Separate Ways

{Prompt: Have you ever lost a meaningful friendship?}

Written in the Stars

Back in tenth grade, in 1979, I learned from a newspaper article that the NC School of Science and Mathematics was accepting applications for interested students who would be living at a residential school during their eleventh and twelfth grade years… for free.

I thought about the possibilities of living on campus in Durham with paid room and board for all of two minutes, thinking of no reason that I shouldn’t apply. And so I did apply.

I gave literally no thought to maintaining ties with my current school and my current friends.

I think, at the time, that the adventure of applying was as enticing as the school itself. I had to get recommendations, fill out application forms, and take the SATs early. It was exciting. My grades weren’t really a problem. They were still very good. Also, I found I would be taking cognitive tests and personal interviews. Even more exciting.

I was ready to leave Raleigh and the little green house on Wayland Drive behind. My father had passed away two years before and my brother had gone off to college. There was no nostalgic ring in the old adage, “There’s no place like home.” At least not for me. I felt more like, “Any place is better than home.” And the prospect of spending both day and night at a shiny new school seemed like heaven.

I was also, at that time, working with my mother to help her complete her morning newspaper route. I was getting up early every day of the week. That was probably the last straw. Although I remember some aspects of the morning route with fondness — the glimmer of sunrise between the pines, the early 1980s “Yacht Rock” on the FM dial, and the warm buttery waffles after completing the route — I remember the drudgery and exhaustion too. The weather could be bitterly cold in the mornings in winter, with the car windows open. I was sometimes hungry… and nauseated from the frequent car turns and the smell of newspaper ink filling the air. I was probably sleep deprived, to judge from the frequency with which I punched the snooze button on my clock radio.

At age fifteen, I would have done just about anything to change what was written in the stars.

Dialogue from A Knight’s Tale

Like Family

Let me go back for just a moment to talk about some of my childhood friends — the ones I left behind.

The first friends that I really remember were my friends from elementary and middle school, from West Raleigh. We were a gang of very well-behaved and studious kids who sat together at the cafeteria tables and shared the contents of our lunch boxes, until that became uncool. When we were older, we sat down with our cafeteria meals atop their brown, prefabricated, plastic cafeteria trays, and we considered the quality of our respective food choices.

Bill Walter (who I had known since kindergarten) was probably the catalyst for this group of friends. He was full of impromptu humor and quick with a smile. He could recite Monty Python sketches at length, and wasn’t the least bit bothered that I had never seen a single sketch. He lived in an old stone house on Cowper Drive, near the Five Points intersection.

His parents once arranged a blindfolded, barefooted experience for our group of friends for a Halloween in the ‘70s, climaxing with us walking onto a tarp covered with the mushy, stringy, pumpkin-seed-riddled innards of their pumpkin, turned Jack-O-Lantern. It was ingeniously and hilariously disgusting. We were fast friends at ten.

A few years later, in junior high, surprisingly, Bill began dating, and even more surprisingly, he introduced his girlfriend to the group. She began to join us at recess and in other gatherings. She would quietly watch, while the boys threw a frisbee, or she would stand on the edges of a conversation, simply listening. Melanie Morrison had bright red hair, and was pretty beautiful by any measure, but was perhaps the most “spiritual”, or “introspective”, of an already pensive group. Bill was probably the least pensive, and most impulsive, in contrast. They made a pretty good couple.

Bill and Melanie at a dance - circa 1979.

I knew Jenny West, about as long as I had known Bill. We gradually advanced through the ranks of our children’s choir at church, up into youth choir, and then into young adult choir (The real names of the ensembles are lost to time.) It seemed like she was the one person in the choir who could truly sing the songs in tune, and because she had talent, the choirmaster eventually roped her into singing solos from the rear balcony during the church offering. I think she would have happily stayed out of the limelight, singing in the chorus, and singing for her own pleasure. Between church and school, I probably knew Jenny better than anyone.

John Matula and Jenny West at a luau/dance - circa 1979.

I met John Dunning and John Matula, probably because they knew Jenny, and they lived in the same neighborhood. “Dunning” had a clever sense of humor that required a bit of thought and reflection. He had wit.

“Matula” was also funny, but in an over-the-top, spontaneous kind of way. “Matula” was from Schenectady, which I knew was a town near Albany, where my father had once lived. He had a bit of that upstate New York sensibility, meaning he just said whatever he was thinking. He was always happy to see me, and he was usually out on the streets of his neighborhood. He was probably happy to see anyone and everyone. I found out later that he was always outside because his house was inhumanly hot. It had been built decades before, and had no air conditioning at all, and little ventilation, making it practically unlivable in the summer.

Stephanie and John Dunning - circa 1980

Sarah Booth was the most bookish of the lot. She was always reading… and frequently writing — come to think of it. She frequently wore a mid-length khaki skirt or pants, and pastel button-down shirts. There was no doubt at the time that she would have a literary career one day.

Stephanie Valachovic was a bit of a wild card. She had long straight hair, a foreign name, and was always flat-out honest. She almost always wore blue jeans and a plaid, flannel shirt.

Charles Alvarez was also an enigma, but he could be every bit as entertaining as the rest. He was sometimes dressed for the ROTC, as he was in the picture below.

Rob Pascale was another friend who sort of flew under the radar. He was part of the pack, but I only remember him as being a persistently friendly and positive person. In fact, everyone in the group was friendly, funny, optimistic, and smart.

We were not a part of the “popular crowd” — rich kids with wealthy parents. But we weren’t particularly poor either. We weren’t from troubled homes or welfare circumstances. In truth, I might have been among the poorest of the group. I certainly was, after my father passed away.

We were tight-knit friends, as I remember us in 10th grade when we were attending Broughton High School together in Raleigh.I took the picture below, in the base of the Broughton clock tower, by putting my SLR camera on the opposite windowsill, and setting the 10 second timer. It was a conspicuous decision — the decision to capture, on film, the faces of my confidantes forever. It glows. It captures their personalities perfectly. I must have known I was heading to NCSSM when I took the picture. Or perhaps it was just pure luck that I got a picture of most of us before I left Raleigh and my childhood friends behind.

These weren’t my only friends in Raleigh, but they were certainly my closest. Ironically, I feel like I really knew very little about their lives — their hopes and dreams. I guess we just accepted each other like family, with no strings attached — a group providing refuge and acceptance amid the chaos and drama of a school with hundreds of others.

L to R: Charles, Bill, Melanie, me, Stephanie, Sara, Jenny, John D.

A Faustian Bargain

And yet, I pretty much cut ties with these—my best friends— when I moved to Durham. I don’t know what I was thinking… perhaps I wasn’t thinking… of the consequences of leaving. I made a Faustian bargain, to leave my past behind, to start anew, to move to the School of Science and Math in 1980. I didn’t know, then, how completely some of these friendships would be lost in the bargain.

As I moved into Wyche House dorm, at the School of Science and Math in September of 1980, I was excitedly inundated by the camaraderie of the students I met. They were from all over the state. We were all in the same boat — all leaving friends behind. They were every bit as quirky and comical as the friends I had before. And I soon had a new group of friends — not sharing a common history but all sharing a common experience.

I found, over time, as I moved from place to place — from school to school — that, each time I moved, I had to let some friends go. We had to go our separate ways. But I would make new friends in a new place, and the balance would be restored.

Still… I made strong friendships at the School of Science and Math — lifelong friends. A few, I kept in touch with in college at NC State (Kim McLauchlin and Karl Garrison, for example) and a few were also at Duke when I started medical school (John Armitage and Shauna Tilley). But essentially our class forged a lifelong bond of friendship in two short years, by living together under intense scrutiny, in a pressure-packed situation. We were, essentially, the first class of a state-sponsored pilot program, whose success or failure depended to a large degree upon our own success or failure.

As close as we were at the time that we matriculated, it was still all too easy to lose touch, as I discovered. As we scattered to the four corners of the universe — to various universities in various states — we frequently lost contact. And some of us moved on to other endeavors, never looking back.

Surprisingly few (in my mind) returned for the reunion 5 years later, and efforts to track down the missing yielded little improvement at subsequent reunions. It seemed as if the absent alumni were happy to remain apart and among the missing. It was just the same as when I had moved on from my childhood friends, a few years before.

