Bingo Belly 1 X
Perhaps I should break with my usual style and include a detailed outline in this essay. I have my reasons; they will become clear as you scroll down the page.
One. In this instance, I prefer to write out the number one. It has something to do with the essay I wrote on negative one-twelfth long ago. Sometimes one means 1, and sometimes it doesn’t. There might be some quantum processes in our brains that can explain that. Maybe not; I am unsure.
Two. I don’t write this blog for hillbillies. I find their opinions uncultured, uninteresting, and boring. Those comments tend to lack insight, even that which might be deemed negligible by other hillbillies.
Three. I remember the exact moment I decided to give up football and start running for the cross-country team instead. I don’t know the specific date or year; I think I was a freshman in high school.
Four. I recently published a post where I used the analogy of a snowstorm to put into context what I felt about the death of a man I met in kindergarten. I even explicitly stated that I was writing from an analogical perspective in the essay.
Four A. I also included a paragraph about the best years of my life and where those were spent. The fact that I wrote such a paragraph was a subtle hint about how I felt about the times Scott and I had at Plymouth Elementary. Of course, that was long before those metaphorical lake-effect snowstorms targeted us and tracked us down.
Five. A hillbilly insulted me by claiming that I trivialized the death of my old friend. Apparently, I somehow exploited the tragedy of his passing to get more views on my blog.
Five A. Most days, no one shows up here. Zero visits, zero views. My blog is not monetized in any way. It costs me hundreds of dollars and untold stress to post these collections of keystrokes I know next to no one will ever read.
Author’s Note: I have been searching through some boxes that I have upstairs. The best I could do was find a picture of me with one of Scott’s old girlfriends. I am pretty sure a picture of Scott and me does not exist. We didn’t carry Polaroid cameras around back then; no one did. Aside from class photos, there is nothing.
Six. Hillbillies exhaust me. I have never been married and have no children because of hillbillies. That is a very long story, and I have no intention of writing it. I have long believed that the greatest truths are told through fiction. In works of fiction, snowstorms can be as indiscriminate and uncaring as any disease nature can proffer. In either case, the content of one’s character can not save any one of us from the coming storm. Those stories will not be told as a memoir. When constructing fictional stories, writers can be subtle about the awful fate of the undeserving.
Seven. I am permanently disallowing all comments on my blog. For more information, see above.
Author’s Note: One of the earliest memories I have includes Scott. We must have been 5 or 6 when the school got our class a new tricycle. Our teacher (I can’t remember her name) let us take one turn riding the bike down the hallway and then back to the classroom. I took my ride and then got right back in line. I remember Scott looking at me and shaking his head in approval of my gangster move. Thick as thieves were Scott and me. THICK AS THIEVES.
Eight. The days are getting shorter. They will continue to do so until the solstice in a few weeks. I learned a lot about the winter and summer solstice in the 1980s as an archaeology student. On that dig (outside of Cincinnati), I also learned to drink beer for breakfast. That is a story for another time.
Author’s Note: One of my bucket list projects involves an analysis of the formation of an archaeological site, a solstice marker, built some time ago by people long gone. I hope I do not run out of time and have the energy to finish it. Those are not mutually exclusive concepts.
Nine. I have been doing a deep dive into the life of the great Nelson Mandela. I am on my fourth biography, saving the autobiography for last. Maybe reading about his extraordinary life has had a subtle impact on me. I could never be as measured, pragmatic, and forgiving as him. Still, I find myself reluctant to write what I think deep down about hillbillies. I am exhibiting impressive restraint.
Author’s Note: I am reminded of an interaction I had with a Deluxe version of a Hillbilly here in Hillbilly Land some time ago. An obese, smelly (you get it) person called me a dimwit because her child was going to “kindergarden,” not “kindergarten.” She insisted that I was spelling the word wrong and that she was right as right could be. Unfortunately, her vote for upcoming elections counts as much as mine. Also, she is a parent responsible for at least one child. Should you be impressed with such hillbillies? I am not in the business of telling people what they should think, but…
Ten. In football vernacular, the “one hole” is the gap between the center and left guard. One day we played the kids from Edgewood in what I remember to be a freshman football game. I could be wrong, but it doesn’t really matter. The point is, I was a lineman, and Scott was the running back. A kid named Dave was playing left guard, and I was the center. Our coaches hit on a magic combination early on.
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I looked at the spot of the ball. It was my responsibility to march back 10 yards so that we could huddle up to call the next play.
“Huddle up! Huddle up! Let’s go!”
We all turned our backs to the opposing team except for our quarterback. He faced us and called out the play.
“Bingo Belly 1 X on 1, Bingo Belly 1 x on 1. Break!”
We all clapped in unison as we jogged to the football. I snapped the ball and then engaged the player across from me. The next thing I knew, Scott ran through the hole and down the field. He scampered a good distance before he was brought down.
I eyed the ball, marched back about ten yards, and called for the players to form a huddle.
“Bingo Belly 1 X on 1, Bingo Belly 1 X on 1. Break!”
We headed to the line. After I snapped the ball, I felt Scott scoot around my left side and rush down the field. Same play, the same result.
Dave and I were opening up big holes for Scott to run through. We did our job so that he could do his. On that first drive, we marched down the field and scored.
On our next possession, we were shut down. The opposing team put a linebacker in the one hole. After we punted, I went to my line coach and told him about the problem. He told me to snap the ball, block the guy in front of me, and then take on the linebacker before Scott made it to the line of scrimmage. He also told me to shut up and “do my job.”
Mission in hand, Dave and I kept opening up holes for Scott to run through. He ran rampant that day. Nearly every play we ran was Bingo Belly 1 X.
Somehow, we lost the game. I do not remember any details, but our head coach was extremely angry. He told us we weren’t allowed to talk during the bus ride back to our school. I remember him standing in the aisle, screaming at us because we were a bunch of losers. In the middle of his tirade, he singled out our running back.
“You all wasted a great effort by Scott Miggo. He gave all he had today, and you all wasted it. I better not hear any talking on the ride back.”
That is not an exact quote, but you get the drift. I doubt there is a stat sheet anywhere detailing how many yards Scott rushed for that day. I bet it might have been an Ashtabula High School freshman football record. We will never know.
The schools that Scott and I attended together are now all gone. Flat patches of grass are all that are left. No one new to Ashtabula would ever know that schools once existed there.
I have always believed that as we grow older, the more we need people who knew us when we were young. I knew Scott when he was young; it is unfortunate that he is not here to read what I wrote about that game. Would his recollection match mine? Would he remember the game at all?
Hillbilly nonsense aside, I am surprised by how sad I am about Scott’s passing. It doesn’t seem possible that so much time has gone by. I am off-kilter simply because I know he is gone. It doesn’t matter that I haven’t seen or spoken to him in 40 years; all my old memories are taking up space long unoccupied.
Yesterday, I happened to be in the neighborhood, so I drove by the house he grew up in, the house that I got sick in sometime in the early 1970s. It looked just how I remembered it.
