ESTESBOG

by Peter Walker

Growing up in a very rural area of Maine, having other kids to play with was the exception, not the rule. My social skills were slow to develop. Rural grade school was okay; but high school in the city was absolutely painful. Scholastically I was placed in the same classes with the A-list kids. But being an outsider and the son of a plumber, they were never going to cut me any slack socially. To make matters worse, I had the physical coordination and athletic ability of a top-heavy rock. I couldn’t make the B-list either.

By my junior year in high school I reached my full height of an even 6 feet. My legs were so short I wore pants with a 29-inch leg. My torso was so long I could not wear a hat while sitting in a car. I was a giant penguin!

I hated gym class. But it wasn’t just inability to keep up. It was the Athletic Director, Coach Grenda. Coach Grenda was one of the first adults I ever encountered who was truly cruel. Being the head football coach of a 4A school (as high as it went in Maine), Steve Grenda enjoyed considerable status in the community. To the jocks, he was a god. To those of us at the other end of the scale, he was the personification of evil.

The first time he ever hurt me was when I had to go to him for something after school – maybe to be let in to the locker room to retrieve some needed sneakers or something. As he waited for me, he asked, “Are you related to John Walker?”

“He’s my first cousin,” I replied. John was a star football and baseball player five years older than me.

“Too bad you aren’t more like him,” Coach Grenda replied, then turned his back on me and walked away.

I was crushed.

Later, after enduring almost three years of daily phys-ed classes, a good-looking jock – a wealthy doctor’s son – showed up for gym one day in black sneakers. Coach Grenda insisted we wear only white ones. The coach called Ricky out in front of the line and dressed him down for his lack of respect.

Ricky’s response was to divert attention away from the black shoes at my expense. With a grin, the handsome and confident A-list kid pointed me out and said, “At least I have the ability to do everything you ask of me, Coach. I’m not some fat klutz like him.”

The coach and most of the class all turned to stare at me. I wanted to throw up.

But it got worse. Coach Grenda glared at me for a second, shrugged his shoulders, and turned his back again. He let it stand. Class resumed and I was left standing by myself, my self-esteem in complete ruins.

Imagine my horror as a freshman at the University of Maine, to find I’d have to take two semesters of athletics or physical education to graduate. It was already a terrifying period in history. Our country’s leaders were pouring my generation into a war that made little sense while our World War II parents cheered them on. Make one slip in college and hello Southeast Asia, son.

I opted to get the worst part over with quickly. I reported to the Field House three times a week for PE 101. But it wasn’t so bad this time. The first thing I learned was that not all phys-ed instructors are evil and mean. The T-A was polite and treated me courteously. I was graded by my personal progress and never once compared with the others in my class. I got through that semester with a “C,” the best I felt I could hope for.

Early in my second semester, while taking PE 102, I had a series of accidents that involved violently twisting my right knee. The doctor at the campus infirmary sent me to an orthopedic specialist in Bangor who diagnosed stretched tendons and torn cartilage. Rather than operate – in those days there was no arthroscopic repair – he wanted me to wait and try to strengthen my knee by weight lifting and walking.

After 3 weeks of hobbling to classes on crutches, I limped into PE one afternoon with a note from my doctor. While I was standing there, another student walked up with a nearly identical note. Coach Grenda would have seized the moment to berate us for sloughing off. But our T-A was sympathetic. He said, “Alright, as soon as I get these other guys started, I’ll set up a weight room regimen for you two and you can spot each other. The second half of the hour I want you to jog, or at least walk around the track and strengthen those knees.”

For the rest of the semester I did leg lifts and walked around the gritty Field House track with the sophomore, Steve. Steve was a very big man, at least 4 inches taller than me. He, too, was funny shaped with very long torso, extra short legs, and barrel-chested. He was extremely hairy with a permanent 5 o’clock shadow. Together we must have looked like a pair of great apes stumbling around the dimly lit track. Physical “short straws.” Losers.

At first I was intimidated by Steve’s appearance. He looked gruff and imposing. I could never tell if his faded gym shorts and threadbare T-shirts were of necessity or an anti-establishmentarian statement. But he turned out to be gentle and, like me, a bit shy and withdrawn. We got along well enough, although I suspect neither one of us, for the same reason, dared open up very much in that environment.

I wish I could say we became close friends. As it was, after that class saying hello when we met on the sidewalk was about the only interaction I had with the guy.

Life went on. With the conclusion of that gym class my obligation to physical education mercifully ended. I stayed within my shell through all eight semesters of college and graduated in 4 years. It was the only way to do it in the 1960s without taking a sabbatical for Lyndon Johnson and Robert McNamara. By 1970 the war in Vietnam was winding down a little and Uncle Sam was getting more picky about who he drafted. My knee kept me out of the Service through two consecutive draft notices.

I stayed in my shell and brooded out my undergraduate years. My former gym partner began to come out of his. His forte was the pen. By the time he was a senior, Steve wrote a weekly column in the campus newspaper that had everyone scrambling for the free periodical as bundles of it landed on the steps, just to read what he had to say. We all thought he had great talent. Rumor had it that Steve wrote at least a thousand words every day.

It took me another decade to realize I had potential of my own. It took even longer to gain the self-confidence to comfortably approach people and initiate conversations. By that time, Steve Grenda was just a bad memory – a very small man who didn’t matter. The other Steve – Stephen King – proved to me that it is possible to be very successful in life without ever wearing an athletic uniform.