Despite the inevitable loss of classmates over time, to attrition or to death, these classmates — my new companions from NCSSM — are still my closest friends. As I grow older and enter retirement, I do my best to foster those friendships that began forty-five years ago.

Sidebar

I did try to keep in touch with some of my old friends, when I moved from Raleigh to Durham, but it was much harder to keep in touch back then. You had to call by phone… or drop by. I would see a few people when I went back to Raleigh, almost by chance. In the end, I saw John Matula the most, as he was always out — out in his neighborhood and up for adventure. I had a moped in the 80s and I would sometimes go up to Five Points, and see the kids in that neck of the woods — so much more interesting than my dull street.

And I saw a girl named Van Dinh Nguyen, who left Vietnam with her family (probably in 1975 after the fall of Saigon), moving to North Carolina. I called her, and tried to arrange some casual get-togethers. I tried to be nonchalant, although in reality, I had a crush on her, and I would have happily abandoned any and all of my plans, commitments, and aspirations for a kiss, or a touch of her hand. Alas… Van Dinh never shared my infatuation, but… still… she did answer her phone when I called. She occasionally went out with me for a meal or a movie, and we stayed friends for many years, and still keep in touch.

Tracking Down Lost Friends

Although I was the first to leave my group of friends in Raleigh, ultimately, all of our paths diverged. Now, Bill is somewhere in California, specializing in the care of honeybees. Jenny is living in Kansas City, Missouri, but her name is Melissa Ramsey now. (She uses her middle name.) Sara is somewhere up north, as is John Dunning, but beyond that, I know nothing. We’ve lost touch. Stephanie is living down east in North Carolina, and volunteering with pet rescue agencies, while Rob is teaching middle school in Chesapeake, Virginia, something I never imagined.

Melanie, tragically, died unexpectedly in 2017, shortly after one of her two beautiful children graduated from NC State University. I learned this through Facebook. From the posts, it seems that most of her friends were shocked by her loss. She was married and working as a food technologist for the Department of Agriculture in Rockville, Maryland, at the time. It all happened before I began to rekindle my connections to my childhood friends.

I got up the gumption to go to a Broughton High School reunion in 2017, 37 years after leaving town, and 35 years after graduating from high school at NCSSM instead. I wanted to see some of the people that knew me a little when I was just a kid from Raleigh, like them. I had a little picnic with Rob Pascale, Charles Alvarez, Melissa “Jenny West” Ramsey, and Van Dinh Carriker, introducing them to my wife, and reintroducing them to myself.

I went to the Broughton reunion, seeing some of those well-off “beautiful” people that I rubbed elbows with in the corridors of education. And I also saw a few members of the percussion section that I played with for one year in the Broughton High School Cavaliers marching band. I saw “Matula” who had become quite a charmer, judging from his flow from one group to another at the party.

I sometimes run into him, in the real world, rummaging through the vinyl record albums at The Readers Corner on Hillsborough Street. We laugh about how things have changed from our childhood. We make chit chat for a while. Then we go our separate ways. We have new friends and families.

The glow of friendship in the clocktower at Broughton is just a memory now. A beautiful memory.

*************************

Appendix I

A chronological listing of some of the interesting people I’ve known. (Underlined names are incommunicado.)

- Friends from Wayland Heights neighborhood: Catherine Gordon (now a pediatrician in Boston), John Preston (now working for Motorola, in Florida, and an avid cyclist), David Siler (now doing something somewhere in eastern NC).

- Friends from Daniels (Jr. High), and Broughton (Sr. High): Bill Walters , Melanie Morrison (passed away, circa 2017), Jenny West, Sarah Booth, John Matula, John Dunning, Stephanie Valachovic, Charles Alvarez, Robert Pascal.

- Friends at NCSSM: Kim McLauchlin (pen pal when I was attending Vanderbilt), Barbara Birdwell (avid photographer, but we lost touch), Teri Buffmeyer (close friend, now living in Calabash, NC), Jeff Parker (close friend, now in Hickory where he runs a factory), John Armitage (soccer teammate who also attended Duke Medical School. Now CEO of “Our Blood Institute” in OKC.) Robert Lee (Super close friend and former roommate, who I see at reunions, now living in Davidson, NC) Many other classmates, who I aspire to see at a dinner party in the future, including Sherri Vasalga, Elizabeth Grainger Paige, et al.

An archival slide of NCSSM students at Halloween - circa 1980

15 intrepid alumni at the 40th - at historic Woolworth’s counter.

- Friend at Vanderbilt: Edmund Rucker (from Paducah, Ky. Now working for the University of Louisville).

- Friends at NCSU: Jane Matthews, (from Mocksville, NC. Worked in textiles in Clarksville, Va., before I lost touch). Nooshin Ansari (my girlfriend in 1984, when she was on exchange from Plymouth Polytechnic University in England - a very serious relationship that I torpedoed. Now living in Queensland, Australia. Srini Iyengar (my closest friend for many years). We gradually drifted apart, but still keep in touch), Robin Davis (was working as a nurse at NC Memorial Hospital when she was dating a mutual friend. She had his baby, but he moved back to Pakistan.) Suzanne Malloy (Another female acquaintance whom I came to know intimately when I returned to NCSU in 1986. Lost touch.)

My girlfriend - Nooshin, Me, Srini, and Jane - circa 1984. Picture by my Mom.

Jane, Me, Nooshin, and Mom circa 1985 in the airport as I departed for South Australia. Picture by Srini.

- Friends at Flinders University: Juliana Teoh Suan, Graeme, Anne McMillan, Amosa, Vincent, et al. (No longer in touch with any of these wonderful people. I’ve pledged to visit Malaysia and Western Samoa some day, because they were so cool.)

Juliana laughing with me on the steps at Flinders University

Juliana (trying to study), Anne (not amused) - circa 1985

- Friends at Lightwater Valley amusement park (all lost)

Two coworkers (in the park overalls) - circa 1986

Another goofy coworker at Lightwater Valley - circa 1985

- Friends at Duke University: Chang Lim (good friend at the time, now no longer in touch), Lisa Gangarosa (now head of the GI department at NC Memorial Hospital), Mary Teresa Amato (recently working in the ED at Duke), Catherine Hren (living close by, but no longer getting together as often)

Chang and me at a fundraiser (he painted the sign)- circa 1988

Some fellow students and I at an intramural event.

- Friends at UNC-CH: Dianne Shihadi (We married.) Steve McNulty (Counting the days to his own resignation from DCRI). Gail Tudor (living in New Hampshire. She had five children.) Most of the others from my department have scattered. Dianne still keeps in touch with some of the Biostatisticians.

- Friends at Residency - Jon Parham, Alana Williams, and others (We follow each other on Facebook.)

- Business friends - Jodi Winkel (We worked together for 12 years at Garner Family Practice and became good friends. We occasionally get together). Coworkers at UNC Family Practice at Fuquay Varina— We almost completely lost touch when I retired, and, worse, the pandemic led to a great deal of self-imposed isolation in 2020-2021.

Volleyball friends in Sanford - Bill & Susan Carter (They divorced and we lost touch.) Jeremy & Candace Pedley (still happily living in Sanford. We are FB friends.)

The winning volleyball team.

Basketball friends in Cary - Mike, Skip, Jim, Dave (most still living in our neighborhood, and keeping in touch, although none of us are still playing basketball, to the best of my knowledge.)

A bunch of family guys that played ball on the cul-de-sac.

