What Do You Say?

"You know this book, Mr. Piercey?" His thumb was across the title and the author's last name, but I could read the "Harper" and know the purple paperback cover. "Yes. It's To Kill a Mockingbird." "You know what it's about?" His questions were uncomfortable.
He's young. He's smart. He's an athlete. He's a good kid. He is in my room because he got a new phone for his fifteenth birthday, and he brought it to school to show his friend. A teacher saw it. A rule was broken.
This fell as the Trayvon Martin story broke.
"Yes, I know the story." "Why did Mr. Finch help Tom, Mr. Piercey?" I felt the weight of that question for a few moments. I want to believe that the world Tom Robinson knew is gone. I want to believe that one person helping another, regardless of race, isn't really a big deal any more. But I don't live in my student's world.
"Some people believe that you do the right thing." That's what I believe. "No matter what other people may do to you?" That's his experience. We talked for a few more minutes about the old south. He was as interested in Atticus' having to live amongst his neighbors as he was what happened to Tom Robinson. I realized later that he knew what was going to happen to Tom Robinson before he ever got to the end of the book. The news to him was that white lawyer taking the chance.
"Why'd he shoot that boy, Mr. Piercey?" There are no boys shot in Mockingbird. We had jumped forward almost 80 years. I saw that his eyes were way too wet for a fifteen year old boy at school. I started to say, "I don't know" but I couldn't. Because I do know. And because he is a very bright young man, my student did too. I decided in that instant that he wanted to know if I would tell him the truth. I did.
"There is evil in this world, and one of the places it shows itself is in the hatred that some people carry for people of other races than their own." He nodded and folded his hands over his face, looking down at his desk. I have no doubt that when he sees Trayvon's picture on the tv screen, he sees his own face.
"Why'd he shoot that boy?" he asked again, very softly. I try to imagine his confusion. I try to imagine his intellectual struggle. I try to imagine his fear.
But I'm white, and he's black, and we live in America.
So imagine is all I can do.

Furman Bisher

There's something about the South and sports. The greatest radio men of the first generation, Red Barber and Mel Allen, were sons of Mississippi and Alabama, respectively. Red's family moved to the newly infamous Sanford, FL, when he was ten. Mel went to Alabama, while Barber became a Gator. Barber and Allen were competitors, working for the Dodgers and Yankees, before eventually becoming partners in the Yankees' booth. Ernie Harwell of Georgia followed along shortly, joining Barber with the Dodgers. Ernie had been the voice of the Atlanta Crackers minor league team, and when the Dodgers sought his contract, the price was catcher Cliff Dapper. Harwell was the only broadcaster ever traded for a player. Ernie's career with the Tigers, beginning in 1960, took him to the Hall of Fame, but it was his departure from the Dodgers for the Giants in 1950 that left open a seat for another redhead, a youngster named Vin Scully.
These southerners and their many brethren had a gift for storytelling, the language, vivid and beautiful, alive in their minds and voices. When things were going well in Flatbush, then the Dodgers were "tearing up the peapatch," or "sitting in the catbird seat." When a performance was too good for words, in the Bronx Allen would ask "How 'bout that?" while Barber was declarative: "Oh, Doctor!" Harwell would build on both. He would recite from the Song of Solomon to announce the arrival of Spring, proclaim "Two for the price of one" for a double play, and criticize a batter taking a called third strike: "He stood there like the house by the side of the road!"
Maybe those broadcasters were really writers at heart. But they were fortunate that they chose the microphone. The typewriter was taken. The South had its sportswriter. His name was Furman Bisher.
Bisher came from North Carolina, but he conquered the world from Atlanta. Early on, in Charlotte, Bisher got the only interview Shoeless Joe Jackson ever gave after his banishment from baseball. He trusted Bisher, as did the drivers who banded together in what would become NASCAR; he wrote their story, too. Beginning in 1950, Bisher became the biggest proponent of sports that Atlanta has ever known. How'd he do? Hank Aaron trusted him to write The Hammer's first autobiography. Bisher also wrote a book for kids, Strange but True Baseball Stories. That book was the first one I ever bought with my own money. Its influence on my love of reading and my love of baseball cannot be overstated. I trusted Furman Bisher, too.
Bisher wrote The Masters every year in the Journal, the Constitution, and then the Journal-Constitution, and in a half-dozen books. He wrote NASCAR. He wrote University of Georgia sports, providing the silky counter-point to Larry Munson's sandpaper voice. Furman Bisher wrote Southern sports. He wrote Southern Sports for 59 years in Atlanta. He couldn't quit when he retired from the AJC in 2009. He started a periodic column in the Gwinnett Daily Post.
Furman Bisher died a week ago. He was 93. He personified that special tie that we Southerners have to sports. He taught six generations of us what mattered about sports, and why. He told the truth, and he told it in our language.
Thank you, Sir!

Spring Break

This Spring brought a huge change for me. I spent the last umpteen years carrying the company water: You suck, God is terribly disappointed in you, and you better get your act together or else! All of which is, of course, bullshit.
This year the focus is entirely different.
It is Spring Break.
Spring Break was never a big deal to me as a student. I never went to South Padre, Ft. Lauderdale or any of the other fabulous places to pass a week drunk and assuming Rush Limbaugh is right about women. For one thing, I'm Irish. Irish and sunshine do not mix. You've never seen sunburned unless you've seen Irish sunburned! And I've long believed that if you choose to drink to excess, it's better to do it at home. Saves the other drivers and the ol' Permanent Record. Being the father of daughters makes me happy that earlier behavior toward women was no worse than it was.
Now, suddenly, Spring Break matters! As a Junior High School staff member, Spring Break matters a lot. We've had a good first half of the semester. Now it's time for the home stretch. We've got a lot to do. State achievement tests, fourth nine weeks' tests and finals all loom on the horizon, and there's work to be done to be ready for all that. So stopping for a few days is a good thing.
We're breaking the rhythm at home. We went downtown to ride the Trolley last night. Tuesday will be the Zoo, complete with Dinosaur Exhibit, and, hopefully, feeding the giraffes. There will be a trip to The Pink Palace before the week's out, and that's the Dancing Baby stuff. Grandmommie and I intend to slip out for a couple of lunches, a bookstore day, and one day to just disappear. Again, good to throw the change up occasionally. Oh, a baseball image? That reminds me: the MLB Network is carrying about a billion Spring Training games this week. We'll be checking out a few of those, too. Especially any that originate in Fort Myers.
Back to work a week from tomorrow.
Until then, Time Out!