Chapter 6

In Drama Monday, we were studying the works of Tennessee Williams. I thought some of his stuff was on the same level as some of Shakespeare’s plays. A Streetcar Named Desire was really good. At lunch, Kim told me about her psychology class and said she wanted to call Vince to ask him a few questions.

When Kim asked if I planned on going to the center that night, I said, ‘yes.’ Mel and Cassidy were sitting across from us. “What center?” Mel asked.

Kim looked at me, and I shrugged. “We started tutoring kids at the Carolina Youth Development Center. It’s basically an orphanage. We’ve been going once a week and have helped middle school kids with math and English. That’s it.”

“There’s an orphanage in Charleston?” Mel asked.

“North Charleston, actually, but yeah,” Kim answered.

“An orphanage,” Cassidy said, slowly, letting the word sort of sneak out. “Are their parents dead, or what? I don’t understand. I thought that was something from the twenties or something.”

“It’s real. We don’t ask about their parents. A lot of them have been abused or neglected, and some of their parents are probably in jail.” As I said that, it was obvious that the concept was totally foreign to Cassidy.

“They’ve had their lives turned upside down, have dealt with a lot of emotional junk, and some of them have been to a bunch of different foster homes. They need the help if they want to have a chance.”

“You’re volunteers?” Cassidy asked.

“Yeah. We met a couple of people who are foster parents, and their stories sort of got to us. We decided this is the right thing to do,” I said.

“We thought that if the shoe was on the other foot, if we were there, would we want someone to come help us. We took Jack’s puppy, Mac, with us, and they loved it. I’m not sure if we’ll keep doing that, but it definitely got things started.”

“I bet,” Mel said and looked down the table at the rest of the people sitting, eating their lunch, but oblivious to our conversation. “I can’t believe I’m going to say this. Do they need more people to help?”

“Come with us, Mel. Just come and see. We leave at six-thirty and get home by nine-thirty.”

“Can Bobby come?” she asked. We could tell she wasn’t sure about the whole thing.

“A member of their staff told us they would welcome help. We worked with a bunch of kids last time, but the more help we have, the easier. We could divide it up better. We just did math and English. Jack did math. You could help me with English. We diagrammed a bunch of sentences last time. It’s easy.”

“So’s the math. We’re at least four or five years ahead of them; their books are easy to read, and the material is pretty familiar. It’s not like it was a distant memory or something.”

Cassidy was interested, but Mel seemed to understand our interest better. She knew about Michael and Fallon’s visit and all our conversations with them. She knew about visiting the center, and Bobby was almost always willing to try new things. That’s how the four of us ended up at the Carolina Youth Development Center that evening.

The kids were disappointed that we hadn’t brought Mac with us. I promised to bring him with us next time if we made good progress that night. That’s all the motivation they needed. Bobby worked with middle school boys on their math, while I worked with the girls. Mel worked with middle school boys on their English while Kim worked with the girls. Each of us had four or five kids.

I’m not sure how the others tackled their challenges, but the middle school girls and I came up with a pretty good approach. We started with the oldest first. I answered a few questions, provided a couple of tips, then set them to work. Then, I repeated that with the seventh graders, and finally the sixth. One of my eighth graders caught on quickly and ended up helping her younger sister. I thought that would be a pretty good recipe for success in the future.

The staff wrapped it up, right at nine. They reminded the kids to thank us, and the kids reminded us to bring Mac next time. Erica Del Monico came by at nine to talk with us for a few minutes.

“I can’t thank you enough for coming. You, too,” she said to Mel and Bobby. “Some of our kids came home with better grades this last week, and they’re pretty happy not just about their grades but actually understanding. I don’t have to tell you that your puppy was a big hit. Tell me your names,” she said, and Mel and Bobby introduced themselves.

She told us that Monday was the best night and Friday was probably the worst. If we wanted to bring more volunteers on Monday, or come back, or bring new volunteers on any other night, they would welcome it. We talked a bit more about scheduling and needs. She told us they would probably need help soon when they had to write papers.

Mel was uncharacteristically quiet on the drive home. Bobby didn’t seem to mind, and Kim and I were sorting through our own kids. Bobby had parked at Mel’s house, so we went there first.

“Want to do it next week?” Kim asked. Bobby shrugged his ‘yes’ shrug, or maybe it was his ‘why not?’ shrug. Mel still wasn’t sure.

“We’ll talk,” Mel said to Kim. We thanked them for giving it a try and drove back to Kim’s.

I listened while Kim told her mom and dad about the night. They were interested and encouraging. Mrs. McTighe said she thought Mac had been a brilliant idea and we’d probably established a connection much more quickly because of him. Mr. McTighe asked if we needed any supplies. At first, we couldn’t think of anything.

“You know, their backpacks, almost all of them, look pretty ratty. They have paper, pencils, and all that. There might be something that we don’t know about. I can ask Mis Del Monico next time we go.”