Cycling friends - Bob, Dave, Mike K., Karen, Doug, Nancy - taught me everything I needed to know about cycling; Kristy, Scott, Bud, Kerri, Tom - “The usual suspects”; David, Matt, Marc, Rob - We did winter rides together back in 2016; Keith, Will, George - quartet with mutual interests; Leslie & Tim, Sheila & Doug - Wallyworld rides; Gayle, Eric, Darryl, Tom, Rex, Stewart - Havoc rides. The list goes on…

A ride to Devil’s Tramping Ground from Pittsboro - 2024

A ride to Mount Mitchell from Little Switzerland - circa 2015

A winter ride from Holly Springs - circa 2016

Appendix 2

-Separate Ways (Worlds Apart) - song by Journey, 1983

Here we stand
Worlds apart, hearts broken in two, two, two

Sleepless nights, losing ground
I’m reachin’ for you, you, you

Feelin’ that it’s gone
Can change your mind

If we can’t go on
To survive the tide, love divides

Someday love will find you
Break those chains that bind you
One night will remind you
How we touched and went our separate ways

If he ever hurts you
True love won’t desert you
You know I still love you
Though we touched and went our separate ways

Troubled times
Caught between confusion and pain, pain, pain

Distant eyes
Promises we made were in vain, in vain, in vain

If you must go, I wish you love
You’ll never walk alone

Take care, my love
Miss you, love

Someday love will find you
Break those chains that bind you
One night will remind you
How we touched and went our separate ways….

Appendix 3

-Go Your Own Way - song by Fleetwood Mac, 1977

Loving you
Isn’t the right thing to do
How can I ever change things that I feel?

If I could
Baby I’d give you my world

How can I
When you won’t take it from me?

You can go your own way
Go your own way
You can call it another lonely day
You can go your own way
Go your own way

Tell me why
Everything turned around

Packing up
Shacking up’s all you wanna do

If I could
Baby I’d give you my world

Open up
Everything’s waiting for you

You can go your own way
Go your own way
You can call it another lonely day
You can go your own way
Go your own way

Pennies From Heaven

{Prompt: Has anyone ever been a hero to you?}

I’m not sure when I met T.C. Pate exactly. At first, he was just a guy.

He was just another guy — a newspaper carrier — at the distribution point, picking up papers to deliver, at 4 or 5 in the morning. He got there and threw his bundles in his car. We got there and threw our bundles in our car (Mom and me). And we went off to do our respective routes.

Occasionally the distribution truck was late. Then we were all there waiting — waiting for the newspaper bundles, together. That’s probably when we met and talked, speculating on the causes for the delay. Or talking about the weather. Or talking about the newspaper delivery business. We all got to know one another, a little bit more.

Once, Mom’s car broke down at the Phillips 66 — the gas station where the papers were distributed. We didn’t have a backup plan — no one to call at 5 in the morning. No way to deliver the papers. No way to get home. Mr. Pate came to our rescue. He helped us finish the route. He took us home. He helped us get our car fixed.

After that, he became a friend of the family.

Mr. Pate — dressed for delivering papers — circa 1979.

His Backstory

Here is a little bit of his backstory. Mr. Pate was born about 50 miles from Raleigh, in Falcon, NC. Falcon is just south of Dunn, which is a “major center for producing cotton, tobacco, and turpentine,” and just west of Spivey’s Corner, where the National Hollerin’ contest is held each year. That tells you everything you need to know about Falcon. You could say it’s in the middle of nowhere.

He was christened Theron Carl Pate by his mother, but he always preferred to go by “T.C.,” for short. He must have gotten some guff for his first name—Theron— but it’s actually a pretty interesting name. It means “hunter” in Greek.

I don’t know what T.C. did during his childhood, but he was born in 1913 just before World War I, and he lived through the Roaring Twenties and the Great Depression as a young adult. He attended Randolph-Macon Academy in Front Royal, Virginia, in the early 1930s.

His mother died in a car accident in 1936, when he was only 23 years old. She was driving back to Falcon — back home from Raleigh, with her nephew, when their car swerved into an oncoming truck. The collision was so severe that both of them were thrown from the car and died from the trauma.

Mr. Pate never talked about this. I only know about it now from the news articles.

1936 Article about T. C. Pate’s mother and cousin

I found out from T. C. himself that he served in World War II, and he was stationed in the Aleutian Islands, way up in Alaska, trying to avoid sniper fire from the Japanese. I interviewed him for an assignment when I was still in middle school and found out about his military service. Ultimately he was discharged from the military with a 100% disability (PTSD perhaps), meaning that he was eligible for VA medical benefits for the rest of his life.

An early portrait of T. C. Pate.

He was married in 1939, before WWII, and he had five sons: Thomas R., Andrew C., David R., Robert F., and Charles A. Pate. (Now, they live in Tampa, Florida; Kennesaw, Georgia; Raleigh, NC; Atlanta, Georgia; and Lorton, Virginia.) I never met his sons, because they were all grown up and moved away when I knew him. But I knew that he was especially proud of his youngest son, Charlie, who was enrolled at West Point at the time.

Mr. Pate and his wife were in the midst of a separation when he and I and my mom became acquainted back in 1978. It was complicated.

All I knew was that he worked delivering papers to make ends meet; but his real passion was being a salesman — selling massage chairs and other gadgets. He once told me that the secret to salesmanship is to really believe in the product that you’re selling. Once or twice he pointed out a gumball machine full of Chiclets, and he mentioned that it was one of his side hustles. The Ford gumball machines used to sell gumballs for a penny apiece. Civic clubs, like the Lions Club, used the machines to raise money for charity. Apparently, T. C. was a salesman or a distributor for these machines, because he shared in the profits.

He said, half-jokingly, that his favorite song was Pennies from Heaven.

A Ford gumball machine - gum for a penny.

Newspaper Delivery

At some point he took up morning newspaper-delivery to supplement his income. His morning route was about twice as big as ours, but he had been doing it for a while. He had all the houses memorized. He knew who liked their paper on the driveway, and who liked their paper on the grass. And he knew who wanted their paper in the box beneath the mailbox.

His route went down most of Blue Ridge Road, and the side streets nearby. Incidentally, Blue Ridge Road was one of the first roads in Raleigh to have a bicycle lane, but a lot of people used the lane for jogging too. Jogging was a brand new trend at the time. Not many people in Raleigh had even heard of jogging before 1972. (Frank Shorter is credited with inspiring a running boom when he won the marathon in the 1972 Summer Olympics.)

Mr. Pate’s route had a lot of cul-de-sacs. And I should know, because for a while I helped Mr. Pate with his route, folding and banding papers in the back seat. Every time he made a sharp turn, I had to brace the paper stacks to keep them from falling over (on me!)

T.C. would often throw the paper over the car roof, using his left hand, as he went around the cul-de-sac in a counter-clockwise direction. Sometimes, on the back roads, we just drove on the left-hand side of the road so he could throw the paper directly out of the window on his left. No one else was driving at that time of the morning. Still, we never did that on Blue Ridge Road.

After the route, we used to go to the Your House breakfast restaurant, on Capital Boulevard. It was close to where the Triangle Town Shopping Center is now. I’m not sure why he preferred to go to Your House. The Waffle House at the corner of Hillsborough and Method Street was certainly closer. But he seemed to know a lot of the patrons and the staff at Your House. And they knew him. I guess it was a tradition.

I think I told him once that I didn’t have any money, to buy breakfast with. He bought it for me, and said, “Never turn down free food,” with a smile and a sparkle in his eye. And since that day, I never have.

Quintessential diner counter like the one at Your House

A Generous Person.

Over the years he got to know my mother, me, and my brother. He let us drive his blue and white Skylark, and let us use his boat-sized, big, black Oldsmobile. We ended up driving those two cars into the ground, as he bought new cars for himself.

I’m pretty sure I was driving one of them when another driver on Hillsborough started waving me down, and pointing at one of my wheels. I pulled into the Arby’s parking lot to see what was wrong, and it looked like the tire was about to fall off! I have no idea why it was in such a state, but youthful neglect was probably a factor. I called for a tow truck, and when the tow-truck driver started to hoist the car onto the flatbed, the tire actually did fall off, much to his alarm. I’m pretty sure I sold it for junk to pay for the tow to the junkyard.

A 1971 Buick Skylark in fine condition.

Mr. Pate liked to buy a new (American-made) car every five or six years. I wonder if he gave the old ones to each of his five boys. It sure would take a lot of gum and newspapers to pay for a new car so often.

He must have been pretty frugal in other respects. He lived in a small one-story house, with a basement, at 729 Kimbrough Street, just off of Whitaker Mill Road. My mother stayed in his house for a little while after she sold our family home in 1986 or 1987. I would swear it was in the summer of 1986, because I was out of the country when I found out that she had accepted an offer on our family home. (When I returned from England I stayed with my friend Srini for a while.)

