Tuesday, Feb. 22, 2005
Playing catch, posted at 11:13 p.m.
Epiphany in Baltimore has moved to epiphanyinbaltimore.blogspot.com I brought my baseball glove to school today and played catch with some of my veterans on the tennis courts after the final bell rang. The fifty degree weather was pleasant enough for just a t-shirt, and the shining sun made me wish I had brought the black eye gunk to put under my eyes. Ever since the surgeries, I can't stand to be on a baseball field without the black eye gunk; the less glare is readibly noticeable.I'm officially excited about baseball coming up a week from today, no longer anxious. I have 45 students trying out right now, and 22 spots. I've decided to try to downplay cuts as much as possible. No kid should know how tortured I feel about it; the more I make a big deal of the decisions I have to make, even to the veterans, the worse it will be for the kids being cut. My attitude is going to be, "You got cut? So what, not big whoop. Try out again next year." It definitely is not the end of the world.
I'll try not to think about the fact that one of my most vivid memories in high school was getting cut off the JV team my sophomore year. I remember the coach, John Dorow, calling me into the office. He said he'd done a lot of checking on me, talking to my teachers, and had heard nothing bad, only good things. He said he had heard I was an excellent student and a nice guy. Still, he said, there was no room for me. I felt like saying, "I guess we see where nice guys finish, eh?" but I didn't. I remember this dork who made the team and who was a worse player than I was (I thought) running out to his dad in the parking lot, after he thought he was out of my earshot, and jumping up and down and shouting that he had made the team.
About a quarter of the way through the season, a star player or two was being an asshole, and John Dorow came into my History classroom and asked me to be on the team. That afternoon after practice, there was a big ceremony when that star player handed over his jersey to me. I was made into an example. That kid, Steve Cavadas, I heard joined the military after graduation and I hope to see him at our ten-year reunion in June. Anyhow, I ended up getting to the plate just a handful of times that season, and the star player eventually earned a jersey back and there began a system of musical jerseys for fringe players like myself. I hit a bases-loaded double in the only hit I got that season. It all didn't matter much; our team was 3-22 that year and the high-strung coach is now selling insurance.
When I have the conversations next week, I'll pretend that getting cut wasn't one of the most painful experiences of my adolescence and cut 23 kids next week as quickly and painlessly as possible.
Meanwhile, someone should start taking the city to task for the fact that they don't fund JV baseball teams, so that 23 young (mostly black) men in Baltimore will now have nothing to do after school when they would have been there in a productive activity until 6pm every night if they had been on the team. That goes for schools across the city, although, admittedly, I don't think most will be having over 40 try out. This is just one tiny factor in an assortment of educational policies and funding issues that help cause the debilitating social reproduction that this city endures. It's also why city baseball teams will never be able to compete with the county.
Speaking of the plight of the young black male in this city, remember "Bobby"? According to him, he's not into the bad stuff anymore (which I hope is true), and he's gotten a job at Domino's (which I know is true). He's working a lot - way more than a kid in high school should be doing, often until after midnight - but since his family is counting on him to help keep the heat on and the lights on, he's gotta do what he's gotta do, as he says. I'm glad for him, though, and hope he can keep it up.
Our friendship (probably not the best word to describe a relationship with a student, but it is what it is, although it's probably more of a mentorship) has developed more and more as the year has gone on. He's shown me things he's written about his brother's murder, things that shocked me - he was there on the street, he held the gunshot neck wound, felt the bullet lodged in his neck, had blood all over his hands and shirt, and his brother (age 20) made him promise to stay in school and take care of their great aunt as he lay dying there in the street. This was in August, and I guess it's pretty amazing that he's remained as strong and amiable as he is. He's on probation for, he tells me, "chillin'", which I think is code for dealing or possession, but hasn't missed a day of school all year and passed all his classes. That's pretty good for the situation he's in.
He's talked to me lately about how hard the work at Domino's is, about how tired he is all the time, about how he doesn't want to do it very long. This, I think, is a good thing. I believe that manual labor is something every adolescent should experience, because it gives a glimpse of life with a job that you don't enjoy. I hope Bobby realizes this and decides to get out of Baltimore and go to college somewhere. His critical thinking skills are through the chart, and his writing is better than most high school juniors; he could do it. I don't think he wants to, at the moment, but if he continues down this track, I hope he'll decide. I'm going to try to speak with him about these things, about what's it like having a job that brings satisfaction and joy to my life, about how that's one reason to consider college, to have that option of a fulfilling job. Or maybe he'll figure it out on his own.
So, yes, folks, if you're paying attention to the epiphany emotional cycle, I'm on the upswing right now. Life is good, Baltimore is good, teaching is good, and my workout was good. A random act of kindness by a stranger in regards to my wish list lifted my spirits this afternoon, and they were already pretty high. This is a whine free zone today, and that's even though I have only pocket change (I'm being literal here, folks - I'm going to bust into my change bank to buy my coffee and gum tomorrow morning) to make it through the rest of the week. I'm going to charge dinner tomorrow when I head to Center Stage to see Two Gentlemen of Verona. I feel lucky that my financial situation is good enough so I have a credit card with a $400 balance (and that's the extent of my credit card debt), with still $600 available for lean times like these when I decide to pay all my bills in one month. Those Center Stage tickets I bought in September with a group of friends (6 tickets for $60) have been one of the best purchases I've ever had.