ADVICE FOR BRIDGING [Sa, 6-6-20]

CHRIST IN WINTER: Reflections on Faith & Life for the Years of Winter

ADVICE FOR BRIDGING     [Sa, 6-6-20]

When Mike Dickey, my closest and long-time friend from school days, died, we went to Prescott, AZ to do his funeral. I met his grandsons, the children of his son, Zane, and their mother, Vanessa, but they were in the early years of schooling then. Now, they are entering 8^th and 9^th grades, and Zane asked me to tell them what they need to know. Here is my letter to them. It’s twice as long as the usual CIW, but remember, there are two of them.

Dear Zee and Teo,

Congratulations and best wishes to you as you enter “the bridge years’--the end of junior high and the start of high school. Your grandfather and I entered the bridge years, together, together.

I’m sure if your grandfather could give you any advice at this point, it would be “Try to be like Johney McFarland was in the bridge years, because he was so cool.” So, it is necessary to tell you what that was like…

For your grandfather and me, our first “together” was 8^th grade and high school. In Oakland City, Indiana, in our days, 8^th grade was the first year of high school, so 8^th grade and high school were together. Of course, when we went over to the high school building from “the departmental” [junior high], all the older kids called us “those little 8^th graders.” If they paid attention to us at all, it was to remind us that we didn’t count.

So, you may find that the biggest generation gap is not between teens and “adults” but between new teens, those in the bridge years, and older teens. It’s important as you move into and through the teen years to fit in with your generation, but the ones in your generation are also the ones who are going to give you the most grief. Sometimes your best allies against the upper-class students will be old people. Yes, they won’t know about Instagram or how to Zoom, but they are not competing with you, either, for girls or grades or a place on the Quidditch team. Don’t neglect old people as friends. Unlike many of your peers, who want to see you fail so they’ll look better, old people want you to see you succeed.

The second “together” was that your grandfather and I started the bridge years at the same time, together. We had been doing stuff together since I moved to Oakland City in 5^th grade. The same stuff. But in the bridge years, we had choices that took us in different directions. He wanted to play football. I didn’t. I wanted to play basketball. He didn’t. It was easy to be friends when we were doing all the same stuff together all day. Now we had to learn how to be friends while going in different directions.

It wasn’t really that hard. We didn’t look at what took us apart from each other, but what held us together. That was our values.

We both valued…

… LEARNING. We knew the more stuff we knew, the better we could live. But stuff was harder to learn in the bridge years. For instance, algebra. Your grandfather just wasn’t getting it. Mr. Cato, math teacher and basketball coach, said to him, “Mike, you can get this. Just take it one step at a time. I know you can do this.” He did get it, because Mr. Cato believed in him. Find somebody to believe in you. If no one else will, believe in yourself. You can do this.

…HARD WORK. Sticking to it. Your grandfather had allergies and asthma so bad in football season. Southern Indiana is full of rag weed and other pollen producers in the fall. And he played center, so someone was always pushing his face down into the grass. He could barely breathe, but he refused to quit. That served him well in the army when they “volunteered” him for ranger training. “There were days when I was sure I couldn’t make it,” he told me, fifteen years ago, at one of our class reunions, “but then I remembered I had made it before, on that football field.”

 ---HONESTY. Truth matters. It’s important to support your teammates, but it’s more important to support your values. If someone on our football or basketball team tried to cheat, we didn’t let them get away with it.

…RESPECT. Respect for all people, regardless of our outward differences, like race or sex. When a football teammate, who was about twice the size of your grandfather, said disrespectful things about girls, your grandfather told him to stop it. And he did, because Mike had earned respect, himself, by being respectful to others, by being honest, by working hard instead of cutting corners.

…COURAGE. Your grandfather really was willing to fight that big guy if necessary. I’m glad it did not come to that, because I was supposed to have his back, and I wasn’t nearly as brave as he. There are many forms of courage, though, and standing up for respect and truth physically is only one of them. Oh, and you don’t have to be fearless to have courage. You can be scared to death and still be brave.

Values don’t change, whether your learning takes place in a classroom or online, whether it’s in Africa or Phoenix. So, here’s my advice: pick friends, of all ages, who have the values that make life worthwhile.

There will be plenty of times that the selfish, arrogant, greedy assholes look like they’re getting all the good stuff. But it’s like eating a turnip taco—it’s not going to satisfy you for very long.

Don’t look just at what people say, or even what they do. Look for why they are doing it, how they go about doing it. Look at their values. That’s what your grandfather would say. “Oh, and be like Johney McFarland; he was the coolest kid in school.” I’m sure he would say that, too.

Well, no, he wouldn’t say that, because, remember, he was honest. It was really he who was the coolest kid in school, and I was the least cool. But we were best friends, anyway. That probably tells you all you need to know about getting through the bridge years.

John Robert McFarland

Mike is in the upper middle of the photo above, wearing glasses, with tape on his nose. It was our junior year, the first Pocket Athletic Conference 8-man football championship season of the Oakland City Acorns.