A lot of our childhood toys and school records went into Mr. Pate’s basement, or the shed in his backyard, before we could make room for them in a place of our own, eventually.

Mr. Pate also informally adopted our pet dog, Lindy — a beagle mix. Lindy stayed with him at his house, spent some time in a fenced-in area in his backyard, and probably had the run of the first floor.

Mr. Pate at his home in 1988

Sometime, in 1979 or 1980, Mr. Pate wrote a recommendation for me for the School of Science and Math. And he might have written another recommendation for me for medical school. Some of those recommendations had to be written by someone who was “not a family member”. In the time between high school and medical school, he had become as good as a family member to me; but still, technically, he was just a friend.

Moving On

My mother left Raleigh in 1988, when my grandmother, up in Virginia, suffered a broken hip. She moved out of the house on Kimbrough Street and into an even smaller house, up in Stanley, Virginia. She took care of my grandfather, Willard, until he died in August of 1991. And she took care of my grandmother, Mary, until she died in November of 1993. And then she stayed in Stanley.

Mr. Pate was a guest at my wedding in 1991 and was an honorary best man for my brother’s wedding in 1995. But he and my mother saw less and less of one another, given their distance apart; and she married Ivan Purdham, from Stanley, in 1997.

Margaret Gallup and T.C. Pate at my wedding in 1991

I saw less of Mr. Pate, myself, when I went to medical school in 1987, and even less when I went through residency (in Pittsburgh, PA, and Columbia, SC) starting in 1992. And then Dianne and I had twins in 1994, and I didn’t really see him at all.

He entered a Veteran’s Administration rest home sometime in the late 1990s and he passed away on August 9, 2002, with hardly any fanfare at all. He was buried at the Antioch Baptist Church cemetery in Falcon, North Carolina, with a military grave marker. (His wife was buried separately in a cemetery in Raleigh.)

T.C. Pate’s grave marker in Falcon.

What He Meant

Although he was just another guy at the newspaper stop when I met him, he became an incredibly important part of my life — a role model and a mentor — for a decade, starting in 1978, when I was only fourteen years old.

He taught me to “Really believe in whatever you’re selling”, “Never turn down free food”, and “Give your mama a break — she’s doing the best that she can”. He had five grownup children of his own, but he had the audacity to take on two more who needed support.

His life started out tough, but he made it through tragedy and hard times, just like me.

He had a life full of adventures, big and small.

I hope I do too.

He was never camera shy.

These Dreams

{Prompt: What was it like before you went to NCSSM in 1980?}

It’s dark outside, except for the moon sinking on the horizon, and the streetlights casting their incandescent glow.  As I drive, with my window down, the cold morning air swirls past my left ear and my neck. It swirls into the back seats, and then back around again.  The naturally cool, fresh air from outside mixes with the heated air from the car vents, which is variably hot or cold.

The unfolded newspapers ruffle in turbulence in the passenger seat beside me, demanding my attention. I put a folded paper on top of the pile, to keep the pages from fluttering up… and open… and falling apart.  At some point I will stop to fold and band the rest of the unfolded pile, but for now, I will weigh down the loose papers and deliver the ones I have already banded.

So I’m tossing out the papers, one at a time, onto the driveways of the houses in the neighborhood. I’m driving around in the predawn hours making my paper deliveries.  One to this house.  One to that house. One to the next house.  Everything is going smoothly, under control.

But I begin to realize that I haven’t been paying attention to the house addresses.  I’ve been doing my route on autopilot.  I haven’t been checking that the right house got the paper. After a while all the driveways start to look the same.

Was I supposed to deliver a paper to that last address?  Are they on vacation? Did they put a stop on the delivery?

I’ll have to check my list of subscription customers. Where is it?  My list seems to be missing!

Oh!  Hold on.  Wait a minute.  This isn’t my route, at all!  I’m only subbing this route for another carrier.

I need his list of subscribers. Where is it?  Did he give it to me?  It must be somewhere. 

Oh, shit.  I can’t find it.  Well… so, I can’t find it… so what?  I should know it by memory.  I’ve done the route with him enough times.  I should know it by now.

But I can’t remember the route. And I can’t find the list. Nothing is going according to plan. None of these customers is getting their paper today.  Or maybe, all of the houses are getting a paper instead, whether they have a subscription or not! 

I only have a finite supply of newspapers.  And I can’t deliver them properly.  What can I do?

And then, I wake up.  It’s all a dream. I’m not delivering newspapers today, or any other day.

In fact, I’m a retired family doctor.  I retired 5 years ago.  I stopped delivering papers a long time ago.  So long, in fact, that I have to do a little math.  It was about 45 years since I did a morning newspaper route.

But I still dream about it. Or should I call it a nightmare? I am literally haunted by my time as a “paperboy”, when I was a teenager in Raleigh.  Let me explain.

The Raleigh Times

Lots of kids had an afternoon paper route when I was young.  It was fun, because you were out on your bike, and out in the neighborhood.  And it was the way that you made extra money, before you were old enough to apply for a regular job.* 

 

I was probably 12 years old when I began delivering The Raleigh Times** with my brother.  We rode our bikes up to Johnson’s Pharmacy, three blocks away. We got our stacks of newspapers, and we got to work.

We sat on the sidewalk banding the papers with the #16-sized rubber bands. They had the right combination of give and take.  Strong enough to keep from snapping, and strong enough to keep the paper from unfolding, but stretchy enough to twist up and over the edge of the paper, once… or twice… or even thrice, if necessary. 

If we wanted a relatively flat, aerodynamic paper that could be thrown sideways, floating like a frisbee, then we folded it into thirds, and wrapped the rubber band around it twice. 

If we wanted a solid, conical paper that could be thrown end over end, like an axe, then we folded it in thirds, and then in half again, and we wrapped the band around it three or even four times to keep it tight and stiff.

The tightly bound, weaponized papers weren’t really practical.  They took longer to fold and to band. But they sure were fun to throw at one another, when we had extras.  A game of dodgeball with papers.

When we weren’t trying to bind the papers into tight little knots, we were folding as fast as we could, stuffing the papers into canvas paper bags or into steel bicycle baskets, and heading out to deliver the papers to five or six streets in our neighborhood.  If we split up, we could finish the route twice as fast.  Those were the days!

The 1970s

These were the late 1970s.  I did an afternoon route with my brother, or on my own, between 1976—the year of the national bicentennial—and 1979—the year of the Iran hostage crisis.  In the 1970s, there was no internet… no “social media”… no cell phones.  Personal computing and GPS were only in their infancy.  

It’s hard to imagine, but if we wanted to meet someone… somewhere… sometime, we had to call them on our telephone, arrange a meeting place… and time, and then find them at the designated rendezvous.

To do this you needed their phone number, you needed a telephone connected to a landline, you needed a watch (or clock), and you needed a map (or working knowledge of the streets).  You had to have telephone skills (no texting), memory skills (no cell phone reminders), and navigation skills (no GPS navigators). 

In the ‘70s shopping malls were popular, in part, because there was no online shopping.  Movie theaters were popular because there was no online streaming.  Libraries and books were popular because there were no digital books or online references.  Newspapers and network TV were the major sources of information and the major dispensers of “social media”.

In the ’70s people listened to music on the radio, or on records, or on cassette tapes.  The Sony Walkman, a personal cassette player, was released in 1979, and boom boxes were reaching their zenith.

Typewriters were used for “word processing” and photographic slide machines, with mechanical slide carousels, were used for slideshows.  Film cameras and video cassette recorders were used to record photographs and videos. Xerox machines, fax machines, and the U.S. Postal Service were used to copy, transmit, or deliver letters and documents.

In schools, when we talked about environmental conservation, we imagined a day, only a year or two away, when trees and the paper they supplied would no longer be consumed in such seemingly limitless quantities.  It took about 50 years before that future became a reality.

The News & Observer

In 1977, my mother and my brother began a morning route, delivering The News & Observer..  This was not a “fun” newspaper route.  They did this for a little extra spending money, to help make ends meet, because money was short.

They did this for at least a year and a half, with only my occasional assistance, but in 1979 everything changed.  My brother left for college.  He was almost 18.  I was recruited to help my mother — to continue the route. It meant getting up with her in the morning, every… single… day!  I was 15 at the time.

