WHICH SIDE ARE YOU ON? [8-28-23] A repeat

CHRIST IN WINTER: Reflections on Faith and Life for the Years of Winter--WHICH SIDE ARE YOU ON? [8-28-23] A repeat

 

[I have told this story at least once before in this column, but it helps me to hear it again…]

My mother’s brothers were all handsome men. Even among them, though, Uncle Jesse stood out. Curly hair. Sparkling brown eyes. A dazzling smile.

So it must have set the hearts of all the girls at Francisco, Indiana [population 600] High School to fluttering when he ran out onto the basketball court in the tight little shorts and skimpy singlet that basketball players wore in the 1920s.

The problem was this: he wasn’t a very good basketball player. [Younger brother, Johnny, who was a real star in his day, said Jesse was the worst player in the history of basketball.] So Jesse never got into a game. Until that night when too many players had fouled out. To have five on the floor, the coach had to put Jesse in.

The score was tied, and the clock was down to the last minute.

“Don’t touch the ball,” the coach told Jesse. “Just stand there in bounds.”

Jesse did as he was told. But then the unthinkable happened. The ball went astray. It landed in his hands. What was he to do? The thing any player would do; he went for the basket.

He couldn’t dribble, but somehow he kept the ball going—one, two, three bounces toward the basket. The other players were chasing him. The crowd was yelling. He could see the clock down to its last second. He lofted the ball. It went through the net. The crowd went wild.

Then, though, Jesse realized it was the wrong crowd that was cheering him. It was on the visitors’ side of the gym. He looked at the scoreboard. He had won the game, but for the wrong team.

After high school, Uncle Jesse went on to a distinguished career in the Navy, as a pilot and flight instructor.

My mother’s family liked to tease a lot. So whenever there was a reunion and Jesse was present, the story of the errant basket was repeated many times. I was a teen-aged basketball player then myself. I could feel the embarrassment I was sure Uncle Jesse must have felt.

“How can you stand that, hearing that story?” I asked him.

There was that dazzling smile.

“I always knew which side I was on,” he said.

In the years of winter, I’ve been around long enough to make a lot of mistakes, and sometimes they’ve helped the wrong team. Maybe even won a game or two for them. But the season isn’t over, and I still know which side I’m on.

John Robert McFarland