Passage Rites

iUniverse, Inc.

Contents

Introduction..........................................................ix1. Changes: Who Are You?..............................................12. Cement Walls and Metal Nets........................................243. Twenty-fifth Anniversary Reception: Fitting In.....................544. Preparing for the Return...........................................775. The Difficult Journey to Houston...................................1016. Prelude to Unknown Future..........................................1197. Finally, the Truth.................................................1438. Endings............................................................161Epilogue..............................................................175

Chapter One

The summer heat was intense, especially when in full football gear for summer practices. It was late August. NC State University's 1976 football season was to begin in less than two weeks. Coach Lou Holtz left the football program after the 1975 season, when the team finished the year ranked tenth in the country. We had played in the Peach Bowl, in Atlanta, on New Year's Eve of 1976. As a freshman, I was thrilled and excited by the whole thing, playing in front of more than seventy thousand people. I had spent years looking forward to such opportunities.

Bo Rein had taken over as head coach. He had different methods of coaching than Lou Holtz and was trying to make changes that more reflected his coaching philosophy. There had been some position changes, but nothing major. During the spring practices in 1976, I had earned a starting offensive position for the coming season.

The summer had gone much as expected. We had progressed from mere conditioning and play practicing to full-speed contact between the starting offensive and defensive players. Today was the last full contact before the first game. We broke from the huddle, and I trotted to my position as flanker. My friend and former roommate, Tom Ebner, lined up across from me as the defensive strong safety. Now sophomores, he and I had become fast friends from the start. The play to be run was a curling pass pattern, to me. Having stopped at my location in the offensive formation, I glanced at Tom before getting down into my set stance.

Tom was from Houston: a square-jawed, blonde-haired, blue-eyed Texan, six feet two inches tall, and two hundred-ten pounds. He was fast and physical. He outweighed me by thirty pounds, but I was quicker. In order to get open, I thought, I would need to try making Tom think I would go deep. I glanced at the quarterback, then back at Tom. He had taken two steps farther away from the line of scrimmage. This could be tough.

On the previous play, I faked a pattern to the inside and tried to break past Tom. He was caught by my fake and would have been beaten on the play had he not slammed a forearm into my chest as I tried to run past him. Now, giving himself more distance from me, it would be difficult for me to make Tom respect a deep pattern fake. The curl pattern would not give me sufficient room to do that.

The play began. I reached the practiced distance from the line of scrimmage, as a known number of steps. As I was about to turn, I could tell Tom had not given any ground. This would be close. I pivoted, absorbing momentum with my right leg to come to an almost halted position, knees slightly bent and legs apart, ready to locate the ball's position.

The ball had been thrown high. I did not think, only reacted. One of my athletic gifts had always been unusual leaping ability. I went up very high for the pass, stretching my arms as high as I could to gather in the ball. I felt the leather against my fingertips, looking at the ball coming into my hands. That is what we were taught: watch the ball all of the way into your hands.

I felt the sudden contact at the small of my back. Tom was driving his shoulder pad into me, to force me to drop the pass. Next was an abnormal movement. My torso and arms, above the impact point, momentarily remained where they were. My hips and legs, beneath the contact point, remained where they were. It was as if I was being folded backward at that one point in my spine. Tom drove forward as he was running. I felt something snap in my back.

I was still watching the ball as it was going through my hands. Tom's impact had forced my arms to splay apart, and the ball passed between my hands. My upper body pitched forward, and I looked first at the horizon level and then at the grass. My arms fell into position in front of my chest, slightly flexed to absorb the impending contact with the ground. Tom's momentum caused his body to move over mine as we both fell forward. He landed on top of me and rolled off. The impact caused me to exhale involuntarily. It took a moment to regain my breath.

Tom was quickly on his feet. "You all right, Crab?" Tom asked, using the nickname he had given me shortly after we met. He came over and reached down to help me up.

"I don't know," I replied, finding it difficult to breathe. I raised myself from the ground, kneeling on one knee. "Trainer!" I hollered. I continued kneeling as he approached. My breathing was returning to normal, and I did not feel any pain. Maybe I was okay. "I felt something give," I told him when he reached me. I stood up, placing my hands on my flexed knees, bent over.

"Is it hurting?" he asked.

"No."

"Where did you feel it?"

I reached my right hand back, running fingers near the base of my spine. "Here."

The trainer ran his hand lightly along my spine, feeling either side, perhaps for abnormal protrusions. He stopped after a few moments. "I don't feel anything. Try walking a bit, to see if you can feel anything different. We'll take a look at you after practice."