Mom, on the paper route - circa 1979

A morning route with your mom is not the same as an afternoon route with your brother.  A morning route is bigger… much bigger than an afternoon route. 

And it’s done in the morning — I mean early morning — in the dark, before the sun comes up.

It is sometimes cold.  It is sometimes lonely.  You would be hungry.  And tired.  It is not fun.  It is a job.  

A typical route has 100 to 300 customers, or more.  You need a car to complete the route in a timely manner, and you need to….  no… you have to complete the route in a timely manner.

You complete your route on time, so that the customers can pick up their paper before breakfast, or before heading off to work.  For the convenience of the customers, you wake up at 4:30 in the morning.  You force yourself to leave the comfort of your cozy bed.  You grab a bite to eat, if you didn’t oversleep. And you’re out the door.  That is… you are out the door if you didn’t sit up and say, “I’m awake”, when your mom poked you on your foot before you fell back and fell asleep again.

You need a car to carry the sheer volume of newspapers on a morning route.  The newspapers come to the carrier in bundles, at the distribution point.  A big brown van pulls up to a closed-for-the-night Phillips 66, where the carriers are waiting in their cars or quietly smoking cigarettes.  Two guys start pulling out the bundles from the back of the truck.  They stack them in groups, for 7 or 8 different routes.  On top of the bundles they put a distribution slip, which has the number for the route, the number of papers required, and any particular subscriber requests.

The subscriber might request a vacation hold. Or they might request that you put the paper on their doorstep… or in a mailbox… or on the grass… or on the driveway.  They might just complain… that their front page was wet from the dew on the grass… or chewed up from skidding on the driveway… or just plain missing. 

 A typical bundle is 20 to 25 pounds.  It’s about a foot tall, a foot and a half wide, and a foot deep.  One bundle can hold up to 50 papers, when the papers are thin, on the slow news days, like Mondays.  A bundle can hold 25 papers on days when the papers are thick, filled with grocery store coupons,, like Wednesdays.  Or a bundle might hold only 10 to 15 papers on Sundays, when the papers are bulging, with both advertising inserts, and extra sections.

You want the papers to be thin, so you can get them all in the car at one time.  So you can do your route in one fell swoop.  You can get 8 to 12 bundles in the back seat of your car if you’re doing the route alone. Or you can put 4 to 6 bundles in the back if you want to make room for a “helper.”  The unfolded papers go in the back. And the folded papers — the ones that are ready to be thrown from the window — go in the passenger seat.

So, looking down at the car from a bird’s-eye viewpoint, going clockwise, you would see a “driver” in the front, driving the route and throwing the papers from the window; folded papers in the passenger seat, ready to be thrown; unfolded papers in the rear seat on the passenger side (away from the open window); and a “helper” in the rear seat behind the driver, folding the papers as you go along.

From 1979 to 1980, before I had my driver’s license, I was in the back seat of my mother’s Honda Accord***, and I was the “helper”.

Sitting in the back seat of a Honda, folding papers on a morning paper route, is not an enviable place to be.  There is cold air (or rain) coming in the open window in front of you.  There is the odor of ink and newsprint making you queasy, and the movement of the car making you carsick.

The car is never moving in a straight line. It is constantly weaving back and forth, toward a mailbox, or toward a driveway — around a parked car, or around a cul-de-sac.  We are driving on the left-hand side of the road in the neighborhoods, where traffic is non-existent at five in the morning.  We are driving on the left so we can throw the papers onto the driveway or onto the lawn from the driver’s side window. 

On the secondary roads, where traffic is light, but still a threat, we drive on the right. But then we have to throw the paper over the roof of the car, or stretch out as far as we can to cram the paper through the passenger side window, into the newspaper box next to (or under) the mailbox. 

You can try to throw the paper through the passenger side window, but that never works.  One end or the other will always hit the window frame, stutter, and then plop down in the gutter of the road.  And then you have to stop, walk around the car, and throw it up the driveway properly. It’s the newspaper deliverer’s walk of shame.  It’s not worth the time or the embarrassment.

It’s not bad if you’re the driver.  You don’t get so car sick, because you’ve got eyes on the road.  You get more heat from the air vents in the winter, and less exposure to the cold air from the open window.  The empty roads can give you a feeling of omnipotence, as if you were the only human on the planet, and the empty neighborhoods make you imagine a world without people — a world where frogs and crickets are the most vocal citizens of the night, and birds announce the arrival of dawn with a chorus of twittering.

Or, the driver may choose to listen to the radio instead.  When my mother drove the route, she would listen to Chuck Swindoll, a radio preacher whose radio show, Insight for Living, was broadcast on radio stations nationwide. 

Or she would listen to The Larry King Show, an interview show with a call-in audience from across the nation.   (I truly admire Larry King, most of all, for the flair with which he would abuse and then hang up on any caller that rambled for too long or too far off the topic.  Those callers got treated to Larry’s no-nonsense reprimand, and a “Click.” Then Larry would tell the audience what a nut the caller was.  That was the best part.  Nut cases were not tolerated on The Larry King Show.)

Occasionally she would listen to an FM station, for music instead of talk radio.  At least once a week, stations would broadcast American Top 40, with Casey Kasem, and I suspect it was played on repeat in the wee hours of the morning. 

There was a lot of music that we call yacht rock today, including Steely Dan, Hall & Oates, and the Doobie Brothers; and a lot of what we call soft rock as well: The Eagles, Fleetwood Mac, and Air Supply, for example. 

But there were also stations that played “Oldies”, which at the time could be anything from swing (The Artie Shaw orchestra, The Benny Goodman orchestra, or the Andrews Sisters), to classic country artists (Tammy Wynette, George Jones, or Charley Pride), or pioneer rock and roll (The Everly Brothers, Fats Domino, or Bobby Vinton).

In 1979, “Oldies” could be anything from the 1930s, ‘40s, or ‘50s. This is the music that I might hear in the car, when my mother was driving, if I was lucky! Around this time (the late 1970s) Disco, Punk, Rap, Classic Rock, and Heavy Metal were all making their way into, or out of, the national consciousness. But generally they were not on the radio when my mom was driving.

Sometimes we had trouble — car trouble, or trouble with the weather.  I remember once, when it snowed, on a Sunday, we had trouble doing the route at anything approaching a normal speed.  We were driving slowly that day, and the papers were big. We were so slow and so late, that by the time we finished, there were children and parents out, bundled up in coats, mittens, and gloves playing in the snow.

Another time, there was sleet and freezing rain, and we made the ill-advised decision to attempt to climb a narrow alley off of Medlin Drive — to deliver papers to two or three houses at the top of the hill.  We failed on the first attempt to get up the hill, and on the second attempt we ended up with our car slipping off the side of the road. I still have a picture (starting to brown with age) of a sky blue Honda Acura hatchback, parked at a rakish angle, with one side only a few feet above the dark creek at the bottom of the road, and the other side perched on the icy incline of silvery-black chip and seal road.

Paper delivery in the worst imaginable weather.

I’m not sure how we got home that day; or how we finished the route.  I think we had to walk to a coin-operated phone kiosk at a strip mall nearby, and call for a ride.

When the morning deliveries were done, on the weekdays, I must have gone to school.  But I don’t remember those days.  I only remember the days we headed for the Your House breakfast restaurant, for scrambled eggs, toast, sausage, and grits (or a waffle). Or the days we went back home and I crawled back into the sweet warm covers of my bed.

I remember the morning paper route at night, and I remember my tenth grade high school classes during the day — as if they were two separate worlds.  By day, I was a normal teen, taking classes and going to marching band. By night, I was a newspaper “helper” — an independent contractor.  I was a master of paper folding, banding, and bagging; survivor of back seat confinement and sleep deprivation; an innocent victim of inclement weather, and a learned critic of AM/FM radio content.

Postscript

I only did the morning paper route with my mother for one year, from the fall of 1979 to the summer of 1980.  But it seemed like it was longer.  Much longer.  

After all, I did it every day of the year, seven days a week.  And if the papers were late… or misplaced, there was a vocal group of well informed, news-consuming customers ready to call the N&O to request redelivery.  We had to get it right… on the first run as much as possible.

