It seems that, in St. Paul, a long way from any town, the coach was just naturally the one who took care of the medical emergencies. Two of my boys burst into my house one day. I was asleep. They woke me up screaming at me. It seems they were playing touch football, and one of my players fell through a shed window, cutting an artery. After I managed to come to my senses and got there, his arm was spurting blood. I managed to get him in the back of a car, held pressure on it while someone, I don't remember who, drove us to Huntsville. He came out OK.
I made a number of fast trips to Huntsville that year. Once, two of my players were thrown through the car windshield in a wreck on a Saturday night, and I loaded them into my Corvair. They were totally covered in blood. Crossing the steep curvy mountains, I checked my speedometer. 95 MPH! Adrenalin can really get a person carried away! Turns out, a lot of superficial cuts causing a lot of blood. But the boy died a couple of years later in Viet Nam.
To try to build my basketball program up after season, I started having night practices on a voluntary basis. Well, there was not much (no) night time social places for the kids in St. Paul, so they flocked in. Trouble was, some of the local hoodlums wanted to come also, and when some of them started causing trouble, I banned them. One night, a couple of the worst wouldn't leave. I finally bluffed them out into their car, but once in, they wouldn't leave. I knew I had to get rid of them, or just cancel the night thing. If not, the hoodlums would eventually take over. I explained to them if they didn't leave, I would call the law. They laughed and told me to go ahead. The law was 20 miles away, and I had never seen “the law” in St. Paul. I started walking to the gym, to play out my bluff, and one of them hollered, “---- you!” Well, I am afraid I lost my professionalism that night. I walked back to the car, they locked the doors. I walked around it, kicking dents in it, daring them to get out and say that to my face. I knew I was biting off more than I could chew, because I've never been a good fighter, like I said. But so far, nobody in St. Paul knew that. I could always outrun them, if worst came to worst. I started letting the air out of their tires, and they left. After that, the hoodlums stayed away.
A couple of my junior high basketball girls were kinda wild. Once, at lunch, I walked by a car parked on campus. They were in there, with a couple of guys I had never seen before, making out big time. I opened the door, ordered the girls out, ordered the guys to vamoose, and slammed the door. Well, as it turned out, a year or so later, Barbara was working with one of those guys at Howard's Discount. He started telling a story about a “wild man” at St. Paul, she recognized the story, and started paying close attention. He said, “and when he slammed the door, the door knobs on his car fell off!”
At that point in our married life, Barbara and I already were Scrabble players. I had played longer, and at that point, I had the edge. One night, I beat her pretty good, and we were both really competitive about it. Barb stormed out of the box, said she was leaving, slammed the door, got in the car and sprayed gravel all over the box. Barbara scarcely knew how to get out of St.Paul, much less go anywhere. She drove several laps around town until she settled a little, then came home.
We continued playing Scrabble a lot, Barbara soon started winning her share. We both soon realized, Scrabble just brought out the worst in both of us.
A year or two later, we surprisingly got a 17 inch snow in late march, a very unusual event. We were living in Fayetteville. We played Scrabble. Barbara beat me like a rented mule, and I stormed out into the snow. I plowed a path around and around the house, until I wore out. We should have just stopped playing each other, but we both loved the game too much for that.
Jump ahead with me 40 or so years. Barb, always a word freak and a crossword guru, had taken command. She won about 75%. After I had endured a particularly galling series of losses, I just lost control. I jumped up, grabbed the board at the end of the last loss, and threw the whole mess across the room. Even though Barb kept coming up with new words, we played so much, I soon began to learn them too.
Finally, once, the Scrabble gods smiled at me, frowned upon Barbara, and I won 7 in a row. After the last win, she jumped up, grabbed the board, and slammed the whole mess upside down on the couch, and tiles went everywhere. All this is noteworthy, because she and I normally don't fight much now. We got most of it out of our systems when we were young. After that, I was content not to play much for a long time. But Barbara would have none of that. You just don't beat Barbara like that rented mule, then walk away from it.
When she got her magic phone, with internet-GPS-everything, she sought out the best players she could find on Words With Friends, and now keeps a couple of games going all the time. When we go to bed, she kisses me good night, then plays with a couple of guys/girls while I go to sleep. I've never been a jealous type husband, but once she accidentally put her picture out on all the Internet instead of just her friends, as she had intended. Well, Barbara looks good in a picture, and soon Dr. Dead Lift responded. Wanted to play scrabble. Said she looked like someone who could give him a good game. I wondered how he could identify mental ability from a cute picture. He is a world champion weight lifter, a chief in homeland security in his state. Well, that was a little too much. She agreed to take her picture off, and cut off Dr. Dead Lift. I finally realized I was being silly. You either trust someone or you don't. I told her to put him back on, he IS a top scrabble player. But don't be playing with Dr. Dead Lift, in the bedroom, after I go to sleep. With all this computer Scrabble, she soon was far ahead of me. Just left me in the dust. I never play her now. It simply does not matter how lucky I am, how unlucky she is, I'm still gonna lose. And that is the one game I cannot tolerate always losing at. Tip to the wise: Don't challenge Barbara to a game of scrabble unless you are in the top tier. You remember that rented mule? continued Thanks for reading!
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