Chapter 37

With spring break coming up, the calendars meshed perfectly. It turned out that both the California boys and the New York girls’ high schools had their breaks at the same time, while Hillsdale College was still in session. As a result, the kids decided that a trip out to Hillsdale was in order. Executive Aviation came through for us again (surprise, surprise).

The two EA aircraft arrived at the Hillsdale Municipal Airport within minutes of each other, causing mild consternation. It was a small strip, unused to jets landing, and yet two came in within minutes of each other, coming from opposite coasts.

Their visit to the school was interesting to say the very least. First, the football team was in the midst of its spring practice. Tony and Paul wasted no time in borrowing football shoes and going out to throw the ball around. At the time, the team was practicing plays without wearing equipment other than their cleats and helmets.

After watching Tony and Paul throw the ball around for a while, the Hillsdale quarterback just handed the ball to Tony. “That kid is already ten times the quarterback I’ll ever be,” he told his coach. Tony seemed to effortlessly throw the ball 65 yards in the air while catching Paul in full stride every time.

As the boys were working out, they noticed a young giant standing on the sidelines with a gorgeous dark-haired girl. Both had PHA hardhats in their hands, but they appeared to be too young to be a part of the construction crew. At that point there was a break in the practice and Tony and Paul went over to the sidelines.

The girl came up to them with her hand outstretched. “You must be Tony Kramer and Paul Christian,” the girl said. Then with the warmest smile she added, “I’m Caitie Fitzpatrick, and this is my uncle and fiancé, John Taylor.”

“What brings you out here?” Paul asked. “Are you with PHA?”

“Not really,” John replied, “although I’ve been working for them during the summers.”

Tony just raised an eyebrow questioningly.

“Uh...” Caitie admitted, “John’s parents sort of own it.”

“Caitlin!” John chided. “They’re my parents but they’re your grandparents. Don’t try to get out from under.”

“You look like a football player to me,” Tony said. “Why aren’t you out there?”

“Uh ... I don’t go here,” John replied. “Actually, I’m still in high school.”

“And he’s supposed to start at Notre Dame this fall,” Caitie interjected. Her face fell when she said it.

“What’s wrong with Notre Dame?” Paul asked. “It’s a great school.”

“Nothing’s wrong with it,” Caitie replied woefully, “except it’s not in New York City.”

Both Paul and Tony looked baffled.

“It’s just ... it’s just that John and I have been together for a while,” Caitie explained.

“‘Awhile’? What does that mean?”

“We’ve been together just about every day and every night since I was about three years old,” Caitie replied.

The two California boys were stunned.

“By the way,” Tony asked, “how did you know who we are? We don’t go to school here yet, either.”

“Oh ... President Arnn described you when we met with him earlier. He said you were out visiting, and since the girls are from New York...” She looked around and asked, “Where are your fiancées, anyway?”

The fact was that when the guys went in to put on football cleats, Little Bit and Ann had drifted off to the corner of the field where they had seen the cheerleaders working out, too. They were being coached by a tall and slender black woman.

When she saw the girls she came over to them. “Hi, I’m Jane Smith, and I guess I’m the cheerleading coach.” She looked over the two and the girls could see a flash of recognition. “Wait a minute!” she exclaimed. “You’re the Harris twins, aren’t you? You have to be,” she concluded with finality.

“Why do we have to be?” Little Bit asked with a little grin.

“Because there couldn’t be two other girls as gorgeous as you two in the eastern United States, is why you have to be.” Then with a grin she added, “And besides, I’ve seen the pictures on your applications ... when you finally sent them in.” She continued, “Furthermore, it says that you two were co-captains of your cheerleading squad, and your squad was a national award winner in cheering competition.” With a grin, she added, “Now get your tight little buns over to the locker room, get some sneakers and come on back for practice.” She detached one of the younger cheerleaders to show them the way and to get them fixed up.

