Beaten To The Punch

Beaten To The Punch

Yesterday’s blog reminded me of a story.  I mentioned that in junior high that I needed to make friends in class since none of my friends from elementary school were placed with me.  I would proceed to live in two separate worlds - junior high friends and neighborhood friends.  It would be the summer of 1979 when these worlds would separate for good.

My friends in my old neighborhood, myself included, were a mischievous bunch…and that is putting it mildly (see the Bus’d blog).  In spite of the trouble we would find, we did have our simpler kid days.  As I mentioned previously, none of them were in my classes in junior high.  Mainly because I was an honor student…and they were not.  Even though I hardly saw them during school, we still had our winter and summer breaks to spend together.  One February morning in 1978, while I was in seventh grade, I awoke to the back yard blanketed in white.  “Snow Day!”.  What I didn’t realize at the time was that this was one of the worst winter storms to ever hit the east coast.  Snow day?  It was more like snow week!  The amount of which we had never seen before.  The entire neighborhood, streets and all, became our playground.  It was a fantastic week to be a kid.  Eventually the snow would give in, and I would be returning to school…and class without my friends.

Summer would arrive soon enough.  I would leave the house in the morning and not return until dusk.  During that time, we occupied ourselves in the outdoors.  Now 1977 was the “Summer of Sam”.  However, for us, 1978 was the summer of the Yankees.  They had fallen behind the hated Red Sox by 14 games.  Their manager was fired and it seemed all hope was lost for a World Series repeat.  We were kids, we didn’t know any better…so our hope sprung eternal.  Each day as we played outside, we listened to the Yankees on the radio.  For the night games, we would huddle in my friend’s garage to watch his Dad’s black and white TV in his makeshift workshop.  As September rolled around, it was back to school…and our separation in class.  However, with the Yankees run at the Red Sox lasting throughout that month it kept me in contact with the group.  The chase culminated on October 2, 1978.  The Yankees and Red Sox finished the regular season tied.  They would play a one game playoff to determine the winner.  We watched, they won…we went our separate ways for the school year.

Eighth grade came and went.  There were no snowstorms that year to keep my friendships current.  As the summer arrived, things would be a bit different too.  My parents had decided to send me to a “day camp” for the month of July.  It was called Tours for Teens.  This was not a camp per say.  Instead, a bus comes to pick you up and takes you to different places each day.  Six Flags in New Jersey, Jones Beach on sunny days, the movies on rainy days…and even a Yankee game.  I always wondered if my parents did this to separate me from the neighborhood kids.  Whether it was their intent or not…it worked.  The end of July saw my travels come to an end.  I joined up with my friends, but they were already a full month into the summer.  It seemed I was always a step behind in what was going on.  Also, there was no Yankee excitement of the previous summer to bond us together.  The season was further dampened by the loss of their captain, Thurman Munson, in a plane crash.  Much like any group of friends, there is always an Alpha.  Someone who calls the shots.  Usually it was the oldest and probably your best athlete.  Our group was no different.  We had our Alpha and I was probably more like our Dug.  However, I had always been a very close friend with him to this point.  But something was now different.  He seemed to be distant with me…but I really did not give it much thought.  Now, we always had scuffles among friends.  Eventually someone would get on your nerves and you would settle it.  And it would seem I had done something to annoy him.

It was the second week of August and we were playing a pick up game of baseball.  On this day, when lunchtime came, we all retreated back to our own homes for a bite.  Slowly we trickled back to the park.  The ones who arrived first continued on with the game.  I was up at bat and hit the ball well.  I slid into 2^nd base not so subtly, kicking up quite the dust storm.  The 2^nd baseman took offense.  He also happened to be Alpha’s younger brother.  He started to swing at me, but I just wrapped him up and held him until he calmed down.  Alpha had not returned from lunch yet.  What I did not know was that word got back to him quickly.  Except the word was I was beating up his younger brother…and this was his last straw.  The skirmish with Alpha’s sibling had already ended and the game resumed when Alpha arrived.  And he arrived in a hurry.  I could see the anger in his eyes as he quickly approached me.  Before I could say a word, or even think of defending myself, he landed a haymaker.  I went to the ground and turtled…I had no beef with him.  Before he was pulled off of me, there was a shouting rant of everything that was building up inside of him.  While the punch was telling, the words were even more revealing.  The animosity among friends usually ended with the scuffle.  This time it did not.  The tensions never did clear.  Our friendship had ended.

Even though I had heard the words, I never did find out the exact reason.  Could it be because I was perceived as spoiled in the neighborhood?  We did not have much, but I guess we had more than they did.  Maybe it was because I was more smart-ass than smart.  Whatever it was, it brought our friendship to the breaking point.  I was an outcast for the rest of the summer.  For the first time, I looked forward to the start of the school year.  I would be going into ninth grade, my freshman year.  I had been in class with most of the same kids now for two years.  My third year would be the turning point.  No longer being a part of the neighborhood gang, I began to step up my friendships in class.  At the end of school year I was asked to join the baseball team they all played on.  I never looked back.  When I think of that summer day, I see it as a major turning point in my life.  The friends I made in the honors classes would unknowingly push me to succeed.  And these guys were not like most honor students.  You competed in the classroom, on the field and with the bottle.  An A+, a game winning home run and then drinking a 12-pack was what you aspired to.  It was hard enough for someone to excel at one of these let alone all three…but you tried anyway.  This high school “training” certain sowed the seeds for my success in college.  And we were all going to college, of that there was never a doubt. 

In contrast, most of the kids from the neighborhood went on to have checkered careers.  One can only wonder, “But there, for the Grace of God…and one punch, goes I".  In 2010 one of the guys from the old neighborhood died.  He was a transient living in Florida…never having beaten his demons and addictions.  I felt obligated to see my old friend off.  The entire neighborhood gang was there at the wake…including Alpha.  The group began to reminisce about stories post punch.  One of them turned to me and said, “See what you missed when you stopped hanging out with us.”  That one line took me back to a night after I had graduated college, the last time I spoke with them.  Valley Stream was a small place, and both my high school friends and neighborhood friends sometimes hung out at the same bar.  I had seen them in there before, but this night I had worked up the courage to go over and talk.  All I could think was I really don’t want to get punched in the face again.  As I barely was able to get a “Hey guys” out, Alpha spoke.  “Oh, now you are coming over to say Hi…what about your fancy friends?  Why don’t you go back to them?”  It was 10 years after the punch but maybe I finally had my answer.  Could it have been the fact that I started to create friendships outside the group that magnified his issue with me?  I would never be sure, but ironically, it would be his own actions that pushed me away for good.

Maybe that was his intentions all along.