12. Track meet

1965

Track meet

But that Saturday in 1965, probably in June was the first biggie life-altering, direction-changing thingy to happen to me.

The first thing that went wrong was that I did not have a jock strap to put on. It was the day of some large track tournament, maybe a district championship meeting. I do not recall the school it was at but we were the visitors. Either I had forgotten to bring it with me that morning or someone took it out of my locker but who would do something like that?

When something happens and at the moment there is no reason behind it, we just accept it. Later on, looking back, especially if the event changes the direction we are going in life then it is easy to question why

something happened. It is the worldview thing. We believe ‘the-way-it-is’ somewhere between two extremes.
All is the belief that everything is one; visibility reigns supreme – the whole cosmos and everything that happens is in harmony with everything else. Nothing is probably the real reality.

My thought at six AM this morning influences something going on in a super nova on the other side of the universe. Everything from choosing our parents before birth to sorting out something on our path to whatever completeness is to each thought and experience is scripted.

Nothing is the belief that we are just born – for no reason except that something or someone begat us, traditionally a mother getting pregnant and dropping her load – which is us and at the end when we die that is it. There is nothing anymore. Religions and philosophies are somewhere between those two extremes. I seem to be heavily on the All side of beliefs whether it is because of my brain chemistry or because of too much LSD or I am supposed to be that way does not really matter, it is just the way I am. So when the track meet stuffed up and my life changed, it was all meant to be though at the time I could not have imagined the reason why I did not wear a jock that day.

Therefore, we, Shenendehowa Central, are doing well at the track meet. I had won a few things; I did a broad jump further than anyone else and jumped over some bar higher than anyone else.
Then came the 440-yard run, which for whatever reason was my specialty. I had won every race that year and I think I set some upstate New York record at some time. We needed to win this race to win the day and either advance to a state final or a district final or champion of the universe, I have no idea what the thing was all about, and it is insignificant now. I had a good lead, and I was coming around the final bend – looking behind me I could see the others straining to catch up with me.

As I ran, I had a terrible sensation developing. My penis, from not wearing a jockstrap began to grow until it was below my shorts. Granted we had short shorts and I am not giving anything away here but by the time I was around the last turn headed toward row after row of bleachers full of screaming, yelping, starring students and staff I had a full hard-on. I tried to make it stand up straight, but it seemingly caught itself, at the end of my shorts, looking out at the track or perhaps unknown to me, at a cheerleader doing some erotically penis-hardening summersault in the distance. I was trying to run and win this race at the same time as part of my body was too unruly for me to control. I assume my parents were in the crowd too and the thought of my parents, incredibly good Christians that they were, would see me with an erection was surely a ticket straight to hell and a nightmare no number of drugs in the future would ease from my consciousness.

I did the most natural thing a person in my situation would do. I ran to the buses behind the grandstands and climbed aboard the first one with an open door. I never finished that race. I never got past the final corner or down the straightaway where the spectators were.

Yelling. What they were yelling I do not know. Maybe they were just yelling for me to win, maybe they were yelling because my dick was too big, too small, too thick, too thin, too red or just too much outside my shorts, I have no idea. I sat in the bus and cried. The coach got on the bus and yelled at me. Gradually the rest of the team got on and they were mad at me. We had lost the tournament and it was my fault. I do not know if the others knew why I did not finish the race and I do not recall whether I told anyone why. I went to school the next day and everyone was laughing at me telling me to show my dick and other rude lines. I went home, packed my belongings, and never went back to school.
BELOW AE SOME COMMENTS IN MY YEARBOOK

[Terry. “To that Bohemian Nut” I remember from Marble-mouth’s homeroom. I was very sorry to hear about your misfortune in that track meet. Well maybe next time you’ll wear one!”]
Terry, to the fastest man on the track team that is if something didn’t happen to him. Well, there’s always next year – Good luck and be good. Keep cool. Dave]

Forty years later, I am still trying to finish my schooling. Now, in 2004, I am waiting for the acceptance of my PhD thesis so that I can become Doctor Terrell, loser of the 440-yard race, 40 years earlier. (update, I was ‘awarded’ my PhD August 2005). I was officially in the eleventh grade at the time but because I had failed so many subjects in the years before I was somewhere between year nine and eleven. I was taking first year French and first year algebra both which I had started in the ninth grade for the third time, and I was getting lower marks than when I started. I was actually getting dumber the more I went to school. I failed History, English, and every other subject whilst in year eleven so my not going back was no big deal. My dreams of being an NBA player had stopped when I stopped growing and my thoughts of going to Air Force Academy stopped a few years earlier when I found getting high was more rewarding at least in the short term than going to school was. Life did not look very enticing or promising when I was seventeen. I could not go back to school. I do not remember what my parents had to say at the time but my father had bought me a motorcycle a few months earlier. It was not long before I packed a few things and decided to head out of town.

My motorcycle broke down along the way, somewhere in South Carolina. I was heading for Florida because I knew someone my age that had moved there and I had his address. I either took a bus or hitchhiked the rest of the way to Groveland Florida.

