A Viking Love Letter

February 19, 2020


Today a former student of mine posted a picture of some t-shirts from his high school debate career. He had stumbled onto them, and it has inspired a great deal of goodwill on the FB front. What it inspired in me is more than goodwill. It is a sea of memories of a time that I’ve never really wrapped my head around. I probably never will.


Coaching debate at Parkview from the late nineties to 2014 was—next to my biological children—the greatest gift of my life. I walk a fine line here: I quit after 18 years and some of my heroes and friends are still duking it out weekend after weekend. I didn’t split the atom or cure the cancer. I’m not in line for any hall of fame. And clichés aside: this is not about me. But for a slice of time, I got to cavort with some of the most splendid, talented, driven, brilliant kiddos around. We all came together at Parkview High School in rooms 301 and 237 (one with air conditioning and one without) and we created a team that was larger than any one of us. It was a wee bit magical, as I see it in my rearview mirror.


When I began teaching at Parkview, I was following two legends. Bob Bilyeu and Brett Miller were giants in speech and debate in the state and the nation, and I managed to weasel my way in on their coattails. The pressure I felt to continue a tradition of excellence was self-imposed and often backfired: my temper and my ego-driven need to prove myself sometimes hurt kids. I see those scenes in my mind’s eye and they pierce me still. I know that now and I knew it then as soon as it happened. But I wasn’t fully formed and my ambition was focused inward. That was the mistake.

I never dropped the ambition (I think my former students will agree), but as I grew up as a human being and as a coach, I began to see the damned forest AND the proverbial the trees. I saw people, not competitors. I saw pride in themselves, not in me. Not always. I’m still flawed Nance. I still hurt kids and kicked myself after. If you’re reading this and you’re among them (the likelihood is 100%, in all probability), I’m sorry. 


What happened, over time, and what I think happens to leaders in positions of success, is that I truly felt like I was along for the ride. We became symbiotic, those Vikings and me: I needed them, they needed me. And what that created was a special formula that I wish I could bottle. The unbottleable result, however, was weekend after weekend of kids who largely came from some variation of difficulty and who faced their counterparts throughout the state and the country without fear.  “When they hear you’re from Parkview,” I would tell them before the first tournament of the year, “they might pee a little.” The squad was proud of the reputation they carried with them. And the thing I hope they knew—and they know now, these years later as they triumph in their own adult lives—is what it meant to me to lead them off the bus and into the school where they would carry that confidence. I hope they carry it with them still.


So if you fine Vikings still have those “Undefeated” or “We bust ours so we can kick theirs” t-shirts, I hope you remember all the late nights and sketchy motels and bus rides and evidence-chasing and practices. And I hope you have some gilded memories of the moments for which you wouldn’t trade any of it. I sure do.

The Thread

The Thread


41 years ago tomorrow my mom died. There is always a thread of that loss that weaves its way through me. It isn’t the fabric of my life’s apparel. It was for a time. No more.

But January 20 remains a marker of survival: a mother who couldn’t, a family who could.

Today the strangest thing happened. My precious Halpert and I decided to make a swing by the cemetery and say “hideedo” to our people (I drove), and just as I turned in, one of my dearest friends texted to tell me her mom has just died. I stopped the car. And I began to survey the losses sustained by the people I love: in the last few years, two of my soulmates have lost their dads, one a mom, another friend a dad, and one friend has lost both parents, and now this. “We aren’t going to weddings any more,” Beth said, as we went on our (near) daily walk through her neighborhood after I stood over Mom’s grave and cried the tears that flow without provocation. It just happens.

As a child, I was the only one with a dead parent. I wasn’t proud of it. Don’t get me wrong. But it made me different. I knew that.

Now my friends are joining the club to which no one wants a membership. Their pain is different than mine: they knew these parents, and these parents raised them. Pain is pain. And it is acute and fades not slowly. We need each other when there is pain, and when there isn’t.

Loss is wretched. Anticipating it, experiencing it, regretting it, and mourning it are not for the faint of heart. Nor is this blog post, I suppose. To my people, though, who suffer loss (and that is us one and all), the congruent truth is just as Mr. Rogers described when horror strikes: “look for the helpers.”

I have been surrounded by the void-filling, giving helpers every day since January 20, 1979. That’s the anniversary: 41 years of life’s fabric woven by the helpers.

Many, many thanks to you all. In the vast hereafter, Grace Ann Rowe thanks you, too. Of that, I am sure.

Alex

Jan 5, 2020

It’s been a couple strange days. I haven’t felt terrific but I have this terrific dog who sticks like glue to her Nance.

I am watching the Golden Globes and hearing the adorable Olivia Colman remark, “I’m a bit boozy. I didn’t expect this.” And Michelle Williams just delivered an eloquent plea for us all to vote in 2020. And Brad Pitt asked us to be kind tomorrow when we have the chance, after saying hello to his folks, who live here in Springtown.

