Those of you who know I never listened to Poison might wonder how this tune came to be on my list of memorable songs. One night in 1988, I heard this song so many times I've never been able to get it out of my head!
It was the fall of my Sophomore year. And if you've read these posts at all, you might know that my Sophomore and my 6th Grade years tie for favorite among my school years. This is part of the reason why.
I went out for sports only a couple of times in my life. When I was a little guy, I played T-Ball because all my friends were playing T-Ball. I got my picture taken and everything. When we graduated to real baseball, I went along too, because all my friends were playing. But I didn't take it very seriously. I never quite got the concepts. I couldn't catch, or throw. I definitely couldn't pitch. I couldn't hit the ball. To this day, I am still not very good at those actions. I was the kid that played the outfield--the far, far outfield. Where I couldn't do any damage to my team. I think the coach knew I didn't take baseball very seriously, and I think it might have bothered him a little bit. One day during practice, he lined all the players up--the T-Ballers, the Little Leaguers, the Junior Leaguers, all of them--in a line. Then he drew a little box in the dirt and told me to squat in it armed only with my old baseball glove. And then he had everyone of those baseballers throw a ball at me. I don't know if he was determined to make me catch, or determined to make me quit. He succeeded at one of them. And I never played again.
In seventh grade I went out for basketball, because everyone else was going out for basketball. I didn't take it very seriously either. I was the guy the coach held out until the last thirty seconds of the game, and he'd only put me if we were way ahead, or way behind. And while on the floor, I was the guy who prayed, please don't pass the ball to me. Probably by accident, the coach and I discovered that I was much better at keeping books and filling water bottles than I was at dribbling, passing, and shooting. So I became the team manager. In eighth grade, I managed all the junior high basketball and track teams, girls and guys. It was the time of my life, and I loved doing it.
Football. Now there's a sport I never, ever wanted to play. Not for fun, not for real. All that running, passing, and hitting or getting hit just never appealed to me. As a Freshman, I sat out all the elective extra-curricular activities. But as a Sophomore I got drafted. The Junior High basketball coach had passed along the information that I was a pretty good manager, so the High School football coach recruited me to manage the football teams--JV and Varsity. I wasn't the only manager, and I wasn't the head manager. I didn't have to go to practices or stay after school. I just had a job to do on game nights, and I did it. It was great.
I got to make sure all of our equipment was on the sidelines for gametime--the ice chests, the water bottles, the big white bag of footballs, the battery for the coach's headset. Those were my responsibilities. Home games or away, it was always the same. During the game, I hooped and hollered and ran the sidelines with the rest of the team. I handed out water bottles during time-outs. One time they had me film a JV game. One time, and never again. Because the film I shot was so lousy they couldn't even review it at Parents and Boosters night. Oh well...
Lots of interesting things happened to me that year. I turned 16. I lost about 30 pounds and got myself into some Levi 501 jeans, which were the in-thing. I got my driver's license and started taking little trips into Pampa by myself. I even had my first real job, writing for a local newspaper. Until the owner/editor/chief reporter decided to write a nasty story about my Dad and left it out for me to read. It was also the first time I quit a job. That was the year we learned spirit chants like "Buck Thunder" and "Eat More Worms". Out-of-town trips were awesome because we got to eat chicken fried steak after every game!
One event in particular left an indelible mark on me, an event I will immortalize someday if I ever get published. Homecoming was always a big deal at our school--any school really that takes football seriously. We had a great bonfire and elected a Homecoming queen that got saluted with a kiss from the player of her choice. There was also a pinning ceremony, where each member of the team got pinned by the young lady of his choice with a specially made boutonniere. Managers are part of the team, therefore I was going to get pinned! I don't know why it never occurred to me to ask one of my lifelong friends. I had several I might have chosen. Instead, I decided I was going to ask the new girl, the pretty one with long brown hair, big brown eyes, a heartstopping smile, a stunning figure, and...well, I could go on, but I won't. Let's just say I thought it would be a great coup if I had her pin me. So I asked.
First she told me she had already been asked by someone else. The next day she came back and said she would pin me if I still wanted her to. Of course I wanted her to; I turned her name in right away as my pinner-of-choice. Only to have her come back to me later and say, "I thought you didn't want me to do it, so I told so-and-so I'd pin him." I think this had more to do with her not wanting to pin the manager, or perhaps wanting to pin the all-star senior rather than me. At any rate, I lost her, had her, and lost her again. (If you're reading this and you know who you are, please don't feel bad. I got over it). I had a bus to load, so I didn't really have time for all the hassle. So the teacher in charge of Homecoming festivities suggested a pinner for me. One of my oldest friends, who was agreeable to do so. (If you're reading this and you know who you are, thank you so much. It meant alot to me.) And so I got pinned.
And there wasn't a better year to manage that particular football team. We were the White Deer Bucks, and I don't know what it was about that year that made us all feel like it was our year. But we did. From day one, we believed we were unbeatable and unstoppable. During the regular season, we went 10-0. No opponent scored more than once on our defense. And no opponent could stop our offense. We went 4-0 in the playoffs, which led us to the big game, the Texas State 1A Championship.
We played the Flatonia Bulldogs, meeting them half-way in Sweetwater, Texas. I think most of the population of Skellytown and White Deer drove down for that game. It was the most exciting thing I'd ever been involved with. We drove down on Friday, checked into our hotel, ate dinner, watched a movie (Iron Eagle 2), and spent Saturday getting ready for the game. Two members of our 1958 championship team provided some inspirational words; one of them had gone on to win with the NY Jets in Superbowl III. And gametime drew closer.
I don't know who made the musical selection, but that afternoon in the locker room, someone put on a cassette mix (this was before iPod playlists) of songs. I couldn't tell you another single song from that tape, which I'm sure played over and over again that day. The only song I can remember is the one I've chosen for this blog:
Every rose has its thorn
Every night has its dawn
Every cowboy sings a sad sad song
Every rose has its thorn
Maybe it was meant to inspire us. Maybe it was meant to remind us that no victory is won without sacrifice, or casualty. Maybe it was meant to prepare us for the final outcome should we fail to score more points than our opponents. I don't know. But that sung haunts me to this day. When I'm preaching about the realities of life, that God never promised us an easy walk, I'll refer to the song, tongue-in-cheek, as an "old hymn of the church". One time, a youth pastor took me aside to explain that it wasn't a religious song at all. I just smiled.
We won that game, by the way, in the final seconds of the game. Down by 7, we scored a touchdown and our team prepared for the extra point. We had three extra point plays: the standard field goal, the normal two-point conversion, and what Coach Williams called "The Honey Play." The team had run it over and over again in practices all season long, but never used it in real play. I'm told it's one of the oldest plays in the football playbook. For the standard field goal, Coach would hold up his arms. For the normal two-point conversion, Coach would hold his arms at his sides. For The Honey Play, Coach would hold his arms out from his sides like the wings of a honeybee. He held out his arms.
I didn't know much about football. I didn't know what the plays were. I know the crowd was going wild. Our entire line formed up far to one side of the goal as the kicker knelt to put on his shoe. Every coach and player on our sideline was yelling "time-out"; so was I, I suppose. And while the Flatonia Bulldogs milled about in unsuspecting confusion, our guys put the ball into play, ran through them into the end zone, and the ball flew home. We won the game by one point, due to a masterful execution of the Swinging Gate.
