My demons were still roiling my thinking in 1971, years before they'd be diagnosed and pharmaceutically banished. Until then, life would hard. Somehow I'd made it through military service and earned what was, in that down-turned economy, a near-useless bachelor's degree (in psychology, no less). On that December day, I was an itinerant speed-reading teacher temporarily posted at Louisville's Trinity High School. I'd finished my last class at 8 pm; the sullen students of my most difficult group at the all-boys school had all gone home. They'd been especially uncooperative that day, snickering about my stubs of teeth left after a recent auto accident. They called me Dracula.
Home was a new high-rise in the midst of a barren landscape near the freeway. Waiting there was my assigned roommate, a bisexual who would alternately torment me with passionate bedroom sounds when his attractive girlfriend from Cincinnati was there, and with invitations and propositions when she wasn't. I passed my free time with TV and adding up my savings from the $150 I earned every week. Some way, I thought, my savings would eventually lift me from this emotional grind and lead to another, better life.
Meanwhile, on this particular evening, my weary attention was drawn to sounds from the gym. A basketball game was being played. Diversion. A surprise chance to escape the routine. I packed my briefcase and wandered over to find the varsity enlivening the ancient building, with a raucous crowd in the stands.
I took my seat, my beard and longish hair still out of place in this city at this time. The game seemed to somehow recede and familiar obtrusive, obsessive, nonsensical thoughts took over as I sat alone in the bleachers, alone in the city, alone on the planet. Rick a tick a tick a tick a tick WAH! Rick a tick a tick a tick a tick WAH! The old misery. No way to turn it off. A glem a chee a glem a chee a glem a chee WAH! WAH! WAH! All inside my head, all inside my head.
My eyes scanned the crowd through my internal haze. Suddenly my attention was arrested and focused by something familiar -- a face I recognized. A face I'd seen many times, though never in person. A face that was somehow always comforting, a face that somehow expressed both compassion and leadership, the face of a man-in-full --the face of vulnerability redeemed by self-reliance and heroism. It was the little captain, Pee Wee Reese.
I hardly believed my eyes. The face from the baseball cards and magazines of my childhood was right over there. Of course. This was Louisville, his home town. It was winter, so he wasn't announcing Reds games. He was watching kids, perhaps his son, playing basketball in an old gym, back home in the off-season.
What to do? To sit there doing nothing seemed ridiculous. Yet I didn't want to intrude. I'd never bother him or anyone else for an autograph -- an annoying and pathetic gesture of deference, I thought. I was, in my misery, a defiantly proud person. I decided to approach him as an equal, introduce myself, and tell him I'd enjoyed following his career. I wouldn't tell him I knew all his (and all the other players') batting averages from the mid-50's, and that I thought it was a shame the Dodgers hadn't won the pennant in 1954 when he'd had his best year, batting .309. I should have told him, perhaps, but I didn't. Instead, I approached him as a fellow professional, the school's speed-reading teacher (at least for a few more weeks), who had recognized him and wanted to say hello.
So there I stood, in front of Pee Wee Reese, identifying myself -- representing to him, no doubt (and with total accuracy), another fan wanting to interact with an immortal. The mortal Pee Wee Reese responded by standing up, shaking my sweaty hand, and inviting me to join him on his bleacher seat. I sat down, my childish heart racing, wondering what to do next.
It came easy. Pee Wee asked me about my life, my job, my experience at Trinity. I talked to him about Jackie Robinson (he was having tough times healthwise, according to Pee Wee, and the troubles of Jackie Jr. weighed heavily on his heart). It all ended suddenly when Father Somebody, the principal, came down from the upper bleachers to talk to me about problems he'd heard reported regarding my speed-reading course.
I introduced the Father to "Mr. Reese," hoping he'd somehow understand that I was engaged in the conversation of a lifetime, but he didn't recognize Pee Wee Reese. I told Pee Wee I had to go, and once again he stood, shook my hand, and wished me well. I walked away with the Father.
In later years I learned that Reese supported Nixon and was a staunch Republican, things I could never do or be. It didn't matter. He was, I knew, only human.
When Pee Wee Reese died, Cincinnati radio and TV announcers all had their little anecdotes, all testifying to his decency and humanity. But somehow, my experience with Pee Wee Reese outshone them all. When I was emotionally down-and-out, this famous man had treated me with more respect than almost anyone else did in those days. He helped me reject what seemed to be the kids', the school's, the world's negative appraisal of my worth.
He never really knew who he was talking to that day. I tried to tell him in a letter a few years ago when I heard he had cancer, but the letter was returned, unopened -- misidentified, no doubt, as one of myriads requesting a valuable autograph or something else from the Hall of Famer. Now he's gone.
Yet somehow, in a way, I think he did know. He saw a gangly, shaggy, snaggletoothed human standing nervously in front of him, trying to maintain his dignity, and he decided to give me the priceless gifts of courtesy, acknowledgment, and respect. It was something I rarely experienced in those days, and I'll always love him for that.
Thanks, Pee Wee. Like so many others, I'll never forget the great and humble Kentucky Gentleman, the captain of our hearts.
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