But my heart aches for the Holdens. Alex Holden is 25 and has been missing since New Year’s Eve. He debated for me at Parkview for four years in my latter years as a coach. My absolute favorite thing about Alex was that—no matter what trouble he was in, no matter what hooey I was throwing at him as his demanding coach—he would grin. And I would melt. He charmed me when I didn’t want him to. He just had a way.

His talent was evident as a debater and as a performer. And he always swept his hair aside in an aristocratic way that cracked me up. Our high school was a place rooted in equal opportunity and lacked an element of fancy. That is a good thing. Alex had a way of relating to everyone but still being elegant. That’s it. He brought elegance to that debate room.

His senior year we faced an issue in which Alex’s credibility was challenged. At one point, in an isolated moment, he thought I doubted him. My kids called me “Wedge” then. It was my nickname. He looked at me with tears in his eyes and asked, “Wedge, don’t you believe me?”

I did believe him. And the look on his face at that moment is all I see now when I think of him. He is missing. Something has happened to this dear soul. He has family and friends who are desperate to see him again. I am among them.

So on this strange Sunday evening, I keep waiting for a word that is good. With Halpert asleep on my feet and glued to me, I hope Alex is okay, and he knows that we would all give anything for him to walk through the door, brush his hair aside, and grin that charming, slightly bull-shitting grin we love.

It’s been a strange several days. I pray I can recount them some day as miraculous. Come home, Alex.

The Intersection

December 28, 2019

Yesterday several roads converged, as they are like to do. This intersection consisted of Brandy Harris, “Little Women,” and Don Imus. 

Let me explain.

In my glorious days at Parkview, I had the great fortune to meet, know, love, and also coach alongside Brandy Enver Harris. This young lady was a force of nature: she was brilliant, wise beyond her years, a performer beyond all measure of excellence, and dominated Humorous Interpretation. That means this gal could take a script and—in one body—become a host of hysterical, pee-in-your-pants characters. And here’s the thing: Brandy wasn’t even my student. She belonged to one of my best friends, who coached across town. But, man, did I love her. Later in her collegiate career I had one incredible year in which she assisted me and we coached together. Then she took over the program in which she had competed at Hillcrest and we duked it out, if that is what you call two dear friends leading the troops at competing schools with limited resources and hearts for kids. We had the best time. 

Brandy has since become a champion for kids in our community. She is a BIG DEAL. She texted me last Sunday when I was having a particularly bad day. We keep up with one another via the miracle of social media, but we hadn’t seen each other’s smiling faces in a couple years. She didn’t know how her text would pull me from the mire, but I’ll be damned if it didn’t. And we met yesterday for a marathon lunch during which my faith in humanity was restored and my admiration for all things this giant in the land of taking care of the kids who need it most was elevated to new heights.

Following this glistening lunch, I had a date planned with another unique beauty: my daughter and I went to see “Little Women.” I read this novel in 8th grade and reported on it at length for Mrs. Kretschmar at Pershing in 1988. I loved the Winona Ryder version 25+ years ago. And I found this new offering elegant and soul-churning. Of course, it takes little more than female empowerment and care and a dead sister and strong mother to send me into self-searching, warm-tears-down-the-cheek-deluge. It was beautiful. Gracie agreed.

But at the closing credits, I switched my phone alive to discover that Don Imus was dead. Let me explain: politics and controversy aside, this man could interview like no other. Until his 2018 retirement, I would wade through the irritants that might swirl about him to find insight and interest in the news of the day. When my babies were babies and I had to drag a little transistor radio along in the bleak darkness of morning, I would run to the sound of Imus. He was crusty and brilliant and incredibly benevolent, even when he screwed up. He made me think. A lot. His guests made me think. And he died yesterday, at 79. I found myself taken aback at my grief.

Nothing happens in a vacuum. This I know. Yesterday was particularly vacuum-free. But I basked in the glow of moments that converged to make it a day worth remembering. So, to my Brandy and to friends in your life who remind you what matters and that time and space are not factors in the true closeness of the friendship; to all the Little Women whose wonder may or may not become the stuff of the cinema; and even to legends we may never meet but who play a daily role for decades in our understanding the universe: thank you. 

I don’t love the holidays. But this day, smack in the middle of holiday time, turned my head and my heart. We all need days like that. 

I certainly did.

The Encore

October 26, 2019

When I was in second grade, I had a special part playing the xylophone in a musical performance for the whole school.

When I was in second grade, I was in a new school, a new house, with a new stepmom and a host of concerns in my little bowl-cut adorned head.

I told my very busy father (also in a new job as leader of the SMS athletic department) the wrong time for the assembly at which I would play the xylophone. He was planning to bring my Nanny and Auntie Grace to watch me. (He did stuff like that: showing up on the playground to say goodbye before leaving for a trip; always being the one to take me to see Dr. Palcheff, the magical pediatrician; attending a parent-teacher conference in the same year when I wrote him a note in my disheveled desk saying “I know it’s a mess, Dad, but life is hard” to assuage his judgment of my housekeeping faults, which haunt me still.)

This time, though, I really blew it.

