Susan the Singer/G. the Track Star

          I dug Susan the singer.  If I weren’t married, I’d kiss her in a heartbeat.  What a voice!  If a plain middle aged woman can sing cynical Hollywood types into submission in three lines there’s hope for all of us.

         I bet it wasn’t by accident.  My guess is she took a gift God gave her and worked her a^^ off for years with no other motivation than to be her best.  Time is on the side of folks like that.  They know they are out there, it is only a question of when the rest of the world comes to realize it.

        If you watch the video closely, there is a sense she knew what was to transpire.  Part of the fun for her was to watch folk’s prejudice disappear right in front of their eyes.  They had no choice but to admit they’d misjudged her, and that she was beyond good.

         I remember a kid years ago in Jr. High.  His name was G. Byrd.  Everyone called him ‘Bird Legs.’  He was sort of a Barney Fife type fellow who suffered a lot of taunts and ridicule, but seemed to take it in stride.

        I didn’t like the Bird Leg thing, and he didn’t either.  We couldn’t get anyone to call by his real name, so I took to calling him Bird.  Except for the meanest bullies it stuck.  They still called him ‘Bird Legs’ and laughed a lot at his expense. 

         When we were kids it was baseball, basketball, and football.  We didn’t do other sports, except a few of us played golf.  One day Coach told us we were gonna start up something new called track and field.  We’d never heard of that.

         We all dressed out and went out to the ball field.  I forget how many laps it was now, but he explained to us how many it took to make a 440 and 880, and had us toe the line.  I could see right off we weren’t gonna do so well at this new gig.  He blew the whistle and we took off.

         You know the rest of the story.  The last we saw of Bird was his high top black Ked tennis shoes as the trademark red dots disappeared in the distance.  Eat my dust!  All those boys saw of Bird in that race was his scrawny rear end kicking their ass.  

        When we got to the finish line, I laughed myself silly.  “Dang, Bird, where didja learn to run like that?”

         He shrugged his shoulders.  “Just came naturally, Tommy.”

         The rest of ’em panted and held their sides and didn’t say a word.  From then on he was Bird to everyone.  He became a high school track star, went to college, married a pretty girl and settled into a nice life as a teacher, and also a track coach.  He never did come back home much and I can’t say I blame him.      

         Years went by and I ran into Bird in a Winston-Salem restaurant.  I wouldn’t tell this part of the story except one of those bullies is dead, and another is in jail.  “Bird, how the heck did you run like that right out of the box?”

        “Shoot, Tommy.  We had trails out at the farm.  I practiced every evening for two years.  I knew Coach was gonna start up track and field and I was gonna be the best.”  I was one of the few folks who knew Bird a little bit, and he’d never breathed a word of it to anyone until then.

          Later I went and asked Coach, who was long since retired, if he had tipped Bird off about track and field.  He said, “Bibey, do you know what the penalty is for not being dressed out?”

        “Yes sir.  Two laps or three licks.”

         “Do you have your gym clothes here?”

          “No sir.”

           “Then I suggest you get your Doctor ass outta here, unless you want to run two laps to save it.”

            “Yes sir.”  I left and did not ask any more questions.  Coach was my patient and it might not have been considered proper for him to have to whup me.  He is deceased now, and never divulged the secret if he knew.

        For Ms. Susan and Bird both, I guess they coulda told ’em, but it’s like my agent always says; it’s better to show ’em.  They sure did it, and I’m proud of both of them.

Dr. B

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9lp0IWv8QZY

 

 

 

 

 

 

Explore posts in the same categories: Writing

Tags: dreams, high school days, Writing

You can comment below, or link to this permanent URL from your own site.