“I’ll ask about backpacks next time I go to the club. I know they sell them. Maybe they’d be willing to donate,” Mr. McTighe said.

“I don’t think they’re that expensive. I have money. I could probably just buy however many they need,” I offered.

“I’m sure you could. However, there’s an advantage to letting the racquetball club provide them for free, and it’s not just the money savings.”

I thought about that for a minute. “I give up.”

“Our law firm has sponsored a Little League baseball team for years. It doesn’t cost that much, and people see our name. It’s inexpensive advertising, and it’s a good cause. The racquet club may see it the same way. On top of that, how many members do you think even know there’s an orphanage in town?”

“So, it could raise awareness?”

“Now, you’re talking. How many volunteers could you use? What if, and this is a big ‘what if’ there were people willing to sponsor a child, but they didn’t know the need existed?”

“What would they sponsor them with?” I asked. “What could people provide? I really don’t know.”

“I have a membership there and at Bulls Bay Golf Club. Those memberships aren’t cheap, and that means the members have money. They aren’t necessarily rich, but they aren’t eating beans and weenies for dinner, either.”

“Beans and weenies, Dad? Beans and weenies?” Kim asked, laughing.

“Okay, so what would they provide? When you sponsor a League team, you probably provide shirts, right?”

“Shirts are the minimum. We provide after-game ice cream and drinks. There is money in a fund for kids who need a glove. Most sponsors don’t do that, but we like to. To be honest, I doubt if we’ve gotten any new clients because of a name on a Little League shirt but that’s not the reason we do it.”

“You’ve got my curiosity up. What might a sponsor provide? Shirts?” I asked.

“Yeah, Dad. What?”

“How helpful are those computers you have?” That caught both Kim and me by surprise. Those were expensive. “What if I found sponsors who would provide a dozen computers for the center? I’m not saying I could, but would that be welcome?”

Kim and I talked over each other a couple of times before I shut up and let Kim say, “I can’t imagine that new computers wouldn’t be super helpful. I’ve gotten so used to mine that I don’t know what I’d do without it.”

Mr. McTighe looked at me. “I’m still trying to get to Oregon,” I said, but he knew that I agreed.

“You talk with your Miss Del Monico, and I’ll do a little digging. Maybe something pans out, and maybe it doesn’t, but it doesn’t hurt to see. We represented the owner of Computer City a couple of years ago in a probate issue. I’ll see what he recommends. You find out how many they would want and the minimum number they’d need to set up a little computer center for homework.”

“I think four computers and one printer would be good,” Kim said. “It would probably mostly be the older kids, and they wouldn’t need one for math.”

“What did we use ours for when we first got them?” I asked.

“Writing our research papers.” I waited. She watched me wait. “Oh, man. We followed the Oregon Trail.”

“Yup. And we only got software for us. There might be some for younger kids. I don’t even know.”

“We’ll ask. Maybe we should go to Computer City and ask them,” Kim said, and we both looked at our watches at the same time. It was too late and they were closed, but it was funny that we would think the same way.

The next day at lunch, Kim and I watched while Mel told everyone who would listen about the Carolina Youth Development Center. Neither of us said a word while she shared about the kids and their needs.

“Who needs William Dawes when you have Paul Revere?” Kim asked.

I shrugged, and Lori asked, “Who is William Dawes?”

“One of the other riders who spread the word. I think the others were Samuel Prescott and Israel something. I don’t remember his last name,” I answered.

“Bissell. Israel Bissell and don’t forget Sybil Ludington,” Kim added. “There were five riders, but Paul Revere gets all the credit because of Longfellow’s poem.

“He probably alerted more people, though,” I added

“How do you two remember all this stuff?” Lori asked.

“I thought everybody did. A mind is a terrible thing to waste,” Kim said.

“I’m going to move down by some normal people,” Lori said, pretending that she was going to move.

Jay tapped me on the shoulder and motioned for me. I was done with lunch, so I put all my trash in a bag and followed him outside.

“Tough loss Friday night,” I said.

“A little birdie told me you had some thoughts on that.”

“Jay, I know slightly more about football than Mei does.”

“That’s not what I heard. What’s your take?”

“Offense looked great. You guys stunned Goose Creek.”

“But?”

“Your defense is out of shape. They started off fine but they ran out of gas.”

“We scored so fast, they didn’t have time to recover,” he answered.

“You want my honest opinion?” I asked, and he nodded. “I swim the five hundred. So do a lot of guys. We all finish. We train to swim five hundred. Some guys are faster and some are slower, but everyone finishes. Your defense drowned around four hundred yards into the race.”

“We can’t expect them to spend so much time on the field.”

“Why not? I’m serious. I don’t know. I told you I’m not a big football guy, but it seems to me that they should be able to do that. How many plays are there in a football game? I know it’s different, but if there were a hundred and fifty plays, and the defense had to play one hundred of them. Each play lasts maybe ten seconds. That adds up to fifteen or sixteen minutes of effort in a three-hour period. They can’t do that?”