For Hodge
To anyone reading this, please understand that the Tales of the Reluctant Blind is just as much your blog as it is mine.
Case in point, when I learned that my old buddy from high school, Josh MacKellar (A.K.A. Hodge Lendl) had gotten his hands on one of my Knapp Strategic newsletters, courtesy of his dad (and my friend) Kirk MacKellar, I made myself a little mental note to do this Hodge-inspired blog.
So, for those of you out there who think there is no possible way you could ever become the subject of one of my blog posts – I’m here to tell you that you are wrong.
Genesis of a Blog Post
It’s not like I talk with Kirk that often, but when I do, it's only a matter of time before he mentions my old friend Josh. Now, Kirk and Josh do talk on a regular basis – as fathers and sons often do – and during these semi-frequent phone calls, or the occasional trips or family vacations together, Josh will inevitably bring up some story from back in high school, that he will turn around and tell his dad (Kirk) to ask me about the next time we talk.
Everybody still with me? Do I need to make a flowchart?
Josh and I played Freshman and JV basketball together, so sometimes the story or memory is basketball-related. In fact, in my “The Tryout: Part 1” blog I describe a series of fortuitous circumstances that led to me scoring what I have claimed to be the first-ever three-pointer made in Holt basketball history (even though it occurred during an early season “B team” game...it doesn’t matter, a first is a first, no take-backs. At least that’s what I keep saying to the officials responsible for maintaining the annals of such infinitely important things). Where Josh fits into this narrative is that he was the point guard who had passed the ball to me before my record-setting three-pointer. So, technically, he also went into the record books as the person who made the assist on the first-ever three-pointer made in Holt basketball history.
Of course, none of this really matters. The whole thing barely makes sense. It just makes for a good story.
But the best part is what happened during one of these ridiculous, back-and-forth, three-way conversations between me, Kirk and Josh. Just like the children’s game “Telephone” where a short message starts with one person and is passed down a line of multiple people until the original message is altered and changed so much that it ultimately becomes unrecognizable, Kirk saw an opportunity to take this story that I had included in my blog, and turn it into an elaborate prank on his son.
Kirk knew that Josh had read the story about the three-pointer, because apparently Josh was very proud of the fact that he had been mentioned in the blog – rightfully so Josh, it’s kind of a big deal. So, a few weeks later, the next time we had an opportunity to talk, Kirk brought all of this up to me and I spent entirely too much time providing him with all of this extraneous, completely unnecessary background information about said basketball game. Kirk then takes these little nuggets of information, and starts looking for the perfect opportunity to set his trap. He then skillfully dangled the bait during one of his phone conversations with Josh, saying something like, “So, I was reading the local paper and there was this article about high school boys basketball, and this reporter attributed the first-ever three-pointer made in Michigan high school boys basketball history to some guy named Chris Knapp. Do you think that is the same Chris Knapp that you played with?”, to which Josh just about jumped through the phone, emphatically proclaiming, “That was me, that was me that passed the ball to him!” (Well, at least that’s how Kirk remembered it, and in turn, how he relayed the story to me…)
Other times Josh will tell Kirk to ask me about something I only vaguely remember, like the time he told him to ask me about driver’s ed, which is scary for someone like me, because I did some crazy shit back in high school, so I’m always worried that I might be asked to breathe life back into some repressed memories that I had tried to bury – along with my mullet, and that god awful senior picture of me wearing the matching burgundy tie and suspenders.
But mostly Josh just wants his dad to ask me about funny stories, many of which occurred during our time together in Ms. Beauchine’s 4th hour Chemistry class, and for that I am always happy to oblige.
An Abridged History of the Fraternal Order of Da’ Fellas
Any story that includes a cast of characters like Xavier McWillykems and Hodge Lendl first needs to begin with an examination of the organization that is responsible for their coming into existence. Now I could probably dedicate an entire series of blog posts to Da’ Fellas, the high school fraternity that me and some of my buddies had started up during our sophomore year, but for purposes of this blog, I will try to just stick to the basics.
There were eight founding members of Da’ Fellas: Yours truly (A.K.A. Xav). Mickey (A.K.A. Dinkly), Chris (A.K.A. Jack), Dave (A.K.A. Dick), Matt (A.K.A. Heraldo), Brett (A.K.A. Bobo), Darin (A.K.A. Popz) and Dom (A.K.A. Willy).
Another one of our friends, Jason Mills, is credited with (unknowingly) providing the inspiration behind the name Da’ Fellas. As the story goes, a group of about three or four of us were coming back into the building after having walked to the 7-Eleven on our lunch break. Jason casually greeted us with a “There’s the Fellas”, but we were convinced that we had heard, “There’s Da’ Fellas”. And the name just stuck.
As far as high school fraternities go, we were a well-oiled, bureaucratic machine. Every Wednesday morning we hosted weekly “Fella” meetings in the Bull’s Fifth Leg (the bar we had built in my mom’s basement) which were presided over by gavel wielding (it was actually a croquet mallet) Co-Exultant Dudes and a rather progressive governance charter for its time, the aptly named, “Articles of Intoxication”.