They quickly learned that neither Jane Smith nor the other cheerleaders knew very much about cheers or cheering. Without a word being said, the two girls took over the practice, introduced a couple of new cheers, and worked with the other girls both as a group and individually.

About midway through their practice, Jane took three black girls on the squad over to the side. Although the little group was well out of normal ear-shot, since they were easily in sight, the girls could — and did — lock in on the conversation. Except it wasn’t a conversation. Rather, the girls were being ripped up one side and down the other by their coach.

“If you gals think that you’re going to get any special treatment because you’re black and I am, too, you have another think coming! On this squad, you perform or you’re off. Understand? You three weren’t practicing! You were going through the motions ... at best!” She continued on in that vein, and the girls were suitably chastised.

When they finally headed back to rejoin the squad, one of the black girls saw Little Bit watching. She grimaced and shook her right hand as if it had been burned. When she was closer the girl just rolled her eyes and mouthed the word, “Wow!”

Later in the practice, Ann called a five-minute rest break and the girls just collapsed to the ground. One of the others commented, “Wow! This is really hard work! How come?”

“It’s pretty simple, really,” Little Bit explained. “It’s thought to be a fact — whether it has ever been proven or not, I don’t know — that a team performs better if it feels the fans are behind them. We want the Hillsdale Chargers to win! But Ann and I can’t make an awful lot of noise by ourselves, so that’s why we’re cheerleaders. It’s our job to whip up fan enthusiasm. Then the fans multiply our noise. But,” she added, “we have to really get into it ourselves. If we’re just going through the motions — and I’m sure you know what I mean — the fans will, too. And that’s no help to the team at all. Okay?”

She paused and then added, “It’s also important to understand the game at which you’re cheering, too. For example, we don’t want to make a lot of noise when our guys are running plays. It can prevent them from hearing the signals. By the same token, we should be making as much noise as we can when the opponents are running plays — particularly key plays — for the same reason: to disrupt their signal-calling.”

When she spoke, Little Bit saw Jane Smith’s eyes widen. Clearly she had heard something that came as news to her.

At that point, Jane looked at her watch, grimaced, and said, “Well, I have to leave you now. I’ve got a meeting with a knuckle-dragging Neanderthal in a few minutes.”

“What’s that mean?” Ann inquired.

“My day job is Associate Chief Librarian,” she replied, “and — thanks largely to you girls — the library is undergoing a total renovation and a major expansion. So I have to meet with the construction manager, or some such,” she concluded, again making a face.

“Why did you say that?” Little Bit asked. “Why did you refer to the construction superintendent as a ‘knuckle-dragging Neanderthal’? Have you met him?”

Jane Smith recoiled as if Little Bit had slapped her across the face.

Her eyes widened, but she said nothing. She just slowly shook her head.

“Ms. Smith—”

“It’s ‘Miss’,” Jane interrupted, “I abhor the title, Ms. Little Bit, I’m a never-married woman, so I’m Miss.”

Little Bit and Ann had both come to the realization that Jane Smith was a beautiful woman. She was as tall as they were — five feet nine or more — with a beautifully slender figure. Moreover, clearly she was in great physical condition.

“Miss Smith,” Little Bit began again, “as a black woman, you, more than many others, should be alert to the problems of categorizing people by their group membership. Is there something wrong, in your estimation, with a guy working with his hands?”

Jane Smith was truly chagrined. She just shook her head.

“You may have heard, Miss Smith, what John Gardner said in a speech one time: ‘A nation that revers philosophy and denigrates plumbing will soon be in the position where neither its philosophy nor its plumbing will hold water.’ It’s something to think about,” Little Bit concluded.

Then she added, “Dr. Martin Luther King said we should judge a man by the content of his character, not by the color of his skin. He was speaking of racial characteristics, of course, but don’t you think he would include occupation, as well? Is there anything wrong with being in heavy construction?”