(Groveland Community Profile; Willis V. McCall sheriff here for nearly 30 years was infamous for his brutal treatment of blacks. In 1951, he shot two manacled prisoners. One died, and the other lived to testify against him. McCall was also tried and acquitted in the 1973 beating death of another black prisoner” Viewed and taken from http://www.epodunk.com Tuesday, January 17, 2006).

Groveland was a small town (3,951 in 2003 and probably 1500 in 1965) the size of Clifton Park (which now has about 36,000 but in 1965 there were a thousand inhabitants) near Orlando Florida that at the time was just a lot of farm fields. I returned to Orlando in 2002 and saw the changes that came with Disneyland and other tourist things, but I never thought of going to Groveland Florida to see if that place has changed like everywhere else has.

Not exactly – in 2019 Narda and I stayed at the home of a mate from Dalian International School (Dalian China) where we had been teaching for three-years 2010 – 2014 who lived in Orlando. We stopped in at Groveland High School and drove around the area to see if I remembered where I used to live. Of course, as things change in fifty years I don’t have a clue.

Maybe it is me that is changing the world. Every town I go to goes through huge changes, after I leave, for the better. But then again maybe it is not and everything changes whether I am involved or not. As humans we like to believe we have some effect on something or someone though at the end of the day it really would not change anything whether we existed or not.

I got a small apartment and entered school at Groveland High School believing that if I got away from my parents and Shenendehowa I could progress quite well. However, to my dismay I did not improve, and I was constantly without money. I worked at some furniture store moving furniture in and out after school and on weekends. Do people remember people for very long? Would my boss at the furniture store remember me? Perhaps someday he will be speaking to someone in Groveland Florida and say “do you remember that fellow who worked here back in 1965 from New York? Well, it seems that he had a bit of a shit life, wandered around the world, stuffed about for forty years after dropping out of Groveland High School and finally at the age of 58 got himself a PhD”. What do people say about me? Do they remember me in passing and end it with “what a tragedy in life he had”, alternatively; “what a tragic life he lived”. On the other hand, perhaps they say, “he has made his life a walking tragedy”. “Well, you Who are you? Fuck you. I am doing just fine. Thank you”.
Somehow my small apartment became a focal point for other teenagers. There was never any food in it but beer and other intoxicating drinks and substances appeared as well as various genders of assorted ages. I think I got kicked out and no one else in town would rent to me.

We talk about others that way.  “Remember Robert Adsit? It turns out he was gay and died of AIDS’.” That is it. Nothing more. My brother did die of AIDS and he was gay. But there was so much more to his life. He was an incredible artist. He worked on the graphics of the original production of Hair. He was a great musician and actor and had performed in Broadway Productions and had recorded his music and had lots of art shows. But it is so easy to reduce someone to one thing that we do not realize all that one goes through in a life. When Robert died (March 30, 1994) my father rang me, I was in Australia with my children. Sacha was attending a private school in Adelaide and staying with his mother during the week, a situation that lasted for a couple of months before he was back living in Victor Harbor with Leigh and me and attending Victor Harbor Primary School.

Leigh and I shot basketball for hours in the backyard and I drank a four-litre-cask of wine telling Leigh about Robert.  Leigh was ten years old and on that late afternoon, I told Leigh about life, death, and the pain of losing someone. I hoped he would remember it for the rest of his life, the grief I felt from losing my brother, and maybe he did. For the next ten years.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I wanted to be there
at your last breath
to see if I could catch a glimpse
of where you were going
The air was still today
birds were quieter than usual
The neighbour’s dog didn't even bark at me
but looked at me knowing my feelings
Me in Australia in Fall
You in New York City in Spring
but for an instant you were here too
yet still I couldn't catch a glimpse
of where you were going
my forever gone brother.
4-08-94 Victor Harbor South Australia

I did away with time
so we would still be together
I did away with distance
so we would still be together
I did away with death
so we would still be together
3-27-94 Victor Harbor

My father rang from across the sea
another son today buried he
He said he had tears in his eyes
as he looked up to the stealing skies
Another hole in the ground
another life without sound
Wife and brothers and sisters and father and mother buried before
gone off to a distant shore
My children and I all that's here
remembered today in my father's tears.
4-16-94 Victor Harbor

I want to be with you one more time
but I don't know how to
step into death
and return to life
4-17-94 Victor Harbor 

“I’m sorry I can’t die now
I have the house yet to clean
the children need to be collected from school
and the dog needs his flea bath
So for now take a neighbour or two
and just leave me be.”
10-17-93 Victor Harbor

