joyful!

joyful! focuses on the positive, the spiritual, the natural and/or the supernatural however one chooses to define it. Keep in mind that joyful! means just that.With very few exceptions, works need to have a positive or uplifting message or otherwise have a joyful! or thoughtful meaning. 

Pamela Tyree Griffin  

Going Long

by

Jeffrey Miller

That fall, we went to City Park after school and tossed around a football for a couple of hours. We were practicing for the annual Pass, Kick and Punt competition. We talked about our teacher, Mr. Vasquez, Gale Sayers, this really cute girl in class, and of course, we talked about Larry who had missed most of the school year.

Leukemia was what we were told. I looked it up in an encyclopedia at school. What an awful disease.

Just last summer Larry and I had played on the same Little League team A&W. After a game we rode our bikes to the root beer stand on Columbia for a free root beer. If we won, we got a side order of fries or onion rings. Home runs were good for a BBQ or a hot dog basket. I warmed the bench and just got a free root beer. Larry, on the other hand hit three homers that summer including a grand slam against Lou’s Supermarket. He split his BBQ basket with me. That was the kind of friend he was.

We knew each other from the first grade and were as tight as two friends could be whether it was collecting and trading baseball cards (I traded most of my White Sox col-lection, even the much sought after and hard to find Luis Aparicio for the even much harder sought after Mr. Cub Ernie Banks); riding our bikes down to the Little Vermillion stocking up on penny candy at Ben Franklin’s or playing whiffle ball.

None of us knew just how sick he was that summer. He had been in and out of the hospi-tal a few times during the last school year and in August; just a week before school started he had been rushed to St. Mary’s Hospital.

On one of those crisp, autumn days Mom told me the news as soon as I got home.

“Son, it’s Larry. He passed away this morning.”

“No, that can’t be right. We talked last weekend. He said he’s coming back to school. We’re going to compete in the Kick, Pass and Punt.

“I’m sorry son.”

That night, before I cried myself to sleep I thought about how much I was going to miss Larry—his jokes, his laugh, and most importantly, how much he believed in me. Larry had been a natural when it came to sports. I on the other hand, was lousy at sports but that didn’t stop Larry from hanging out with me and encouraging me.

“Go long,”

We were on our way home from school last autumn, walking down Oak Street and toss-ing a football back and forth when he told me to go long.

We tossed our books to one side, looked up and down the street for any cars and took po-sition.

“Hut one, hut two, hike!”

I took off running down the street as fast as I could after I hiked the ball to Larry. He dropped back, pretending that he was Bart Starr, cocked his arm back and let one fly. I was already halfway down the street; I could hear the ball sailing through the air and when I looked over my shoulder, there it was. He placed it right inside my outstretched arms for amazing pinpoint accuracy as I crossed the imaginary end zone at the end of the block. When I turned, I saw him jumping up and down in the middle of the street with his hands up in the air to signal touchdown.

There might not have been anyone else around to see the great catch I had made and if I told anyone at school about it, no one would have believed me. But Larry had made sure to tell everyone about how I went long and had made an amazing catch. That was the kind of friend that Larry was.

Originally from LaSalle, Illinois, I’ve been living and working in South Korea since 1990 teaching English composition and conversation at a university in Daejeon. I’ve also been a feature writer for the Korea Times and a regular contributor to the Joong Ang Daily. I recently finished my first novel, War Remains and am trying to find a publisher. (Editor's Note: Jeffrey's photography also appears on the Art and Photgraphy page of  this issue.)

YOUR EDITOR SHARES A STORY OF HER VERY OWN!  Click Here --> The Short Humour Site "Mamma Always Said What She Meant"

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