"We" didn't take a look at me after practice, at least not any physical examination. There was a little bit of soreness in the muscles just to the right of my spine. Cold compresses were applied for a while. I showered as usual and got dressed. During the remainder of summer practices, I applied hot and cold compresses. The aching in the muscles on one side did not subside.

I played the first game and was in pain afterward. My parents and an aunt and uncle had come to watch the game. I met them outside the locker room after the game. We had intended to go to dinner. Instead, I asked that they go themselves. I returned to my dorm room in pain.

Three days later, all I could feel in my right leg was pain. I had no muscular control of it. The collision with Tom Ebner had broken a bone near the base of my spine, and the nerves to my right leg were being compressed. I missed one game, in traction in the infirmary, and then played in the season's remaining games.

It is not something I regret, as the memories will remain with me until my last breath. I would always be thankful to NC State for the opportunity. The guys I played with were great guys. Some went on to play professional football. One, Bill Cowher, has gone on to coach the Pittsburgh Steelers to become Super Bowl Champions. We must sometimes make personal decisions that lead to uncharted territory. Having been told that another collision could permanently paralyze me, I finally decided to give up playing football. That meant giving up my athletic scholarship as well.

Always academically oriented, I was recruited by more than a dozen engineering colleges, Princeton, and the US Naval Academy. Instead, I chose North Carolina State University, which at the time was ranked fifth-best engineering college in the nation. It was where my father attended college. And it had one of the best football programs in the country, under Lou Holtz. Now I had consciously chosen to give that up, not knowing what the future might bring. I had no money to pay for college.

Looking back, more than thirty years later, there are no regrets. My father told me to not have any regrets, as what has evolved after those decisions is who I now am. He was correct. Regrets are for those who have surrendered or given up striving, who have chosen to cower in the "face of adversity," as Coach Holtz would say with his lisp. We are the decisions that we make: right or wrong, good or bad. The results may often require us to reassess priorities or directions. Ultimately, our individual lives unfold as stories we tell ourselves and earn among those with whom we live. And, they are the struggles that we face, whether or not our attempts to overcome them are successful.

In January 1978, I left my hometown of Virginia Beach, Virginia, with a backpack, one hundred dollars, a notebook of poems, and a guitar case. Tom Ebner, who had transferred to the University of Houston, had told me there was work in the oilfield, in Houston.

Hitchhiking to Houston took six memorable days. It was cold.

On my first day, in the countryside near Suffolk, Virginia, a minister gave me a ride. It lasted perhaps an hour. He asked the reason for my journey. I explained briefly that everything had gone terribly wrong. Who I had been, in the social contexts in which that person existed, no longer existed. I had to find out who I was outside of the contexts of the past.

The minister told me that sometimes persons had to give up the past in seeking their cores. The past could stand as a stage of illusory values and self-worth. There was no shame in taking the chance, he said, to find out who you are. When he came to the junction where he needed to leave the main road, he prayed for me and asked that God go with me. I thanked him for his concern, his kind words, and got out of the car. The wind blew, chilly and impersonal, as his car pulled away down the two-lane road.

The second day was spent seeing some friends in eastern North Carolina. The third day, I stopped in Burlington, North Carolina. What happened there convinced me to go on to Houston. That night, I slept in woods beside the interstate highway, near King Mountain, North Carolina.

It was cold and raining when I awoke. A portion of my sleeping bag was damp, having been protruding from beneath the plastic shower curtain I used as a ground cloth and top cover. Deeply chilled, I quickly dressed and headed down the hill to the service road running parallel to the interstate. Perhaps owing to the inclement weather, I was picked up by the first motorist coming by. He drove me to a truck stop, where hot coffee and a large breakfast warmed me.

I pulled some paper from my notebook and made an "Atlanta" sign. It helped immensely. Ten minutes' cold, damp, and hopefulness from the truck stop, a car pulled up to me. The driver was a member of a traveling rock band. He said he had played in Charlotte the previous night and was going to Birmingham, Alabama.

As we approached Birmingham, the roads were covered with snow. The weather forecast was overnight snow. I had run into the city's worst snowstorm in fifteen years. Even Interstate 20 was being closed due to the weather.

He wished me luck and dropped me off after exiting the interstate. The time was 5:30 pm. Darkness was beginning to settle upon the city. I glanced around, seeking some form of shelter and a place to eat. Although I could not distinctly see it from a distance due to shadows, the interstate overpass seemed to have a flat area at the top of the incline, where the main beams rested upon the concrete. One hundred yards away was a waffle shop.

I walked up the incline beneath the overpass. There was a ledge about six feet wide. I removed my backpack, hiding it and the guitar between two of the beams, well back into the shadows.

