While reading the “Editor’s Note, Remembering Mr. Nelson by Nathan Bourne” in the Sept. 29, 2016 edition of the Pathfinder it took me back to the start of my freshman year in high school. My elementary school was a good eight miles from our high school, so relationship with the high school was more so attending sporting events.
Starting high school, I signed up for football and basketball, which meant I had to hitch a ride home after practice. My enrollment into the basketball team was to say the least, nothing but hell. It seems, not mentioning names, the coach had it in for me from the beginning. It seemed no matter what I did in training, drills, etc. I caught the “what for” big time. It didn’t matter what I did or didn’t do, I caught it all from the coach.
My dad was a carpenter, his own business, and didn’t get home too late. My mom was a stay at home mom, raising 12 children. She was also, say, like a vice principal, the disciplinarian.
Confused by the harsh treatment from the coach and in the early 60’s, the last two people you wanted to contact your parents were the police or your school principal. I sat down with my mom and advised her of what was happening at basketball practice. She smiled with a smile of understanding, advising me that one of my older brothers fought terribly with the same coach so much so that my brother was suspended from school for a month. My mom said she was hoping the coach wouldn’t react toward me the way he was but talked me into dropping from the team and to stick with my other sports which I did.
I felt bad that the coach had it in for me over what he and my older brother couldn’t work out. So, I took it to a good friend, my football coach who was also the athletic director, who took it to the basketball coach about me dropping from the team. My mom took it to the principal; my dad, who took it to the High School Principal who took it to the Board of Ed who released the coach after the season. I suppose I wasn’t the only one targeted.
Being from a religious family, what did this do for me? I learned after all this how to forgive. Was it hard? You bet it was. It took me a long time to learn not only forgiveness but to forget.
After this incident, my Mom used to repeat this verse to us from a gospel song, “Take it slow, the pace is not what matters, it’s the direction that you go. Keep your feet upon the path and your eyes upon the goal, you’ll have all the joy a heart could ever hold.”
Thank you Mom and thank you Nathan.
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