It was La Porte City, I think. But I could be wrong. It could also be Reinbeck, Traer-Clutier, Jesup, Orange, or Grundy Center. We were coming back from La Porte City, as far as I can recall, after a basketball game with one of the teams in our conference, and we stopped for pizza.
It could have been any one of those other towns, though, because those towns all had high school teams in our athletic conference. I just remember being on the team bus, headed home from the game. I wasn't on the team, I was the coach's son, probably about eleven years old.
Being the coach's son had some unusual benefits, and a few drawbacks. I got to go on those long bus rides with the big boys on the varsity team. My father had obtained approval for me to go on the bus with them, and I went as often as I could. Sometimes the bus would come home really late, too, which meant I got to stay up late.
Then there were the discarded uniforms. For some reason the athletic department had all kinds of old athletic uniforms that had never been thrown away. The strange thing was that not all of the uniforms featured our orange and black team colors. Some were green and white, or other color combinations. Maybe they were lost when other teams came to town, but that's just a guess.
But Chuck and I didn't care about the colors. We had our pick of the old stuff, and to an eleven year old boy and his ten year old friend, any uniform is exciting. These had a few design problems, though. Some must have been made of wool, or whatever fabric it is that after repeated industrial washings shrinks into itself and gets thicker and thicker, yellower and scratchier.
Plus when you put an eleven year old's leg into some satin basketball shorts made for high school students, the leg of the kid doesn't do justice to the enormous leg holes. I guess the embarrassing thing is that when you run in the shorts, the shorts stay in the same position, unaffected by the front and back motion of your stick-like legs.
Also, it's hard to find a lot of social situations in which wearing uniforms is explicable to your friends. But for trying on, looking in the mirror, and imagining athletic success, it was great stuff.
The downside to being the coach's son didn't affect me much, but it weighed on my older brother pretty heavily. Since he was who he was, and probably also because he was handsome, athletic, and popular, plus a little feisty, the older boys picked on him a bit. Which was great for me, because one of the main things that the older boys did to keep him in his place was to give him their football shoes to clean and oil.
Once he came home with about seven pairs of the things. He promptly offerred the whole job to me, which made me completely happy. It was as if I had been asked to get the uniforms ready for the Green Bay Packers (at that time that was something really big). I mean, these were the actual shoes used by the big boys when they played in the high school games. To an eleven year old kid, it was like cleaning the royal treasures. I had friends over and we all shared in the glory.
The only other drawback was the time my father shot me. At least. that's what everybody thought. But he didn't really shoot me, he just hit me with the gun.
I know it sounds like child abuse, but it was just a minor inconvenience that was worth it for all of the benefits.
As a teacher and coach in our school, my father had other responsibilities beside teaching phys. ed (universally pronounced "fizz-ed") and coaching his basketball and tennis teams. He also was the official timer at all of the football games. Which means that he stood out on the football field on a kind of white platform that had two or three steps on the front of it. From that height he could easily see the plays and the signals of the officials so as to accurately time the game with his stopwatch.
In his other hand, however, he had the gun. At least, when it got close to the quarter, half, or end of the game, he would take out the gun, lift it up, and then fire off the signal to end that section of the game.
I didn't think about the gun much. I had seen it before, and examined the little .22 shells with only powder in them. The gun had no hole in the barrel, just a long solid shaft. And it was heavy. But I never thought about the gun, I was too aware of my own incredible display of status.
Yes, I had the completly exceptional benefit of being allowed to walk out onto the football field and stand with my father. You have understand that the football field we used was the big college field, and the grandstand was separated from the players by a fence and a cinder track on which the cheerleaders plied their trade. And there was always some large, responsible adult standing at the hole in the fence where any kid would dream of entering to get closer to the action. But I could simply walk past the guard, walk out onto the field right next to the players, and stand with my father. This was with everybody watching, all of the kids in my grade, everybody. Now that was status, and I milked it for every ounce of importance that a basically insecure kid could get.
And I got even more attention the day after my father had shot off the gun at the end of some game and then dropped down his arm with that heavy gun only to have the gun collide with my head. I had been standing on the step in front of him and he evidently didn't notice me in the excitement.
I ended up with a little white bandage on my head, and was the talk of the school the next monday, culminating in the spurious rumor that I had been shot by my father. But it was okay, I willing to take fame in any form.
So, for me, even the downsides of being the coach's son were also upsides.
And I liked the bus rides. Going to the game the bus was filled with anticipation and excitement. You're out of town. The players are dreaming of success and fame. And you watch the Iowa landscape pass and wonder what will happen tonight. And you wonder how those bus drivers always know where these places are.
The ride home, of course, was different. If you won, there was the relaxed laughter and excited retelling of what happened. If you lost, there was a somber air that was only relieved by the eventual arrival home. Or a stop for pizza. Either way, I was happy to be there, happy to be with the big boys on the team bus, and happy about pizza, win or lose.
Map of Iowa Index Page
Next Chapter, #5. I-80