It was my introduction to work and responsibility. It was my first experience with drudgery and toil.  It was work that left a fine powder of newsprint dust on the car dash and the stain of newspaper ink on my hands and face. 

Perhaps there were perks, in the end.  Seeing the world at night, in a way that few people do. Enjoying the full spectrum of the radio dial. Helping your family in a time of need. Learning to adapt and to persevere.

It produced, in me, a measure of maturity.  And an enduring appreciation for the craft and skill of newspaper men and women.  But it left in me a nascent fear of failure, that still occurs in my dreams.  

I went on to assist other carriers in the future, and I sometimes worked as a substitute carrier when those carriers needed or wanted to take a day off. 

I learned to fold papers, and drive at the same time—driving from one driveway to the next with my knee under the steering wheel.

I got to listen to my own radio station preferences; primarily on the FM radio dial. 

I came to love the Waffle House, which was the usual reward at the end of a completed route. 

I even earned academic scholarships from the News & Observer, paying for a portion of my college expenses — a kind of cosmic retribution. 

If only I could get those pesky dreams to go away.

A Waffle House, like I remember it — early in the morning.

Footnotes:

* Newspaper delivery, baby sitting, acting, and agricultural work are exceptions to the minimum age requirements of the Fair Labor Standards Act in North Carolina.

** The Raleigh Times was a local afternoon newspaper dating back to at least 1901, that published its last edition on November 30, 1989.

*** The Honda Accord, by the way, was among the first cars from Japan to be sold in the US around the time of the nationwide gas shortage.  Better fuel efficiency made them more desirable.

Sacrificial Lamb

{Prompt: Describe a humbling teenage moment}

Sometime in junior high school, back in the 70s, I was enrolled into a summer baseball league in Raleigh.  I’m told by my mother, and also by my brother, that I wanted to play baseball — that it was my idea. 

I don’t remember it that way, but maybe they’re right.  Maybe I thought it would be fun, like the games of roller-bat that we played sometimes at the neighborhood park — trying to roll the ball back, hit the bat, and switch places with the hitter.*

Regardless of who’s idea it was, the decision to play in a baseball league… for me… was a disaster. 

Tryouts

I should have known from the day of the try-out.  I was driven out to a field in a park, just north of downtown Raleigh, where I had never been before.  I was disoriented from the moment I arrived. 

There must have been a hundred kids, about my age, scattered around the field for various baseball drills. I had never tried out before, and I needed directions. I was assigned to a group and kindly advised to stay with my group as we went from station to station.  We were ‘sent forth’ to demonstrate our skills (or lack thereof), while the various team coaches watched from the sidelines. 

There was a drill for stopping an infield grounder. There was a drill for catching a pop up fly. There were throwing drills and hitting drills. Pretty basic stuff. But I was unprepared — an unskilled newcomer. Roller-bat had not been good for my game.

At the end of the day, as the sun was setting on the horizon, the coaches began to select their teams.  I’m pretty sure I was selected in the last round. Even in kickball or dodgeball, I had never been picked last. The coach who picked me had no illusions that I would be great one day. He was simply willing to take pity on a newbie, and add me to the roster. Now I was playing for the Raleigh Exchange Club little league baseball team.

The Raleigh Exchange Club Little League Team

The season was no better.  In reality, I had virtually no baseball experience.  Unlike my teammates, I had never played little league baseball… or any baseball, really… outside of a game of catch.  I barely knew how to swing a bat, so it’s no surprise that I was riding the bench.  Perhaps my proudest moment was when I actually made contact with a pitch, once, in hitting practice, and I knocked it over the fence.  But that was only in practice.  And only once.  

Most of the time I was learning on the fly.  Learning how to wear the uniform.  Learning how to wear the socks.  Learning that baseball socks have “stirrups” and baseball shoes have “cleats”.  

Learning how to catch the ball and throw it.  Learning where to put your fingers inside the baseball glove.  Learning how to field a ground ball.  Learning not to let it go through your legs, if it should take an unexpected hop. 

Learning to hold the bat high before the swing. Learning to hit the ball in the sweet spot.  Learning how to run the bases, if you actually hit the ball.  Learning to watch the first and third base coaches who would tell you whether to tag up or keep on running.  Learning not to go back to tag first base, if you missed it on the way by.

Learning that baseball has signals.  Learning that signals are half the game.  Learning the signal for a bunt.  Learning how to bunt, when you got the signal from the dugout.  

I think that the bunt was my specialty, in fact.  After I learned how to bunt, I made it my goal to became an expert.  I had good prospects of knocking in a run with a sacrifice bunt, or a sacrifice pop fly. Well… not good, really… but possible.  If I could sacrifice myself for an RBI, that was OK. It was better than whiffing three times and striking out.

At the end of the summer, my baseball career came to an end. I never had any love for watching the game of baseball, and I certainly had no love for playing the game after struggling through the season in a proper baseball league. I only felt humbled and humiliated.

I went on to become proficient in many sports: ping pong… basketball… swimming… soccer… volleyball… even cycling. But I never became great (or even good) at baseball. The main thing I learned about baseball was that it wasn’t for me.

Footnotes

*In “roller-bat” one person hits the ball as far as possible, and then lays the bat down on the ground.  The other person tries to stop the ball as quickly as possible and then roll the baseball back so that it hits the bat on the ground.  If successful, then the players switch places.

The Beauty of the Game

{Prompt: What games or toys did you enjoy most when you were young?}

At first, I thought that this writing prompt (What was your favorite thing to do after school?) would be just about impossible to answer.  I thought that my experience was too broad and my interests too varied to possibly choose a “favorite”.

I certainly enjoyed those afternoon TV shows aimed at impressionable viewers. You might call Spock (of Star Trek) and Hawkeye Pierce (of M*A*S*H) role models for me. (I write about this elsewhere.)

I did enjoy reading fantasies, like The Chronicles of Narnia, by C. S. Lewis, The Tales of Magic by Edward Eager, The Martian Chronicles by Edgar Rice Burroughs; and (notably) The Hobbit by J. R. R. Tolkien.

I spent much time with board games like Risk, Scrabble, Clue, and Battleship. I enjoyed toys like Yo-Yos, Frisbees, Hot Wheels, and little green army men.

I dabbled in music, playing “organ” (really an early electronic keyboard), recorder, and flute.  We had a set of bongos (possibly inspired by early ‘70s counterculture) that I enjoyed as a young child, presaging a stint in the percussion section of high school marching band.  (This also led to a photo session with my Mom that I’ve come to regret — a skinny 14-year-old in full marching band costume with cymbals.)

Perhaps I spent the most time in the wild, as a budding naturalist, wandering the extent of the neighborhood creek, from the tunnel that runs under Fairview Street, to the unnaturally, exposed grassy terrain, of the Raleigh Country Club.

Usually we (my brother and I) didn’t go too far — just up a block to the back of Glenwood Shopping Center, and then back home as the sun was setting.  Occasionally, we faced the stern visages of our father if we failed to hear him yelling for us to come in for dinner.  (You can’t expect a 10 year old to worry about civilized matters like dinner, can you?)

But are any of these things my “Favorite Thing”? I realize now that, indeed, no toy, no game, and no musical instrument was my favorite. Nor were the pleasures of exploring the vast outdoors. Not even the mesmerizing tales of a good book, or the intriguing plot of a good TV show. None of these was nearly as fun as the time I spent after school with a basketball.

A basketball?

Really?

Yes, really!  Perhaps you thought, given my current obsession with cycling, that my bicycle was my favorite. You wouldn’t be far off. My bicycle, and later my moped, allowed me to take my adventures much further than the creek and the bounds of my small neighborhood.

But for pure unadulterated joy (and sometimes despair), the basketball was the greatest.

It took practice to become a “player”, but that investment in dribbling, shooting, guarding — that investment in time and effort made the payoff so much the greater.  I hardly remember the difficulties that I must have had dribbling a big ol’ basketball properly — not traveling, not double dribbling, not getting the ball stolen.  

There were so many games within the game — rules to be learned and obeyed, before you even got to shooting and (hopefully) scoring.

I remember such great satisfaction in a behind-the-back dribble, and a through-the-legs dribble.  

