also have to tell myself that though I think I couldn't handle football, I did have a starting position on a nationally ranked high school football team, a team that won the state championship in Oklahoma (where football is the major sport), in the largest class of schools. for someone who hated what he was doing, i did pretty well at it. but of course, never well enough, for myself, for my coach, or for my dad.
7:45 PM
Monday, June 07, 2004
My dad first mentioned football while we were running. He and I ran around three miles a day when I was 12, about to enter 7th grade at a public school. I had gone to a Christian school for most of my life and then homeschooled for the past year. I was scared of the new school, scared of all the people that weren't Christians, that I expected to make fun of me. But while running, I was more focused on not wanting to run. It wasn't my choice that we ran together, or at all. My dad had always made my brother and i exercise, some to our benefit, some just over the top. But during that summer, my dad mentioned football as an alternative to running. If I played football, I wouldn't have to run three miles with him. I had never played organized sports and didn't want to, but I didn't want to run every day either. I said something like I'll think about it, and before I really had time to think, I was in the store trying on football cleats. 7th grade football wasn't completely funded by the school, so parents had to pay for the equipment. I've never been good at protesting, so I just went along with it, hoping it wouldn't be as bad as I expected. of course, my brother looked at me in shock, saying I would hate it, and asking why I had agreed. Had i agreed?
The first day, I hated it. told my dad i didn't want to play, it wasn't fun or good or anything. What i didn't tell him was how frightening it was. I had never hit or fought much, had never been in any kind of a fight. I had thrown my temper a few times, but that was during fits of rage that I had done my best to control. Tried, so hard to control. I had always been conscientious of my actions - growing up the younger sibling made me feel like i had to apologize for living, because I always seemed in my brother's way. I acquiesced to him in everything, except every once in a while, his teasing got too much and i would fight back. One hit, a bite, even throwing a toaster and chasing him with a hammer.
But I felt horrible for those outbursts, knew that God would want me to control that anger, to not unleash it at my brother but to endure everything he did to me. So after a lot of thought and prayer (i was around eleven at the time, and this kicked off during a Bible camp I went to which consisted of at least 6 hours of worship, sermons, and prayer meetings each day), I decided I had to control my temper. The best way I saw was to take I Corinthians 13, the love chapter, and apply it to my life. If God is love (as it says in I John 4:7), and Paul told us in Corinthians the exact nature of love, wasn't I bound to be like God and therefore like love? I figured on yes, and began to focus my life on those verses. Love suffers long and is kind, love envies not, vaunts not itself, does not behave itself unseemly . .. I read it over and over again, every night before I went to bed, several times, until I burned it in my mind and tried to become love, to be longsuffering and kind, to be as like God as I could be.
I was strong enough to control my temper and change the way i looked at everything in the world. Aggression was wrong, at least from what i could see of it. That first day of football asked me to be aggressive and to hit others. How could I do that? How could I go against what my Bible told me? Isn't this what my parents had taught me? i wouldn't play, I told my dad. unfortunately, I didn't trust him enough to tell him why, to explain to him why I couldn't be aggressive, why it hurt me so much. I knew he would make fun of me, would just laugh at my seriousness, would not attempt to understand what I was trying to do. He told me no, that I had to play, that I wasn't allowed to quit anything once I had started it, that he had payed too much money for the equipment. i wish I would have burst into tears, I wish i would have stood up to him, I wish I would have understand the difference between pacifism and passivity.
11:37 AM
Friday, June 04, 2004
um, losing my job this week, need to spend some time looking for a new one, going crazy while watching the first season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. since i'm not used to tv, the nasty images stick in my head and give me nightmares. and thoughts about high school football - torturous thoughts, that is. i'll explain later.
10:12 AM
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