Chapter 8

Monday was hectic. The morning started out at home with the usual routine. When I hit the school door it began. The Columbus Dispatch had picked up the Vincennes fire story on its supplement. The picture of me carrying out Ruth took up half the page. There was no doubt that it was me. Someone had already placed a copy of the paper in my trophy case.

Kids kept coming up to me and wanting to know the full story. Why I don’t know, if they had read the paper they would know the full story. What topped the cake was when I was asked to autograph a copy of the paper. I did it, but this was getting out of hand.

For one of the few times in my life, I was glad to hear the bell ring to start class. That lasted for about two minutes. Every teacher had to recognize me and my heroic feat. For God’s sake! I carried a little kid down the stairs!

Lunch was a mixed bag, the gang wanted to talk about the fire and Cheryl’s leaving. We agreed that it sucked having to leave in the middle of the school year. That part didn’t seem to bother Cheryl. She had done that many times.

It was leaving people behind that bothered her. I liked to think that leaving me was on that list. We tried to console her by pointing out as we got older we would leave many people behind, like when we graduated high school and college.

I guess it is easier to say than life because she didn’t look any more cheerful. We did agree that we would write her a group letter every week updating her on how the class fared this year. We knew it would be pointless to continue it after that, but it would give her some closure on this episode in her life.

I won’t say school lessons themselves were boring, but when you are constantly ahead, everything being presented is blasé. The sense of discovery in learning was mostly in the study hall. I really had few connections with my classmates. I definitely was working at a different level than they were. While they were memorizing facts for a test, I was delving into the whys of events.

What was presented as straight forward in our textbooks was seldom straight forward after reading additional accounts. If I read ten accounts of an event there were fifteen different interpretations.

I was finding that ‘Why’ something happened varied more than ‘What’ happened. Even what happened seemed to be more an average of the witnesses rather than concrete facts.

I reread the Columbus Dispatch story with this in mind. They described the photograph of me coming out of the stairwell as focused resolve on saving the child. I remember very clearly I was feeling relief that I hadn’t stumbled coming down the stairs.

When I walked into the house after school the first words out of Mum.

“I’m glad you’re here, George Weaver will be here shortly for an interview.”

“Actually I will like that. There is an issue I need to clear up.”

Mum inquired about it. When I told her she laughed.

“You actually think people will listen to your version of events? The picture says it all. You are a brave lad saving that young girl. Anything else will be viewed as false modesty.”

When Mr. Weaver showed up the conversation and interview went exactly as she predicted. He heard me out and then shook his head.

“Rick, live with it, you did a heroic deed. We need our heroes.”

That ended my quest for truth in reporting. Like beauty, it appeared to be in the eye of the beholder.

As the interview ended Mary came in and said, ”¿Cómo estás hermano.”

“Estoy bien hermana pequeña,” I replied absently.

Mr. Weaver asked, “Does your whole family speak Spanish?”

“Just the kids are formally studying,” Mum told him.

This led to a discussion of why, where we were learning, who our teacher was and all the other details. He told us that could be an interesting piece of local interest. He would stop over and speak to Mrs. Hernandez. When he learned she was Cuban you could see the wheels turn. Mr. Weaver was seeing himself as Our Man in Havana!

For dinner, Mum made several pizza pies. This was a new addition to our meal list. It was good but the anchovies were too salty. Maybe she could skip them next time. Unfortunately, Dad liked them, so I think the best we would get is one pie with and one without.

After dinner, Mum got serious about the invitation list for my Eagle ceremony. We listed all the members of my scout troop, family, friends, higher-level Scouters, and local politicians. It was also traditional to send an invitation to the President of the United States.

Of course, he would never attend but you would get a nice form letter. This also went for the Governor of Ohio and all the other political offices; county, state, and federal that we cared to include. The more local the office the more likely they would attend.