“Little Bit, you’re right and I was wrong. I apologize to all of you.” Then with a quirky smile she added, “I’m off to see the wizard of construction.” Then to Little Bit and Ann she added, “Could you two keep the practice going for about another hour? You’re doing all the coaching, anyway.”

Meanwhile, Tony and Paul were about to return to the practice field. But, because John had said he was going to be going to Notre Dame, Tony said, “Hey, look ... You sure look like a football player. You are, aren’t you?”

“He’s one of the best in New York, anyway,” Caitie said before John could reply. “Notre Dame offered him a football scholarship, but he didn’t take it.”

The two California boys softly whistled. Since Notre Dame was a perennial football powerhouse and recruited nationally, if he had been offered a football scholarship he had to be good.

“Why don’t you get a pair of cleats and run around with us?” Paul asked. “They have a really neat bunch of guys out here.”

Tony told John where to go to get football shoes and he trotted off. A few minutes later he was back wearing shorts and cleats. The team was practicing again, but the regular quarterback was working with them. When John reappeared and warmed up, Tony began throwing him the ball.

The first thing Tony realized was how fast John Taylor really was. His first few passes were well short. John was about to slow down, but Tony told him not to. Now that he had a better idea of his speed, he found the range. For John, it was a remarkable afternoon, too. As he later told the kids, the quarterback on his high-school team had so little arm strength he could only reach the tight end about two times out of three. With Tony throwing, it was different. He could go flat out, but remarkably Tony’s passes were right in his hands without his having to adjust his speed at all.

Then the coach asked Tony, Paul and John to go into the backfield. That was fun, too. On the first play, Tony handed off to John going wide to the right. The left defensive end was in position to make the play, but John just gave him a shoulder fake inside and ran by him to the outside. The left cornerback was slow getting over — he thought the end would make the play — and John just put on a burst of speed and ran right by him. When the safety came over, instead of trying to get past him to the outside, John turned in, got very low and put his shoulder right in the safety’s gut, sending him flying. Unfortunately, the safety, although fast, only weighed about 175. John, with his nearly 250 pounds, put him on his back. Because neither were wearing pads, John had been careful with the way he hit him.

The practice continued in that vein. When the guys saw the cheerleaders heading for the lockers, Tony thought they were finished, but one of the other Hillsdale Chargers told him that they always let the cheerleaders use the showers first.

Tony didn’t understand the comment. Surely we don’t use the same shower room, he thought. But they continued their practice.

As the girls arrived in their locker room, one of the other girls told Little Bit, “I have to warn you about something: We have to take navy showers.”

“Navy showers?” Little Bit asked. “What’s a navy shower?”

The girl grinned and replied, “You get wet, shut off the water, soap up, turn the water back on, rinse off ... and get the hell out!”

When Little Bit still looked puzzled the girl explained, “It’s the dumb hot-water heater. It’s only got a 30-gallon tank or something like that. As it is, it’s a rush to be the first in the shower room. If you’re the last,” the girl said with a grin, “you had better not mind a cold shower.” Then she rolled her eyes and added, “And since it’s still March, these days it would be a very cold shower!”

Little Bit and Ann did as they had been told. After dressing, they went out, met Caitie Fitzpatrick, and waited for the guys to join them. By that time, the men were back in their locker room, too.

The guys finally came out, and the six made their way back to the administration building and Dr. Arnn’s office. There they met a blue-eyed blonde who appeared to be about 21 years old. The two girls were utterly stunned when she was introduced as Andy Taylor, John’s mother ... and Caitie’s grandmother!

After introductions had been made, John said, “Mom, I have an emergency project for the plumbing crew. With any luck, they can handle it tonight.” Then he explained the problem with the very small hot-water heater.

President Arnn looked mildly embarrassed and just shook his head.

“Under the circumstances,” Andy Taylor said, “this looks like an appropriate time...” With that she reached into her purse, pulled out a check and passed it to the college president.