The Dragon and Captain Bill

Captain Bill, the Merchant Marine sea captain, was my brother's lifelong friend.  Well, livelong since the junior year in high school.  Bill was lovely to little children and a genial host and guest.  He could be raw and ugly especially to his wife, even in front of company.   Over and over through the years my brother swore he'd never have anything to do with Bill again, but over and over friendship won out and the door was open for the kid who slept on our couch nights when he had nowhere else to go.

Maybe Bill never got over his childhood.  His father had issues and wasn't around much.  His older brother abused him.  School was a nightmare since he was the littlest guy on the bus in a world where little guys were easy prey.  Bill started fighting back.  He may have lost every fight, but he put up such fierce resistance that people started leaving him alone.  Then he got to middle school and discovered wrestling and weightlifting.  He worked out like a demon.  His schoolyard fights were legendary.  Pretty soon, nobody in Farmingdale or the surrounding towns messed with Billy H.  And pretty soon Billy H stopped messing with anyone.  He was on a Vision Quest for a college scholarship and the Olympic wrestling team.  That dream ended on a controversial call in the New York State wrestling championships, but all the hard work paid off with an offer of admission to the New York State Maritime Academy.

While the rest of America burned, Farmingdale quietly integrated its high school in the 1960s.  The school board led by old man Weathers just decided one night to turn the two small high schools into middle schools and open a big new high school on the south side of town.  When it opened up there were the black kids from North Amityville.  Not much fuss.  The football teams became powerhouses.

Farmingdale High School

150 Lincoln Avenue

Farmingdale, New York

Young Captain Bill was walking down the hall one day, senior year, contemplating the new life that awaited him.  He bumps into someone and apologizes.  It's a black kid, a new kid at the school who doesn't know the legends or landscape.  The black kid flies into a rage and shoves Bill.

Bill says,  "Don't do that."
"F... you, motherf..er!  Let's go [fight]!" 
The black kid is hopping around like Muhammad Ali.
"Look I'm sorry," says Bill  (God, I don't need this now I'm going to college).
"You a punk! Let's go!"
"What did you say?" 
The young black has opened the door to a dangerous place.  He's thinking he's having a little fun intimidating a soft, short, white suburban kid.
"You heard me.  You a punk."  You punkin' out!"
The young black stepped through the door into the very dangerous place.
"You punkin' out!"
"Nobody says Billy H punked out!  I'll see you at the Lake after school."

What and where's the Lake thinks the black kid.  The Lake was a pond in a wooded area behind the high school at the intersection of Southern State Parkway and Bethpage State Parkway.  It was where the high school kids went to settle their differences.

Pride and anger boxed Billy into a corner.   He's missed too many driver's ed classes already.  If he misses another, he flunks the course.  Who else does he turn to for help: my brother.  

"Tim, I got to fight this black kid after school.  I can't miss anymore driver's ed,  Go down to the Lake and tell him to wait for me and I'll be there if he still wants a piece of me."
"God, Billy, just let it go.  You don't need to fight.  You have nothing to prove."
"He called me a punk, Tim.  He's saying I punked out.  Nobody says Billy H punked out.
"Give it a rest Billy.  You're going to college.  Nobody will believe him anyway and next year you'll be at a school with people who don't know or care...unless you do this stupid thing and get thrown in jail for massacring some black kid."
"Nobody says Billy H punked out.   Do this for me, Tim."
"Ok, but it's a very bad idea."

So my brother treks on down to the Lake.  By the time he gets there, there's a big crowd.  The white kids have gotten word that Billy H, the legend, is about to reenter the ring.   The black kid, still in the dark about what he's gotten into, is there with a bunch of the brothers to back him up.  My brother walks up to him.

"The guy you want to fight is going to be late.   It's a bad idea, but if you still want to fight him he'll be here in a little while after he finishes driver's ed."

The brothers backing up the new kid know my brother from the football team.  They look at each other.  One of them walks over to my brother.

"Mac, who's the brother fighting."
My brother sighs and announces:  "He's picked a fight with Billy H."
"Thanks, Mac."
The football brother goes back to the black kid and drags the now very bewildered brother off.
"Let's go.  You ain't fightin' no Billy H."

The Dragon Sponors a Baseball Team

Arizona Yaquis Baseball

Help this child!

My beautiful and smart wife has degrees from Simmons, Yale and the University of California at Berkeley.  However, she is of a generation of women who refused to learn to type.  When she went off to college, her mother told her to learn to type.  "You can always get a job as a secretary."  That sealed the deal and my wife never touched a keyboard thereafter.