We had I.D. cards, a mascot (a bull named Bud McBeef,) intramural basketball teams, and at one point I even made a Fella letterman's jacket – which I still have to this day.
Josh playing table tennis.
Da’ Fellas was an exclusive membership organization with a very selective admission process. If you were able to successfully pass the Fella Achievement Test, garner enough votes from the eight founding members, you might be invited to complete our secret initiation ceremony which involved reading from our sacred text, Dr. Seuss’ classic, “Hand, Hand, Fingers, Thumb”, at which time you were given your official Fella name. The more ridiculous, the better.
Many tried, few succeeded.
Hodge (who was given his name because of a backwards play on his real first name, and his natural tennis prowess and long, lanky Ivan Lendl-like physique) was part of one of the subsequent recruitment classes that included such Fellas as Phige Newton (A.K.A. Aaron Paterick), Asdur Menaboni (A.K.A. Jeff Milborn), Royata Koi (A.K.A. Tom Maki) and Plutarch DeJesus (A.K.A. Brandon Foster).
Okay, I think that’s enough Fella history for now…
An autographed photo of famous Fella alum, Yoda.
Xav’s Corner
During my junior year of high school, I had to take chemistry. Fourth hour Chemistry was taught by this sweetheart of a lady, a wonderful teacher named Sally Beauchine.
Now, I was horrible at chemistry. Chemistry and I were like oil and water, which actually makes it sound like I know something about chemistry, which I don’t. So I wouldn’t even say we were that.
In retrospect, my struggles with chemistry likely had to do with this convergence of factors, many of which I have contended were completely out of my control.
First, I was in the second semester of my junior year, the finish line was in sight, which served as this sort of distraction off in the distance. I worked in the warehouse at Witmark all throughout high school, so by the afternoon portion of my classes, fatigue from the prior night and the dread of having to go back into work in a few hours usually sent my brain into this hazy fog. Plus, 4th hour Chemistry was right after lunch, so any fuel gains derived from the sugary drinks and processed fast foods rapidly consumed by my teenage body over the 20-minute sprint known as “lunch” quickly wore off when reality set back in, and the second attendance bell signaled the resumption of in-person instruction.
Also, it’s important to note that at this point, I had fully emerged from my shell, dutifully embracing my role as one of our schools’ class clowns, and being the consummate performer that I prided myself on being, I felt I could never shy away from the stage or let my adoring audience down.
My next piece of evidence: Chemistry is boring. No offense to all of you scientists out there, but it’s true. Molecules, atomic weights and balancing equations is a complete snooze-fest. At least it was for me, and the way my brain works.
The final, key ingredient all but sealing the fact that I would be a life-time “D”-average chemistry student was the fact that Ms. Beauchine had sat me way back in the corner of her classroom, right next to a cork bulletin board adjacent to this giant periodic table wall chart on one side, and this illustrated timeline depicting important scientific breakthroughs in history that ran along the top of the blackboard on the back wall.
It all started innocently enough.
One day, when I was sitting in class, bored out of my mind (which was pretty much every day) I found myself staring up at the aforementioned timeline of scientific breakthroughs throughout history.
The timeline consisted of a relatively simple horizontal bar running the length of the wall with marks along its axis to indicate dates that roughly spanned our portion of modern human recorded history. And every so often, there would be a little cartoon drawing to depict some significant scientific discovery or invention with its corresponding date, for example, “1903: The Wright brothers design, build and fly the first ever airplane”, or “1952: Jonas Salk discovers and develops the first effective polio vaccine”, or whatever the event was.
Besides being these rather crude drawings that any crayon-toting grade-schooler with a half an ounce of artistic talent could easily reproduce, I couldn’t help but notice that there were these large gaps between pictures on the timeline, which is when I first saw the opening for my comedic moment.
When no one was paying attention, I took down some basic measurements with a ruler and made a quick sketch in my notebook
Later that night, as I sat at my drafting table in my bedroom, I put the finishing touches on my colored-pencil masterpiece: A toga-wearing caricature of myself triumphantly thrusting a small, crude (yet surprisingly useful) implement above my head with both hands, arms extended toward the heavens in a classic victory pose, with a caption that read, “1200 B.C.: Xav’s ancient ancestors invent the spork.”
The next day I discretely taped my entry up on the timeline among the pictures of what, in my opinion, were the lesser scientific contributions made by the likes of Euclid and Galileo. Then, I waited.
I recall it taking a few days before someone finally noticed my artwork on the timeline, but it was worth the wait, as my comedic creation had produced the desired outcome. Even Ms. Beauchine thought it was funny, and feeling like her good-natured outlook on the whole episode signaled to me that this was acceptable behavior, from that point forward I was off and running.
Next, I turned my sights to the giant periodic table. It required taking down more precise measurements, procuring a super fine tip Sharpie marker, and several more hours of work at the drafting table (mind you that this was back before the days of smartphones and Photoshop). Before long, periodic element Dafellium, or simply, Df replaced Thulium on our classroom’s periodic table, with an atomic weight of 69. Of course.
