Chapter 15: Glad Handing the Fates

The future was in my hands. Literally.

Dad always told me not to underestimate the value of a firm handshake. Now it seemed a handshake from me would mean the difference between life or death. It was difficult to get my head wrapped around the reality of that.

How many hands can a man shake in four years, if he works at it? If I shook a hundred hands a day, every day for four years, I could save 146,000 people. Less than the population of even a middling sized American city. There was probably no way I was going to be able to do that many, because there were other things I had to do.

Greta had taken my explanation that morning, as we lay on those now soiled silk sheets, and absorbed it whole, adjusting faster than I had expected.

"Well, I think I got my flesh to flesh contact, don't you?" She asked with a smoky purr.

"Oh yeah, and no rationing it for you, my sweet. You're going to get way more flesh to flesh contact than anyone else."

"Well, nobody but me will be getting this kind of flesh to flesh contact from you, that's for sure," Greta humphed. Then, after a pause. "Well ... unless I decide they can."

"What?" I asked, shocked.

"Well, we may decide we need to ahh ... spread the wealth eventually, you know, to repopulate the planet and all that?"

"You can think of that now?" I asked. "After last night?"

I was prepared to be a little pissed, but Greta was already too familiar with the way my mind worked.

"Well, I probably wouldn't have ever had such a thought after my night of bliss. My night where the man of my dreams took my virginity, and gave me his. My night where I woke up to find my lover weeping uncontrollably in our bed... ?"

Okay, I guess I had maybe changed the scenario a little bit with that performance.

"Okay, but still, what makes you even think those kind of thoughts to begin with?" I asked.

"Are you kidding?" Greta said. "Have you seen how my sister looks at you, or Celia, or even Amelia Cort, since the truth has come out?"

"Well..."

"Of course I think Janet was looking at you that way before the announcement. She and I have similar tastes, you know, and you've grown a lot this summer. You're at least three inches taller than you were last summer, and more filled out."

She reached down and covered my groin with a hand. "More filled out all over." I looked up and she was blushing.

Our night may have ended with our third, but our day began with our fourth.

I was young and I was in love. I hardly thought of Janet at all.

Dad took the news with his usual aplomb, and he agreed that it changed everything. He had two ideas immediately, and I agreed that they were both good ones. School was starting soon, and in the time between my birthday and the first day of school, the two of us took a tour of every hydro project on the Columbia. Our tours were thorough, top to bottom jobs, and I met and shook hands with every engineer, technician and supervisor that it was practical to. There were electricians and pipefitters and skilled craftsmen of every kind, hard working, experienced, educated men, and I was saving them as fast as I could.

The first week of my sophomore year, I declared my candidacy for student body president. I was laughed at by all the upperclassmen when I made the announcement during the first assembly, but I was serious, and I had supporters. Bear Thompson's decision to support me was a big boost, as was Matt Thorson's support. I politicked nonstop, standing at the front door of the school handing out buttons or flyers and shaking hands. Always shaking hands.

To make time for my campaigning strategy, I had to drop cross-country. The decision didn't keep me from attending as many meets as possible, to shake hands with people in the audience. I was taking the opportunity on Sundays as well to attend church as far as was practical to drive my scooter on Sunday morning.

It didn't take long, the second Sunday after I'd begun, to find someone who I couldn't shake hands with. It shocked me to the core. I actually broke out in a sweat and found my muscles locking up before I could even begin to bring my hand up. The experience so unnerved me that I sat in the church parking lot for an hour before I felt comfortable climbing on the Honda and heading for home.

Dad had been meeting with his supervisors at the state for the past few months in an effort to change the nature of his job. He wanted to get out of the woods and on the job sites, with the intention of meeting even more of the skilled men and women involved. My latest revelation had been an epiphany to him almost as much as it had been to me, and he dropped the plans, and had been burning up the phone lines talking with some of the people he'd worked with setting up the job corp training program. I wasn't completely sure exactly what he had in mind, but Mr. Porter began coming over and the two of them spent a lot of time in Dad's office.