Not knowing how to type became a handicap when technology started taking over the workplace.  But not for my wife.  By then she was the chief operating officer of the state's largest Medicaid health plan.   She had a crackerjack assistant.  My wife need only scratch down a few notes or dictate a few words and her commands shot off into the ether. 

Then little Jimmy and Little Mary came into our lives.

"Jim! Jim! Come quickly!"
I raced into the room to find a little girl and a woman hovering over a computer.
My daughter was crying.  My wife was looking on, helpless and distraught.
"Jim!  Do something!  Can't you see this little girl needs help!"
The computer was frozen.
After pondering the situation for a moment,  I put my index finger on the computer keyboard's escape key and pushed down.  The computer sprang back to life.

I exited the room, wisely not saying a word.

The Dragon and the Snuggy

One day you're promoted to one of the most esteemed and sought after jobs on campus.  The next you're introduced to reality.

"Gentlemen, you are responsible for maintaining order on your dormitory floor.  If there's problem, you need to figure out how to deal with it.  Don't call me [the Assistant Dean of Men} or security unless the building is burning down."

"Mr. M and Mr. M please meet with me.   Gentlemen, Mr. X and Mr. Y will be on your floor.  Deal with it."   Mr. X was an the All-East starting guard on the football team.  His roommate, Mr. Y, was no longer on the football team due to an unfortunate incident with a reluctant young woman during parietal hours.  He was being allowed to finish his education at Holy Cross, but his athletic career was over.  The worst fears of Mr. M and Mr. M were completely unfounded.   M. X was a no-nonsense student.  If any mischief lurked in his heart, he was too smart to let it interfere with his goals.   How he hooked up with Mr. Y is a mystery.   Sober, Mr. Y was smarter than most thought and spent the year on his best behavior.

It was the 160-pound hockey player who was a headache.  He lived across the hall from the football players.  We made it through the entire fall without a mishap.  Then late one December night the football players came knocking at my door.

"Mac, we can't get Frank out of our room.  Come and help."
Two gigantic football players couldn't get Frank, the 160-pound hockey player, to leave?
"Ok, I'll come down and evict him."
When I go into their room I have to duck when a hockey stick sails past my head.
Safely prone on the floor.
"FRANK!  What the Hell are you doing."
"We're trying to kill me, Mac."
Frank is talking to me from the safety of a cabinet over the one of the dorm room clothes closet.  The cabinet is just big enough to hold a 160-pound hockey player.
"Come down, Frank.  Damn it!"
"They'll kill me." 
Frank is a very long way from sober.   From my vantage point on the floor, Frank appears to be naked, except possibly for some undershorts.
"Come down, Frank!  I won't let them touch you."
"No way I'm coming down, Mac!   I don't trust you, either."
I crawl out of the room to avoid the flailing hockey stick.
"Stay out of the room, you two.  I'm going to get Lou [the other Mr. M].
"Lou, get up!  Get up, Lou!  I need help with a problem."
Lou is sound asleep and just mumbles.   He is either a really a sound sleeper, or is taking the coward's way out.  I go back to the football players.
"Isn't there someway you can get Frank out without hurting him."
Mr. Y ponders this for a second and looks at Mr. X.
"We can get him out any way we can think of, as long as we don't hurt him?"
"Yes [Sweet Jesus, forgive me]"
"We'll be back"
Ten minutes later they appear with what appears to be a large cylinder of CO2 they've liberated from a Coke machine.
"What are you going to do with that."
"You'll see."
By now half the people on the dormitory floor are awake and out of their rooms watching the spectacle.
One holding the cylinder and the other the hose, the football players enter the room, opening the valve on the CO2 gas.   Frank is blinded.   He is quickly overcome by the gas, drops the hockey stick and jumps out of the storage cabinet gasping for air.  The football players drop the gas cylinder and grab Frank.
Before I can say a word Frank is being carried down the hall by the football players, out into the snow, followed by a large crowd.  The football players tear Frank's underpants off over his head, giving him a snuggy.  The crowd cheers (Frank was far from universally popular).  Then the football players throw Frank into a snow bank.

Frank and I are left there alone in the cold and dark.
"You ok, Frank?"
"@#$%^&*! you, Mac!  
Frank is on his feet now, standing naked in the snow.
"Why'd you "@#$%^&*!  let them do that to me."
"Calm down, Frank.   Let's go inside and get you warm."
So I took Frank to his room, put some clothes on him and put him to bed.  Then I went across the hall and banged on the football players' door.
"You two lock the door and don't come out until the morning.  Worry about putting the Coke machine back together then.  If there's any more trouble, I'll have to call Harrington [the Assistant Dean of Men] and then the shit will really hit the fan."
I spent the rest of night in peace.  In the morning, the Coke machine was back together, no one said a word about what happened, including my roommate who missed the whole show.