My sleeping bag was damp from the night before in King Mountain. My clothes were damp. I was shivering when I entered the waffle shop. How warm it was, dry. It felt so good. The few groups of people within looked at me as I entered. They grew momentarily quiet, watching, and then resumed their discussions. I took off my cap, sort of smoothing out the curly hair that had been flattened under the cap all day. I walked silently to a back booth in a corner. A large woman with reddish hair, fair complexion, and some freckles asked to take my order. I requested coffee and some time to read the menu. More than anything, I wanted warmth.

My hands were red from the cold, and I could only assume that my face was. I had dressed in layers and began removing my coat and sweater. Beneath them I wore coveralls, a long sleeve pullover shirt, and blue jeans. All were damp but could not be removed.

The waitress brought my coffee. "Where you from?" she asked. She was pretty, and her face displayed kindness.

"I left Virginia four days ago. I'm trying to make it to Houston, to find work."

"You sure picked the wrong time to arrive here," she began, pouring coffee into my cup. "The state troopers are going to close I-20, and it's supposed to snow for the next two days. You might get lucky and catch something tonight, if you hurry."

I ordered eggs and bacon with toast and, as she walked away, pondered what to do. I was tired and really wanted to get some sleep before again embarking. I didn't want to sleep in the cold but did not have much money.

Short order cooks can do wonders with simple eggs, I thought as I devoured them, supposing that hunger had much to do with how good these eggs seemed to taste. I paid and quickly left, thanking the waitress. She wished me good luck.

Walking back to the overpass, I noticed a hotel farther along the road, on the other side of the overpass. I went up and got my backpack and guitar, heading for the hotel. Knowing that my clothing was damp, I wanted to sleep warm and dry that night. The hotel cost thirty dollars, not leaving me much for the remainder of the trip. I could make it, though, if I watched what I spent. My clothes and sleeping bag could dry overnight. If I got stuck another day here, I could sleep under the overpass the second night.

I put my backpack and guitar in the room and stripped off the outer garments, including the coveralls, putting them by a radiator on a side wall of the small, simple room. A bar shared the entrance by the hotel front desk. I decided I could treat myself to one beer.

Country music played in the background from an old jukebox. There were short candles on each table, in red glass goblets. The tables were square, wooden, and just large enough for four persons. There was a mirror behind the bar, and neon beer signs on the walls. I sat on a stool at the wooden bar, two seats over from a black-haired man who appeared to be about forty. I nodded in his direction as I sat down, acknowledging him as a gesture of respectful greeting, and ordered a draft beer.

"Can you believe this snow?" I asked him. "What a time to arrive in Birmingham."

"Yeah, I know," he replied. "I was supposed to be here for business tomorrow." He took a long sip from his mug. "But it looks like all of the roads and businesses will be closed."

"What do you do?" I asked.

"I'm in sales. I work Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana, based out of New Orleans."

The barmaid placed my beer on the counter. "That'll be a dollar fifty, for Happy Hour."

"Thanks," I told her. I gave her two dollars and told her to keep the change. The beer's dark taste was sharp and pleasant.

"Well," the salesman said. "If I don't make it out of here soon, I won't be going anywhere."

"Are you going to New Orleans?"

"Yeah," he replied, signaling to the barmaid for his bill.

"Could I catch a ride with you?" I earnestly asked. "I'm trying to make it to New Orleans, where I have a friend at Tulane University."

"I can't wait around," he stated.

"Give me ten minutes, please, mister," I pleaded. "All I have to do is grab my backpack."

"Okay," he replied. "I'll wait that long."

"Thanks!" I said.

I signaled the barmaid and told her I would be right back. I left the bar and returned to my room, put back on my outer clothing and coat, and grabbed my backpack and guitar. I went to the front desk and explained that I was not going to need the room, because I was leaving for New Orleans almost immediately. The front desk clerk, a young woman, didn't want to give me back my money. I told her I didn't have much money, and that I had not showered or even ruffled the bed covers. She finally conceded and gave me back the thirty dollars.

I walked back into the bar. The stranger was not there. "Excuse me, ma'am," I asked the barmaid. "Did the man who was here say he would be back?"

"No. He didn't say anything. He just paid and left."

I walked out of the bar and hotel to the parking lot. One space had been recently vacated, as the asphalt was not covered with snow, and fresh tire tracks were visible leading away from the space. Crap, I thought. The stranger was gone.

(Continues...)

Excerpted from Passage Ritesby Michael W. Crabtree Copyright © 2010 by Michael W. Crabtree. Excerpted by permission of iUniverse, Inc.. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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