The easiest way out is in
I was standing in the kitchen thinking about what to make for dessert tonight.
I set the table for you.
Poured the wine.
Hoping it's red that goes with tofu.
We will have such a long talk.
Brother to brother
You will tell me about life in the Big Apple.
Oh how I envy your life.
Fast paced.
All those people.
Everyday such an adventure.
Me?
Well what can one expect living in this small town in South Australia?
The driest state on the driest continent.
See
We live by the ocean.
We can surf at any time.
Have to watch for the sharks.
A different type of shark than you get up there in the Big Apple.
I wish I had some wine glasses.
Who in New York City would ever drink wine out of a mug?
But we are not fancy here.
I can't wait until my brother sees the boys.
They have grown so big since last we were in the Big Apple in 1992.
I was just telling the boys the other day
how surprised Uncle Robert will be to see them.
But it is almost time for the school bus.
I better put away the wine and the table settings
before the children see I was pretending again
that you were coming to visit us even though I know you died so far away and all alone up there
in the Big Apple five long months more than I can cope with.
8-14-94 Victor Harbor

I began to speak with you to tell you
my wishes, hopes and what has happened
since last I saw you
Then I remembered you had died
But I could not believe it when you stood
before my mind saying that the love
you had given me was my sustenance until I became
one with you once again
in the one world you now know.
8-2-94 Victor Harbor

my mom who put me up for adoption
my mom who raised me then died
my brother who was my favourite human
my girlfriend who killed herself
my girlfriend who society killed
my friend killed in Nam
my master teacher who died of a brain tumour
my master teacher who killed herself
We shared a glass of liquid light
talked about the old days
and how strange it was
that I was still alive
when the plan had always been
that I would go first
and meet all them
after I had set the table
for this our final meal together.
8-2-94 Victor Harbor

All my dead family and friends keep asking me
for favours
Last night one of my dead girl friends
asked me to feed her dead cat.
8-25-94 Victor Harbor

BROTHERS
Deep in my memory where we still play in childhood
We act out all that we will be when we grow up
Of course we will be famous:
You the artist, musician, actor
Me:
writer, lover.
We will have mansions and limousines, Lear jets.
We will be on the news, in magazines, and in the gossip columns.
We will visit one another on occasion to say how famous
we are and how far we have gone since childhood
when we were so poor and pretended we were rich and successful.
But then I emerge from deep in my mind
We are no longer children.
You are no longer alive.
And I am middle-aged living in a foreign land with not enough money
for my houseful of children that I am raising on my own.
Who right now are talking about how great life will be
when they grow up and are famous.
My 10-year-old is pitching a no-hitter for the Yankees in the World Series
and is receiving millions of dollars a year.
My 13-year-old is a rap artist doing graffiti and playing basketball for some out-lawed team.
The 14-year-old who lives with us is rich and famous - it doesn't matter at what.
And on the cycle goes.
New memories of what it will be like being created deep inside of young minds all over again.
9-06-94 Victor Harbor
I was looking at what I wrote you
after you died
seven years ago.
i remember that day
I told my, then, ten-year-old
whilst shooting baskets in the backyard after drinking
a cast of wine
that brothers are forever
but that you have gone forever no longer seems so important.
Since that time so seemingly long ago and far away
I have watched my children grow to teenagers:
one heading off to New York in just another month to play baseball
the other living on the other side of Australia
doing graffiti and hip hop shows
What has changed?
in this world of the physical there are always changes
ask the folks of ancient Greece
the cave people
the first to speak
the first to crawl upon the land
we live to change
we change to live
it is so sad you could not change to live
and that the rest of us who are still here could
but what is life?
Do you have more life than I do now?
Every day I think of you and remember all the things I would have said if I had the chance to say them now then, but basically as I am sure you are aware - life sucks - except for the Internet - that is a bit cool, and I know you would have had a great time with it - even e-mail me more often than the once-a-decade letter you sent during the last thirty years of your life.
Deconstructed post this post that life that we live a planet full of broken memories everyone so full of post-shit - not taking the Aquarian experience in its stride
But I do
talking to myself
another senile old man
waiting for the train
in the rain
talking to his brother.
see ya soon bro.
May 24, 2000, Adelaide

I did not spend many months in Groveland, Florida. My parents came to visit at some point and brought me my motorcycle that they got fixed somewhere in South Carolina. Soon after they left, I sold it to get enough money to leave Groveland. I headed south and spent a couple of days in Miami but for whatever reason at the time it did not appeal to me so I continued south. There is not much further one can go south and still be in the States than Key West, Florida. I rented a small room and began working at a restaurant as a short order cook. I spent my first Christmas and New Year’s alone in Key West and at the time it seemed very depressing. I did not have any friends and just enough money to pay rent. I ate my meals at the restaurant and took enough food in my pocket to get through the time I was not working, but I was usually at work, working often every day of the week. I was there for a few months and had not had any experiences worth remembering except once; I went deep sea fishing and that was sort of OK as it was the only time in my life I had ever gone fishing and it is still the only time to this day, I caught something but they threw it back into the water – whatever the symbolism of that moment was it did not have much to do with my thinking at the time. But as everything in my life has shown we get moved on whether we are ready to move on or not. I had no intention of leaving Key West solely because I had nowhere else to go and at the time was just living there for no apparent reason.

NEXT 13. Key West

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