I learned to shoot a lay-up, a free throw, a bank shot, a swish! Later I learned to do a finger-roll, a reverse (lay-up), a jump shot, a three-pointer.

Still later I learned to set a screen, to run a pick-and-roll.  In a way, playing basketball was like playing jazz — so much improvisation.  And with practice and fitness, it looked like a thing of beauty.  It was a thing of beauty. It still is a thing of beauty. Something to watch and to emulate.

And then, there were the mind games.  Get this!  I didn’t know this, but in some games — some pick-up games — you can get in the head of your opponent. (Or they can get into your head.)

With a little “smack” talk you can actually change the chances of scoring a point — of winning a game.  And when you get used to playing with some smack talk, you become impervious to the mind games. You can play with the big boys.

Okay. I was never a great player. I was never a star. I never played on a real team. But then, that might have taken the joy out of it.

Most of the time, I was focused on playing defense and on not screwing up. I was focused on not falling on my face, not throwing the ball out of bounds, not throwing up a brick, or worse, an airball.

But sometimes, miraculously, I made a move I could only dream of.  Sometimes, I hit that three-pointer on a full-court transition shot. Sometimes I threw a bounce pass through traffic, for an easy score.

Playing basketball allowed me to connect, just a little, with my brother. It let him and me join in a game with the Vietnamese kids (immigrant refugees), and the other kids that played at our neighborhood court.  

It was a gateway to the college rivalries that were so much a part of life in North Carolina.  It even led to a brief extracurricular season on the “varsity” basketball team at Flinders University of South Australia.

I love soccer, which I played in high school, and learned to play even better after high school. And I love volleyball, which I learned to play in college, for intramurals, and led to a fateful encounter with my volleyball-loving wife.  But my favorite sport — the one that takes me back to my childhood — has got to be basketball.

Practicing my shot, from a wicker chair - circa 1979.

Losing Sleep

{Prompt: What was your hardest test or paper? Did you ever pull an all-nighter?}

Pulling an all-nighter may be the quintessential American experience. We fail to keep up with the homework or the assigned reading, and we try to make up for it with a last-minute all-nighter. We cram as much knowledge into our brains as possible, hoping to regurgitate the facts on a test in the morning.

It’s a terrible plan.

By one or two in the morning, learning and memorization are hard to achieve, and motivation is hard to maintain. By dawn, taking a test of any kind, after little or no sleep, is an exercise in futility. You really will not perform at your best.

I learned that in high school, after two or three attempts, and by the time I got to college, I rarely tried to take exams after pulling an all-nighter.

That’s not to say that I didn’t stay up late. I often felt it best to review the information from the course before a big test, and for some difficult courses one could scarcely review the information without studying the material until well after midnight. But learning from experience, I found that I was much better off if I reviewed the material every few weeks, and polished it off with some last-minute memorization and review the night before.

Nevertheless, this is the story of the first (and the worst) all-nighter that I ever undertook. It’s also the reason I probably scratched the liberal arts off my list of potential college majors.

Daniels Junior High

I’m not sure of the exact month, but I think my first all-nighter was in the ‘78-’79 school year — my 9th grade, back in those formative years, when I was at Josephus Daniels Junior High.

For those of you who don’t know this, Josephus Daniels was the editor for the News & Observer newspaper, from just before the turn of the 20th century, until his death in 1948.

I thought that was pretty cool.

What I didn’t know then, is that Josephus Daniels was an openly active white segregationist. And he used The News & Observer to champion the cause of white supremacy. He helped facilitate “the Wilmington insurrection of 1898, in which white mobs overthrew the legitimately elected biracial government in Wilmington”. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josephus_Daniels]

Look it up. This guy was totally racist.

Josephus Daniels

Today, Daniels Junior High is called Oberlin Magnet Middle School. Now it is named for the historically black community — Oberlin Village — that existed nearby, in the city of Raleigh.

Oberlin Village, by the way, was named for Oberlin College in Ohio, where James H. Harris, one of the prominent black community members in Raleigh, had gone to school. He helped establish the Oberlin Village community in 1866.

James H Harris

I didn’t know any of this when I went to Daniels, way back in the ‘70s.

Shakespeare’s Contemporaries

Among my 9th grade classes, I was taking a Social Studies class, taught by Mrs. Barbara Broadwell. Early in the year, she had us set up our chairs in one big circle as a way to encourage participation and discussion… I think.

We discussed books that we liked to read, and then we discussed books we were assigned to read. Back then, we were reading things like Future Shock, by Alvin Toffler; Animal Farm, by George Orwell; Lord of the Flies, by William Golding; A Wrinkle in Time, by Madeleine L’Engle; and Watership Down, by Richard Adams. You know… basically, all of the dystopian classics.

As another part of this class, we were expected to complete an independent project by the end of the semester. It was either a project focused on history or literature. I can’t remember which.

There were checkpoints along the way. We were supposed to self-report the progress we were making on our project, to keep us on a realistic pathway towards completion.

I must have decided on the topic of my project, but any other progress reported was purely fictional. The topic was “Shakespeare’s Contemporaries”, and essentially no progress at all was made on the project during the semester.

Well… maybe there was some “conceptual” progress. My project was about the notable people that lived in the Elizabethan Era. That was a start.

My Title Page.

And I had a couple of lovely quotes related to the role of individuals within society. I was going to bookend my report with quotations by Shakespeare at the beginning, and by John Donne at the end.

The first was from Shakespeare’s “As You Like It” (Act II, Scene 7):

All the world’s a stage,

And all the men and women merely players,

They have their exits and their entrances;

And one man in his time plays many parts.

The second was from John Donne’s “Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions”:

No man is an Iland, intire of it selfe…

every man is a peece of the Continent, a part of the maine;

if a Clod bee washed away by the Sea, Europe is the lesse,

as well as if a Mannor of thy friends or of thine own were;

any man’s death deminishes me, because I am involved in Mankinde;

And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls;

It tolls for thee.

Good stuff, right?

Well, somehow I managed to go the entire second semester of Mrs. Broadwell’s social studies class, not doing a lick of additional work on the topic until the night before the assignment was due.

I was up all night.

Not, just past midnight.

Not, ‘til two or three in the morning.

All. Night.

I was compiling a list of notable achievements by “Rulers, Statesmen, Writers, Playwrights, Poets, Explorers, Navigators, Popes, Painters, Sculptors, Composers, Scientists, Astronomers, and Mathematicians,” as I described them in my subtitle. Even the list of notable figures is exhausting.

Subtitle of my project, in my cursive handwriting.

In reality, I was paraphrasing and flourishing the language of the World Book Encyclopedia, in one long summary of “Shakespeare’s Contemporaries”, broken down by occupation. I was pretty much writing—paraphrasing— from start to finish, with no revision or editing of my stream of consciousness.

The entire report came to a plump 39 pages. Five pages were necessary to create an “Appendix” — an index of every person included in the report — in alphabetical order. Pretty much anyone who lived between 1533 and 1603 — the lifetime of Queen Elizabeth I — was included.

A very early Appendix.

It’s actually pretty good for a twelve hour, uninterrupted, first draft. It’s also a fine example of my single-spaced, cursive, ink penmanship.

But as an academic report, it is sorely lacking.

I was not very happy with the result. As other students were showing off real projects on poster board or in finely bound presentation folders, I was trying to act as if I hadn’t just stayed up the entire night, hastily stapling together my handwritten manuscript, and passing it off as a worthwhile piece of research. I don’t think there was a shred of analytical or critical thought in the whole thing.

Possibly the only original thought in the whole project.

I thought for many years afterwards, that I had gotten a C or a D on the project, but I pulled it out of a box of old papers not long ago, and discovered my grade was a B minus. Not a good result by my standards (but not as awful either, as I imagined). The “minus”, in particular, was a gut punch.

And Mrs. Broadwell even wrote a note — rarely a good sign. She said, “Steve, you have undertaken far too much for one paper. Your topic is too broad.” She underlined “too” four times.

A humbling teacher comment.

Other Notable Papers

I tried to stay away from literary papers and projects, after that day. I’m never happy if the assignment includes a bibliography.

But it was hard to avoid writing papers in college, particularly when I went on a nine-month student exchange and took electives like “Multiculturalism in Australian History.”

