May 5, 1975
At 1:45 p.m., right in the middle of fifth period, I heard a crack of thunder and saw storm clouds approaching. I looked over at Silk, who was sitting next to me. "It smells like rain," I said, knowing it would send him into orbit. "You can't SMELL rain."
Danny Griffith and I had standing permission throughout the entire school day that, no matter what was going on, we could leave the classroom right away to go take the flag down. How we got this position, or why we accepted it, I do not remember. But since the first day of our freshmen year, we put the flag up at the beginning of the day, and then took it down at the end -- unless, as was the case today, it was raining.
Griff was forced to wear shorts that day because he had gone to a Cincinnati Reds' doubleheader the day before and was fried by the sun. As we carefully folded the flag despite getting drenched from the rain, we talked about how the Reds had been struggling. But they made a pretty big change a few days before by moving Pete Rose to shortstop.
"Wonder if it'll do any good?" I asked.
"I don't know," Griff responded. "We'll see."
...
I was fifth man on the golf team, which qualified me for a letter, even though my scoring average for nine holes was probably 42 or 43. Our first match was at home against Fairmont West, and we tied -- forcing a playoff that required me to play in front of EVERYBODY. I don't think I had every been so nervous in my life. We ended up winning.
Tonight we played at Mason at the Western Row Golf Course. Since we were the Class AAA school and Mason was only Class AA, we weren't intimidated by them, but we knew they were good. As fifth man, I played in the final group with the coaches -- which put me with Roger Reveal, who would also be our varsity basketball coach.
As I walked to the final green, the Mason coach looked over at his number one player. "How'd we do?" he asked. "Pretty good," the player responded. "We beat the school record by five shots." The coach looked pleased. "So we won, right?"
"No," the player nodded. "We still got beat by five."
...
It was a Wednesday night, but we all stayed up to watch Game 7 of the World Series. The night before, in a game that lasted until midnight, the Reds had lost a heartbreaker when Carlton Fisk hit his famous 12th inning home run.
Mom hated Carlton Fisk, especially the way he stretched his arms while at bat. But the Reds won, having dominated everyone since that day in May when Sparky Anderson moved Pete to third.
...
It was halftime and the Middletown Middies had a commanding lead over our Franklin varsity, something like 60-20. The game didn't even seem like it was that close. It left us wishing there was the equivalent of a run-rule in high school basketball.
Our season had started a month earlier with a spirited practice when Tony Ling, of our few seniors, boldly announced, "I want Butch." As we ran wind sprints, went through drills, and practiced our free throws, Tony said it over and over, "I want Butch."
"Butch" was Middle star Butch Carter, who was already committed to go to Indiana University and play for Bobby Knight.
I think Butch had 43 by halftime.