Just like with the spork picture on the timeline, it took a while for this latest invention of mine to be discovered. Unfortunately, I wasn’t even present when it happened. According to others who were there, this girl (can’t remember who it was now) who was a legit straight-A student in one of Ms. Beauchine’s other classes, interrupted her in the middle of one of her lectures with a perplexing glance over toward the periodic table to ask her, “What is periodic element Df?” The best part is that my forgery momentarily stumped Ms. Beauchine herself – that is, until she realized she was staring over at the corner of the classroom where I sat in her 4th hour, and she slowly started to piece everything together.
To her credit, even after the jig was up, Ms. Beauchine still didn’t remove the imposter element from the chart. So, ours was the only high school chemistry class which officially recognized periodic element Dafellium (hasta la vista Thulium! Don’t let the door hit you in the ass on your way out!).
Of course, the signature feature of what would eventually be known as “Xav’s Corner” (because I added a large crate paper sign on the bulletin board above the desk where I sat that said, “Xav’s Corner”) were my daily “top ten” lists” (ala one of my comedic idols, late night talk show host David Letterman), that I would painstakingly research and assemble during class, you know, when I should have been focusing on learning chemistry.
On another occasion I found myself chain-sucking an entire box of Lemonheads like some addict trying to pass the time until his hour-long therapy session was up. And then I found myself doing the same thing the next day, and the day after that.
And then I noticed how the little tabs for the boxes that the classic Ferrara Pan candies came in had the words, “SAY NO TO DRUGS” printed on the inside of them, and not being one to waste an opportunity for a perfectly good public service message, I started tearing off and stapling my discarded Lemonhead box tops on the little strip of cork that ran along the top edge of the chalkboard at the front of Ms. Beauchine’s classroom.
Again, Ms. Beauchine could not have cared less.
Soon others in the class got in on the action, and we were consuming Lemonheads, and adding to our box top “SAY NO TO DRUGS-O-METER” at an exponential rate.
Even 6th hour caught Lemonhead fever, and they started their own box top meter down below ours.
And then the unthinkable happened.
One day me and some of my friends showed up to class to see that 6th hour had caught up to, and had (momentarily) surpassed our Lemonhead box top totals up on the cork board. Of course, this was unacceptable, so that day, after school, my buddies and I drove around to every convenience store within a 10-mile radius and bought them out of their entire stock of Lemonhead candies.
The next day, when we were back in the classroom we emptied the contents of the boxes into a large plastic bag (supplied to us by Ms. Beauchine) removed every single box top and added them to the cork strip until our box top achievement snaked its way all the way down to the end of the blackboard.
We had won. Sixth hour didn’t like it, but tough shit. You’ve got to seize the moment when it's upon you. Car-pe-diem suckers! And on top of that, Ms. Beauchine would lock our giant plastic bag of Lemonheads in her closet for us, so at the beginning of class every day it was hilarious to hear someone asking her if she would unlock her closet, so we could get out our giant stash of Lemonheads, which we would all pass around to enjoy during class. See, everybody wins when you say no to drugs! (Except for the 6th hour kids, that is!)
The Spork in the Road
At this point you are probably wondering how it is that I ever passed high school chemistry. To be honest with you, I often wonder the same thing.
I know that on countless different occasions I was presented with multiple different chances to abandon my pursuits as an amateur comedian, less I risk becoming a failed chemist, and time after time I picked humor over science.
For the longest time, I know that I was (barely) able to hold onto my passing grade by forging Ms. Beauchine’s initials on my homework, which was always due at the beginning of class, something that I seldom remembered until Ms. Beauchine was already making her daily rounds with her Sharpie to scribble her “SNB” onto everybody’s papers.
Instead of doing a better job at completing my homework on time, naturally I went to my mom’s office and asked her for a blue Sharpie like the one Ms. Beauchine used, and started practicing how to mimic her distinct cursive stroke.
From that point on, if I was late with my homework, I would simply get out my contraband Sharpie after Ms. Beauchine made her rounds, and initial my work to ensure I would get full credit. At some point she must have done the math, thought back about all of the times I had told her that my homework wasn’t ready, noticed something weird about the initials on my homework...something. But she never called me out on it.
Soon others in the class were aware of my newly acquired skill, and they started turning to me to sign their late homework as well, like I was running some black-market cottage industry. And finally, it got to the point where Ms. Beauchine, obviously aware that all of this was going on, would ask me to go around and initial everybody’s homework so she could focus on doing other things to prepare for the start of class.
Eventually, mercifully, we reached the end of the semester and the end of another school year. And whether it was because I was able to somehow eek out the narrowest of passing grades on my final exam, Ms. Beauchine took pity on me, or more likely, she just couldn’t face the prospect of having me repeat her chemistry class as a senior. Either way, somehow, I miraculously ended up passing her class with a solid D.
And that’s why, even now, I still enjoy telling these stories, whether it’s for the blog, or even if it's just for an audience of one.
This one’s for you Hodge..
Christmas photo of Josh (Hodge) and his family.