Should I write these stories from my youth, or do they just represent false bravado on my part? We shall see, I guess. This is one of the best I have.

Freshman year, high school. It was a small school-about one hundred seventy-five kids, representing three towns totalling eleven hundred people.
This was an ongoing phenomenon in rural areas because local tax bases
could not support how expensive
school districts had become. This combining schools process.

Football practice started just before school did. Two a days. I still shudder at the remorseless effort one needed to expend for two practices a day. My
Lord, was it hard. Conditioning mostly.

Well, I survived. Now we were in the second week of school or so, and our
first game was Friday. So practice had changed. Now we did quite a bit of scrimmaging-Varsity vs Junior-Varsity.
Freshman, sophomores were JV.
Juniors and seniors-V.

Ok. JV coach was also varsity basketball coach-Jim. Varsity football coach was the high school principal-Les. Dick, my friend was Varsity quarterback. I, am playing defensive end for the JV. Got it?

Hut one, hut hut! Dick drops back and I close-line him. Slam him to ground.
Les, is not happy. He scowls at the senior offensive tackle I went around.
"Ok, let's do this again."

I look back at our JV coach, Jim, as he nods his head affirmative. Hut hut, I go right around tackle again and slam Dick down. Well, I'd say Les was getting upset. He kicked the tackle in the butt with some tender words. (Chuckle)

Ok, third time yep, you know already-tackle bumped me, but I just went around and tackled the quarterback again. Jeepers was Les mad. So he says-"Let me show you how it's done."

The line breaks huddle, and trots up starting to settle in. I look back at Jim, my JV coach. Expecting a no, no, it was an emphatic go ahead. Go ahead? Are you nuts? That's the high school principle back there. Let alone what the senior line might already have in store for me.

I have only a second or two, I frantically look back again-Jim nods affirmative. Gulp. Hike, this tackle never learns, right around and close-line the principle. He's apoplectic.
Our eyes met, I knew I was dead.

I popped up, looked for Jim, my JV
rescue, explanation...save me. Couldn't see him. Then I caught a glimpse of somebody bent over, holding his thighs, to keep from falling over. Jim. Laughing so hard, I almost started laughing too. He was sobbing, shaking his head, starting over again and again.

Finally, I see him cave in, and fall to the ground in paroxymal spasms. You
should appreciate that Jim was a very serious coach, and I had never dreamt he laughed. It was quite a sight with him rolling on the ground, I must admit.

That Friday, I started varsity defensive end, as a freshman.