While this was going on, school and life proceeded as usual. I lost the election for school president, no surprise there, but I kept looking for ways to expand my chances for making human contact. I did get some opportunities through an unexpected source. Carlos Arellano was a respected member of both the Hispanic and Native American communities. The younger Sam Kendalls in me wanted to call them indians, but the Author and I won that battle. Carlos himself didn't care. Both terms, along with Hispanic were too generic for him.

I got an introduction to the Umatilla tribe, and there was a lot of hand-clasping there. Carlos had asked for a long weekend, and together we had driven north into Washington to meet with several tribal gatherings of Yakima, Chinook and Coeur d'Alene indians, followed by a quick trip into Idaho for a gathering of Nez Perce, Shoshone and Paiute tribes.

The federal government wouldn't start recognizing these tribes and making attempts at restoration until the seventies in my first life, so for these people, it would never happen. For them though, every one who met me would survive the coming end, and receive the ultimate in instant reparations. Federal recognition, in the life I'd already lived would spur the scattered peoples of many tribes, particularly in the northwest and Alaska, to get back in touch with the history and traditions of their cultures. Languages that were dieing out were preserved, and those who still spoke them suddenly had students interested in learning from them.

"Carlos, how is it so many of the tribes are gathering at the same time?" I asked him as we were headed west again, headed back to southern Oregon to meet with the Burns Paiutes.

"I didn't have anything to do with it," Carlos said. "I called a few people, and discovered that all these groups just happened to be meeting all during the same few days."

"You don't think it's a coincidence, do you?" I asked.

"No. Neither did the tribal elders I spoke to. A good many of those I spoke to, you've met, and I've told them the truth of what is to happen. They are working to prepare their peoples to gather again when the time comes."

I shook a lot of hands that weekend. The tribal leaders were very active in getting their people out to meet me. As a cover, Carlos, who was a minor celebrity among some of the tribes, was introduced as a visiting hunter and warrior, returning the skills of the people to its former glory. I was his chosen apprentice, and the enthusiasm and thoroughness with which the elders greeted me swung the opinions of most of those I met. I think I shook close to a thousand hands over three days, and another couple hundred Hispanic leaders and community members as well, in small communities scattered across Washington and Oregon between Spokane and Portland, the two big-city ends of out journey.

Carlos and I talked a lot on the road between meetings. I drove, some of the time. This was the early sixties, and rural Oregon, Idaho and Washington. Driving lessons for a fifteen year old were possible in a much less formal manner than in the future. Most boys my age raised on farms or ranches had been driving the family truck for years. The world moved at a slower pace in this here and now, but there was a practical recognition that on a farm or ranch, there was a difference between what was considered 'grown' and 'grown up'.

I was concerned that we would be encouraging the survival of multiple groups who would work at cross purposes to each other when we were on the other side of things. I spoke of my concern to Carlos.

"That is a valid concern, and there are some things we will have to encourage in the next few years that will make that unlikely," Carlos answered, then asked, "you didn't meet anyone during this time who you felt you couldn't touch?"

"No, that was kind of surprising, actually," I admitted. "I figured the odds would mean I'd have to meet one or two."

"The elders didn't invite certain people to meet you. They had a sense of what kind of men would be rejected."

There was a long stretch where we were both silent as I considered that. Finally I spoke my mind.

"And if the political rivals of the elders happened to be excluded, well, that's just a convenient side effect?"

"People are people, Sam," Carlos said. "There will always be politics. I think you will need to have some faith in those who guide you. If we take a wrong path, they will let you know."

I had to agree with that, but the specter of politics and a struggle for position and power now and in the future didn't make me happy.