And it was hard to avoid writing papers when I went to UNC School of Public Health and studied Maternal and Child Health (instead of Epidemiology). People in Public Health just love to write papers, and they love to work in groups. I think it has something to do with grant applications and making programs operational. Just kidding.

Worst of all, I had to write a master’s thesis to complete my master’s program. Originally, my thesis was a summary of the research that had been, so far, conducted on the vulnerability of children suffering the loss or death of a parent. I went to Tempe, Arizona, to study this topic with an expert in the subject. But, I found myself so at sea in the world of cognitive psychology, that I ended up with another rendition of Shakespeare’s Contemporaries — a compiled summary of the entire ocean of research on the subject. It was unsatisfactory. Definitely not “A” level material.

So I went to my UNC School of Public Health adviser. He suggested that I give it another try, starting from scratch. So I agreed to start over, but first I had to complete my medical school degree. I finished my MD in December 1991, and then I had 6 whole months to finish my MPH master’s paper before residency began. With nothing else to work on, I managed to put together a respectable paper on “The Role of Biometric Data in the Emergency Room,” or some such nonsense.

Standardized Testing - The alternative to a well-constructed thesis.

I was always much better at doing math, and memorizing things.

I excelled at the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT). I got 1260 on my first attempt.

I had no trouble in the chemistry, zoology, genetics, and ecology courses at NC State.

I scored double digits in all six portions of the Medical College Aptitude Test (MCAT), — better than even I expected.

It got harder in medical school, but I could still learn pathology, physiology, anatomy, and microbiology with relative ease.

The hardest tests I ever took were the Medical Boards, required after completion of my medical degree at Duke University, and the Family Medicine Boards required by the American Board of Family Practice at the end of residency. (The former are required to practice as a general practitioner (GP) after 4 years of medical school. The latter are required to practice as a “Family Physician” after an additional 3 years of residency.)

Both of those tests were multiple choice, but their multiple choice questions were far from ordinary. They were “complex multiple choice”, and they were sadistic.

Often, there was a paragraph describing the clinical scenario. Then there were four statements, labeled “A”, “B”, “C”, and “D”. Now for the twist. To select the correct answer, you must choose which of the statements are true:

A and C,

B and D,

A, B, and C,

Only D,

or All of the Above

It’s practically impossible to get the answer unless you really know the answer.

And it covered just about all of the material that I had learned from clinical rotations — 12 rotations in medical school, and 18 rotations in residency — five years of accumulated knowledge.

The AAFP medical boards took all day: three and a half hours in the morning, and three and a half hours in the afternoon, broken down into testing sections, each lasting for 40 or 50 minutes at a time.

I didn’t pull an all-nighter trying to prepare. I had set aside a week before the test to review. But the test itself was almost as exhausting as an all-nighter. Thankfully, it was the last one.

Vehicular Misadventures

 {Prompt: Who taught you how to drive? How did it go?}

Who taught me how to drive?  I know how I should answer this question. I think I know the answer.  Obviously, it had to be my mom.  Right?  I mean, my father died when I was 12.  My Mom was the only parent.  It must have been her.

But I’m not so sure.  I have a strong memory of my mom buying a Honda Accord, some time after my father died in ‘77. She must have bought the car with the manual transmission to save on money, which must have been tight.  Only problem… It didn’t seem like she had ever driven a car with a manual transmission before. (Although she claims that she had.)  

Somehow, she drove it off the lot.  Or rather, I would say, she got it off the lot, and back to our home. But it wasn’t pretty.  

I was somewhere in that car, securely buckled, and good thing too, because there was a very unpredictable contest between forward momentum, and sudden deceleration, rivaling any herky-jerky experience I’ve ever had.

And this was not the kind of gravitational swing that you sign up for at a roller coaster ride or a midway ride at the State Fair. This was a bucking bronco of a ride, accompanied by the sound of grinding gears. And the distress you can only imagine — a single mother being forced to learn on the fly, way outside of her comfort zone.  

But, to her credit, she got us home the same day. She learned to drive the manual shift of a new car. And I guess I learned by proxy how to drive a manual shift, as I watched (and probably mocked) her efforts.

Mike, me, and Mom - circa 1979.

In reality, I think I learned mostly how to drive a car — the important skills — in an after school course provided with a certified instructor.   Me and two other teens got into a car with dual sets of controls — one set that we controlled and one set for the instructor. We learned to keep our eyes up the road, following the turn of the road 50 yards ahead (instead of 10 yards ahead, as a bike rider would), keeping a hypervigilant eye out for potential hazards (pedestrians, animals, road workers, suicidal possums, etc.), and learning to switch lanes on the Beltline, while driving below the speed limit (unlike the rest of the speeding traffic). That instructor deserves kudos for his calm demeanor and his patience and advice.

Any additional learning was either done on the fly or from observation of my brother.  Somehow I was allowed to join him in his MG Midget between 1978 and 1980 (before he left for Louisburg College, and I left for the School of Science and Math).

Honda Accord & Plymouth Barracuda, top of the drive ~ 1979.

It must have been a great convenience (for my mother) to have us out of the house; or why else would we have been let go and left to our own devices?  But to be fair, my brother had a much better feel for the clutch than my mother ever did.  He also loved to downshift and rev up the engine coming out of corners. He probably had a dream of being a race car driver.

Still… I don’t recall any tragic or near-death experience while riding shotgun with my brother — nothing worse than running out of gas, once or twice.  (But keep in mind, we only had a gasoline gauge with a dial between E and F, with no red warning zone.)  

He preached, with great conviction, the value of the tachometer, and the sublime nature of finding the right RPMs.  He tried to teach me about torque and horsepower, too but that was a bridge too far.

Best of all, he taught me the indisputable importance of the parking brake.  One day — a really nice early summer or late spring day, when it’s a pleasure to be outside, even in North Carolina — I think we pulled his car to the top of the drive to do a little work, or maybe to wash and clean it.

Mike got out to go to the back of the car, but he must have forgotten to set the parking brake (maybe he was distracted by his pest of a little brother), and it wasn’t but a few seconds before the car started rolling, sort of a slow motion roll at first — the kind of roll that makes you wonder, “Is my car rolling, or is the ground moving?”

But, yes, the car was rolling; and its speed was in direct proportion to the level of concern (dare I say, panic) in my brother’s eyes.  

Well he tried valiantly to slow it’s retreat down our gravel drive.  He planted himself behind the left rear tire, and pushed with all his might, the way you push when you’re trying to get your car out of a rut.  

But even that itty bitty car was too heavy, and I don’t think I had the same life-or-death mentality — the commitment to put myself at the rear of the car.  Maybe I did help in the end, but I think it was too late.  

Well, the car ended up coasting right back into a cable that was attached to a telephone pole, anchoring it in the ground.  I think the bumper was crinkled, and maybe there was some body damage, but no one was hurt.

If I seem obsessed with the parking brake today, it’s because of that experience - learning by mistake.

A 1970 MG Midget, in a much nicer driveway than ours.

I had some accidents of my own.  Don’t think that I was immune.  

At about 6 in the morning, at the end of a morning newspaper route, in the early ’80s, I backed Mr. Pate’s Buick Skylark straight across two lanes of Whitaker Mill and into the side of a morning commuter’s BMW, without so much as a second glance into the rearview mirror.

During medical residency, as I was backing up, I turned straight into a parking garage column, only about 3 inches away from my fender.  Ironically, that time, I was probably turned and looking through the rear window, to back up safely.

There was a bad stretch of time, about 10 years ago, when I had two or three accidents in succession, one when the car ahead of me in the left turn lane slowed unexpectedly to make a U-turn. As I tried to slow down, my bumper dipped below theirs and it crumpled the hood.  

Since then — since the marital rebuff I suffered from the receipt of an escalating car insurance bill, my driving record has been somewhat improved. I’ve been the victim of vehicular misadventure more often than I’ve been the cause.

Perhaps, I’ve finally been adequately taught.

Maybe I know what I’m doing.

Or maybe I’m just lucky.  (fingers crossed)

My brother Mike and I, posing in front of a family car. Mike looks like he would be perfectly comfortable behind the wheel.