It was 10 degrees below zero and pitch black outside when I finally got my 5th newspaper subscription. If I signed up 5 new customers I’d win tickets to a Kansas City Chiefs football game at Arrowhead Stadium. I’d never been to a pro football game. I must have knocked on 50 doors that cold December night, but I got my 5 new customers. I was going to see the Chiefs, and most importantly my favorite player, running back Joe Delaney.
My Dad had been a RB in highschool. He’d been so good that he’d gotten a scholarship to play at the junior college up the road. Something must have happened though cause he’d dropped out and gotten drafted into the Vietnam war. I never met him, not because he was killed or anything, just that… well I guess he didn’t feel like hanging around after the war. Then my mom had some problems and I ended up in fostercare, a ward of the state.
I remember playing ball out in the street in front of my foster home. The starting RB for our highschool, Brian Carlson would be sitting on the porch two houses down with his girlfriend. I’d be out there in the street. throwing the ball up in the air to myself like an idiot. Brian Carlson never did come out and throw the ball to me. I didn’t blame him, his girlfriend was the prettiest girl in town and the homecoming queen.
Well things didn’t quite work out for me seeing Joe Delaney and the Kansas City Chiefs. We got so much snow the night before the game that the roads were closed and that was that. No Chiefs game and no Joe Delaney. Maybe I’d get to go next year… but then Joe Delaney died that summer trying to save three kids from drowning. Joe Delaney couldn’t swim. Less than 2 months later Brian Carlson the high school running back killed himself. No one knew why. I guess he drowned too. Me, I just sat on the front curb. Two houses down, the porch was empty.
A couple years later playing football, I broke my arm. After I broke it a second time I became a little gun shy and I quit. Funnily enough I got a theatre scholarship to go to college but I dropped out after two years. I too was drowning in problems. I was broke and had no options so I joined the Army. Luckily there were no wars and I discovered Eastern philosophy and therapy. Now I’m a fat happy middle aged man, with a lovely wife and a house, some animals - maybe even a child someday.
I did smile today though when I heard the news, Leonard Pope, tight end for the Kansas City Chiefs saved a boy from drowning.
hmmm… and maybe somewhere there is no war and a little kid is playing catch with someone he looks up to, be it Dad, brother, or the ghost of Joe Delaney.