Football made me happy. I skipped Cross Country, but definitely had no intention of missing football this year after being forced to miss most of it the previous year. Coach Turner was glad to have me back, and with an offensive line of mostly seniors, he expected that Wade Wilkins and I were going to have big years. I hoped he was right. Wade looked to have no competition for the starting QB slot, and I couldn't see it working out any other way, to be honest. He just had too good an arm, and was too quick on his feet. Having the ball in his hands in the backfield gave us another running threat every time we snapped the ball. He had told me last year that he had what it took to be a leader. The question was, did he have the desire?

Pre-season practices followed the experience from last year, except I didn't have to go through the tryout process at the beginning. I was already a member of the offense. Because I had my own ride, I was usually a little earlier than most arriving for the morning practices when we started. Wade was usually there as well, and I began a habit of playing catch with him to get his arm and my legs warmed up. I left most of the throwing to him, but I did wing it back now and then. The motion felt good, and I found I had plenty of power, even if I wasn't quite as deadly accurate as Wade.

Two weeks after practice started, they had a welcome back dinner for the returning players and their parents. New players weren't invited, which is why I didn't get to experience it my first year. I was very glad for the opportunity to meet the parents of most of the players, and I went out of my way to shake hands with all of them before the night was out. Jake Warner, a senior this year and a fellow hand shake proponent that I'd met at the beginning of last year's season made a point of meeting my parents and having his meet mine.

"Dad, this is Sam Kendall. Sam is going to be a big part of the offense this year, and I'll be seeing him off my shoulder a lot as a tight end, but I expect he's going to be too valuable as a receiver to spend much time there."

"A pleasure to meet you Mr. Warner," I said as we shook. "Allow me to introduce my parents, Bill and Helen Kendall."

As his dad and mine were shaking hands, Jake added, "Mr. Kendall has Sam shaking hands as a rule, just like you do me."

"I hope our boys carry that lesson on in life," Dad said to Mr. Warner.

"I agree, and I suspect they will," Mr. Warner answered. "I hope our boys do well this year, on and off the field."

Mrs. Warner was home with Jake's two little sisters and brother, and Mom was quick to say she hoped they got a chance to meet in the future. As adults do, the conversation quickly led to the three of them arranging for a get together, and barring any objection from Mrs. Warner, which nobody seemed to expect, we would be getting together for dinner next week sometime.

Wade Wilson and his parents were already at the table where we were supposed to sit, and those introductions were soon being made. Mr. and Mrs. Wilson were friendly enough, though I thought Mr. Wilson was a bit over the top on the 'manly braggadocio' routine. We were joined by the Porters, accompanying Joe, and Colin Kesterman, the other starting receiver and his parents. Colin was the only senior left on offense outside of the linemen, who were all seniors. The table was filled out with the fullback Mutt Manson and his dad. Mutt wasn't his real name of course, it was Horatio. Yeah, he really did prefer Mutt, and so did we. Even his dad called him Mutt.

It was the 1960's, and high school football or not, the running game was still dominant in the sport. The old '3 yards and a cloud of dust'. Mutt was built more along the lines of Jake Warner or Bear Thompson, except that he didn't have Bear's gut. He was very quick for his size, and the prototypical straight-ahead runner. With him at fullback and Joe's zig-zag, high speed running game, we were well equipped to do well on the ground this year. The question at the table over dinner became what the passing game would be like.

We sat through a few speeches from Coach Turner, the principal, the mayor of Hermiston and one of our local representatives to the State legislature. I realized while we were sitting at the table a hundred feet away that the politician was one of those people whose hand I couldn't shake. The second so far. I wondered how many I wold meet in the next four years, and what it really meant.

The dinner was great, and it allowed me to meet and greet a lot of the player's parents, though not all. A good many of the moms were home babysitting younger children that night. I found myself annoyed by the matter-of-fact way this was accepted by everyone, but I had to remind myself that this was still only 1962.

We had dinner with the Warners the following week. Jake's two little brothers were a blast, Ian was eight and Robbie was six, and they were bundles of endless energy. We played football with them in the back yard while dinner was cooking and the parents were busy.

