"HEY, TEACH! Don't Miss it!"
I didn't, but rather than celebrating with my teammates, I was concentrating mostly on the "jerk" who yelled at me. Why did he call me "Teach"? I couldn't keep myself from staring at him thinking that by chance I had seen him before or perhaps even met him and just didn't recall. No, he was too scruffy looking and reminded me so much of the first time Ron talked to me that I would have remembered him.
Scoping out the men's teams, I was looking for someone that I might know, someone that would have told this fella, whoever he was, that I was a teacher. I recognized none of them. Case closed...
...until I walked out the door and found him following me to my car. "Hey, Teach, could you give me a ride home?"
Who was this guy? "Hmmm...I don't think so. I'm not headed back to Billings. You'll have to find another ride home."
"I live close to you; and I could really use a ride, or are you going to make me walk?"
It was the middle of February with the temperature hovering around zero. With the amount of beer he appeared to have consumed, he could possibly freeze to death, so I said, "Get in." I certainly wasn't in the habit of picking up strangers, but he seemed harmless enough.
Thirty-five miles later, he spotted his boss' truck at the small-town bar and said he'd catch a ride from there. He was gone, but not before he had explained to me that he called me "Teach" because he had seen me at the high school basketball and volleyball games. That made me wonder.
Do people remember me not because of who I am but rather because of the way I am? I wish I had the answer...Why didn't I ask him that?
Perhaps because I didn't want hear the answer.
To be continued...
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