Walking with a Six-Pack On The Way To School

Published 6:00 pm Saturday, February 11, 2006

Pleasant greetings on this fine sunny day! It is sunny, is it not? But what day is it?

One of my dilemmas in submitting musings to our fine editor Brian Kelly is that while I try to appear in real time, I am actually on tape delay. What I write on Tuesday or Wednesday, you read on Saturday or Monday.

The point I am eventually going to make is that I am still upset about this Super Bowl thing. Yet, I may not be by the time you read this. By today, Wednesday or Saturday, I may have already been to a therapist or hypnotist or medicine man to fix my melancholy malaise.

Of course, it would sure help if my Pittsburgh pal Wes would stop sending me pictures of last Tuesday’s Steeler parade. Wes and I were “sole-mates” in the 60s. We walked to school, to and fro, five days a week. It was exactly two miles from my three-story gray shingled house to the front door of Oil City High School. Those were the funniest and funnest four miles of my day.

I would depart from my 1209 West First Street house promptly at 7 a.m., walking east along the tree-lined sidewalks a couple of blocks until I got to Wes’ place at 928 West First, exactly at 7:06 a.m.

I would quietly knock on the screen door. His sweet mom Peg would open their big front door, then the screen door, inviting me in to wait in their warm house while Wes ran around upstairs looking for his homework. I always enjoyed this daily experience — the humor of Wes looking for his homework with the secure smell of toast fumes wafting throughout the house.

On real cold or rainy days, Mr. Wert would drive us.

The sweet smell of toast was replaced by his first smoke of the day as we journeyed down West First in Mr. Wert’s 1963 Biscayne Chevy. When you are 16, there is nothing quite like the smell of a cigarette on a cold morning and an empty stomach. Did you know that the secondary smoke from a Carnegie Tech alum’s Raleigh cigarette makes a teenager in the back seat of the car feel smarter?

Most of the time, Wes and I would leave his porch on foot and head up Mitchell Avenue, quite a steep 45-degree hill, to join Gary Jones (Chonce) and Jay Kaufman (Jaybird) at the corner of Mitchell and Third.

Jay’s dad was our high school principal. Gary’s dad was the junior high principal. Wes and I were honored to be self-appointed security for these sons of our administrative and academic leaders.

After a few celebratory sarcastic greetings, the four of us would pick up the pace toward Bill (Ridge) McClintic’s house. The Victorian style homes along West Third Street had been built by and for the oil barons of yesteryear. These structures were majestic mansions of petroleum profits.

Oil was our lumber. Oil was our fishing. Oil was our farming. Oil was our everything.

Our high school yearbook was the Oil Can. Our hometown paper was The Derrick. We walked across the Petroleum Street Bridge to get to the north side of town to walk across the Oil Creek Bridge, passing the five storied red brick headquarters of Quaker State Motor Oil Refining Corporation.

My dad worked on the fifth floor. I was allowed to come visit on Saturdays when the offices were closed. I was never allowed to wear jeans downtown or in Dad’s office. “What would people think, Jimmy?”

Back to West Third Street. We’re not downtown yet. We just met Ridge at the bottom of his front steps.

Walking further down West Third Street, we five “sole brothers” stopped at the Petre Mansion, a four-story house located on the corner of Second and Petroleum. Out bounded our buddy Pete, his right arm wrapped around a half dozen thick schoolbooks that he probably never opened. He did not need to.

If there was a weak link in our six-pack of academians, just call me “sausage lips.” Look at this East Coast lineup and brain trust.

Pete went on to graduate from Yale. The closest I ever got to Yale was buying a lock in the hardware store.

Jay, our class valedictorian, graduated from MIT.

Bill went on to obtain his medical degree at Lehigh.

Wes and Chonce graduated from Penn State before garnering PhD’s in Law and Chemical Engineering.

I finally graduated with a BA in BS from William Jewell College in Liberty, Missouri, located on 160 Southern Baptist acres of Christian atmosphere, highlighted each weekend by underage drinking. Our most famous alumni include Jim Davis, who portrayed Grandpa Jake Ewing on Dallas and Homer Drew, retired basketball coach for Valparaiso. Try using those names for recruiting. It is doubtful that we have enough famous alums for a six-month calendar.

So, what does all of this mean? It means that we can forget about the Super Bowl. We can forget about the Steelers. We can forget about the agony of defeat while remembering the thrill of victory.

We can watch our well-worn video tape of the Seahawks beating the Carolina Panthers for the NFC Championship.

How many points will you give me?