Because I had this tight end's body, the offense soon included an end around option, and I found I liked getting the ball in the backfield. It was one of what the coach called our 'rabbit' plays. Rabbit was short for 'pull a rabbit out of the hat', and it was our bag of trick plays. My morning sessions of catch with Wade before practice wound up adding me to the rabbit bag again when Coach came over to me at the end of practice.

"Kendall, Wilson tells me you have a pretty good arm? That true?"

"Sure, I guess, Coach," I answered hesitantly. "Wade's the expert. If he says I have a good arm, I'll believe him."

"Not good enough, Kendall, lets see it." He turned and hollered, "Kesterman!"

"Yes Coach?" Colin said, running over.

"Twenty yard button hook, from here. Go!"

Colin barely had time to register the surprise before he had wheeled around and began sprinting down the field. Coach tossed the ball he held to me.

"Hit him with this. You know the route."

I did, and the slight delay in handing me the ball and giving me those instructions had used up almost all the time it took Colin to run the route, I had no time to think, so I just cocked my arm and let fly, hitting Colin in the numbers.

"Nice," Coach said once Colin was back with us. "Lets try something a little longer. Fly route, forty deep."

That was a simple straight route. Run forty yards downfield, and look for the ball. I loved being on the receiving end of that route. It was strange being on the passing end of it.

I wasn't even close to getting the timing right the first time. All the timing I knew for that play was from the receiver's side of things. I waited way to long to throw the ball. We ran it one more time, and it was a little better the second time, but this time I threw a little early. Colin did a good job of reacting to the change though, and was able to break off the route and catch the ball.

"All right, I've seen what I need," Coach said, and dismissed us.

Our first game of the season was in Walla Walla. The Blue Devils were usually pretty tough competition for us, being a much larger school, but when Luther Harwell ran the opening kickoff back for a touchdown, we began to feel pretty good about our chances. There wasn't much time to savor the feeling though, as the Blue Devils marched the ball down the field on their opening possession. Only a brilliant defensive play on third down kept them from scoring a touchdown. They had to settle for a field goal. The score was 7 to 3 and I hadn't gotten on the field yet. That quickly changed as Luthor was only able to get the ball out to the 25 on their second kickoff.

Coach tested their line, running Joe off tackle left, Mutt up the middle and Joe off tackle right the first three plays. Unfortunately, we only gained nine yards, and had to punt on 4th and 1.

Their punt returner had to fair catch the ball on his own fifteen, and our defense did a much better job the second time, allowing only a single first down before forcing a punt.

When I got back on the field, we were at our own thirty, and the first play was again Joe off tackle left. The second play though was that twenty yard button hook to me, and I caught the ball, getting smacked as soon as I had it in my hands. First down Bulldogs. The next play was Joe off tackle right, and this time he broke through the line and gained fifteen yards on a very nice run. Colin Kesterman had a nice catch on a crossing pattern for eight more yards and it was second and two on the Blue Devil 27.

Wade came into the huddle, and put his helmet on Mutt's as we stood around them.

"Mutt, they're going to be expecting me to plow you through the line for that two yards, but we're not going to do that, okay?"

Mutt nodded his head, and Wade made us all laugh when he added, "Nod bigger, their defense is watching.

While still pretending to talk to Mutt, Wade called Blue Zoom 32. That was me, running the fly pattern into the corner of the end zone. The huddle broke and I lined up, wide right, and turned to look at the line for a second before squaring up. I saw probable double coverage, and wondered how I could lose some of that. On the snap, I broke down the right sideline, waiting until I was five yards past the line and broke left, like I was going to run a crossing pattern, then spun back right, down the sideline again, full out, trying to make up the time I'd burned juking the near defender. The deep defender, who had been thinking he was going to be one side of a sandwich, saw me shed the first guy and reacted, coming shoulder to shoulder to me in single coverage. With him on my inside shoulder, I just motored into the end zone and out jumped him for the ball in the corner of the end zone. 13 to 3 Bulldogs.