When my little class returned cross-legged to our spot on the cafeteria/gym floor after our big performance and the third and fourth graders had taken the stage, I looked over to see my Pops guiding my beloved grandmother (in her grey leather coat that I can still smell) and her sister in their matching wigs down the stairs into the cafeteria/gym. They had missed it. It was my fault. I buried my bowl cut in my hands.

I don’t remember what happened next. I don’t think I cried. Maybe I did. I do know that I just wanted to vanish and that we returned to Mrs. White’s classroom, and we hadn't been seated for long when we were ushered back to our places in the cafeteria/gym and reprised our performance for an audience of three.

That little 8-year-old with the unibrow and the bad hair is still in the mix, as is the memory of the day that was saved. Sometimes, you just need one more shot with the xylophone; and someone who sees the need for the encore.

Pendulum Swinger

July 7, 2019

I never cease to be amazed at the dizzying whir of timing: for every win there is a loss? Eh, perhaps. Sometimes there is a season of winning followed by a drought, or visa versa. Regardless, the great impossibility of and need for balance is the theme of my little life. I was reminded of it when watching Bohemian Rhapsody again today. Freddie Mercury is faced with his immense talent and success and his internal personal turmoil (paradox, anyone?). When the lady who loves him asks, “what do you want from me?” He answers, “almost everything.”

And there it is. Everything. Almost.

When I was coaching debate, we were riding home one year from the state tournament with a couple state championships, two or three state runners-up, and more successes that now I can’t recount. It was an embarrassment of riches (Candice Bergen's words describing her jillionth Emmy. I was just a teensy debate coach, but I’ll borrow from one of my famous muse’s musings, thank you). As we soldiered home from MU, I remember thinking “what have I done to deserve this? I am so blessed!” Days later, I discovered that some of my favorites had engaged in some tomfoolery on that trip—on my watch—that got us all into trouble. I asked myself then, “what have I done to deserve this? I can’t win!” My heart was broken by the pendulum’s swing from pride to destruction. 

And that’s life. That is its blessing and brutality.

The risk is never allowing yourself to enjoy the wonders for fear of the axe’s inevitable strike. As I venture forward these days, I’m finding there is little point in throwing up preemptive defenses against the blows. Rather, if I maximize the joy, the lows are easier to bear. I didn’t latch onto that in my youth, or my 20s or 30s. But times, they are a changin’.

Last night I hosted a birthday bash for my bestie. I had the house cleaned up and presentable after a week of good but busy stuff. The party was a hoot, and in the midst of it, friends helped me discover a water leak that I would have been even slower to understand without their help. The leak has subsequently destroyed my kitchen. As the horror of its demise unfolded all day today in the hands of professionals, John Mulaney’s words describing his rectal exam when he feigned a prostate problem just to get some Xanax for a flight, rang in my ears: “this might as well happen.”

So today, whether I rejoice with the US women’s soccer victory or cry at horrors at the borders; whether I mourn a loss or rejoice in the whir of fans that dry my baseboards, I hear life asking, “what do you want from me?”

Almost everything. 

And that will have to do.

14

April 20, 2019

There is a man in my kitchen.

I’m taking my morning swig of ice cold Diet Coke, bleary eyed, opening the blinds, when a man’s voice startles me from the doorway. I jump. Drew just laughs.

All he said was good morning.

But last night he sounded like a boy, didn’t he? Wasn’t he a foot shorter then? Now he sounds like he should have a Marlboro hanging out of his mouth and a cup of coffee in his hand as he looks DOWN at me from this new, overnight height.

He shares his sister’s intelligence and has a capacity for math that must come from reading box scores and ESPN crawlers since infancy.

Like his Papa, he bleeds maroon, and has spoken the language of athletics since his speaking began.  He was four years old and not yet literate when he was recounting scores on television to a family friend.  “You know, I can’t read,” he said nonchalantly, his blue eyes sparkling. He wasn’t much older when attending a press conference after a Bears game and then MSU coach Cuonzo Martin asked if there were any more questions.  Unflinching, the young, budding sports reporter raised his hand.  All heads turned as Drew, who may or may not have even been in grade school yet, asked his question. It was legit. Around that same time, a little pal of his was beside him at the kitchen counter when Drew was flipping through the channels.  SpongeBob appeared on the screen, and Drew’s friend quickly informed him he wasn’t allowed to watch SpongeBob (incidentally, one of Drew’s first words was “SpongePants,” which speaks to my stellar parenting skills).  Without missing a beat, Drew soldiered on through the channels, asking, “Can you watch the St. Louis Cardinals?”

But it’s his heart that makes mine swell most: it is an expanse of sensitivity and compassion that is and always has been uniquely Drew. Even when his room looks like a crime scene, or when he is meeting every obligation of school and intense competitive baseball, or he binge watches Netflix in his few spare moments, he is an absolute champ.

He will get bigger—physically, emotionally, intellectually. And hurrah for that! But today, on his 14^th birthday, with his deep voice, looming stature, and big grin, he’s still my boy.  

Happy Birthday, Drew!