Ross Stories

Most people can look back on their school years and remember a best friend. They were your pal, your buddy, the one person with whom you could just hang out. Our best friends made us laugh and emboldened us to do things that our “little voices” told us might not be such a smart thing to do...but you did it anyway.

In high school, Ross was one of my best friends. “Ross” was actually his last name because we all went by our last name in those days. Ross intrigued me with his Texan twang and way of talking. He was so different from my other friends with our Midwestern speech. He stood out as much as he fit in. I gave up trying to correct the way he would pronounce certain words and phrases like... I (pronounced “eye”). Ross would pronounce it as a short “a” like the “a” in bat. Instead of saying, “smell this,” Ross would say, “smell of this.” His Texan twang only enhanced his “gift of gab” for lack of a better term. Ross was a talker. He could give you the most detailed, drawn-out explanation about anything, leaving you shaking your head and wondering what the hell he just said. Ross’s parents were the main recipients of his “explanations” when they would ask him where he was going as we headed out the door of his house.

One day Ross and I were sitting in the school library. We were supposed to be doing research for a term paper, but we became distracted by the new copy machine outside the librarian’s office. Today, copy machines are commonplace, but when I was in high school, they were a marvel of technology. You could make instant copies (photographs) of anything you could put on the scanner. Back then, copiers used special light sensitive paper that felt chalky, but still it was amazing. We decided to photocopy the front and back of a dollar bill. After cutting out the images of the bill, we glued them together.

Ross was in the process of coloring our “counterfeit” bill with a green marker when the little, blue-haired librarian came upon our enterprise. I watched as she took my friend by his ear into her office. I thought we were done for. I pictured us on the 10:00 news: Teen Counterfeit Ring Busted by School Librarian! A few minutes later, Ross came and sat back down at our table. “What happened?” I said.

“Well, aah don’t know what happened. She asked me what aah was doin’ and so aah was tryin’ to explain it to her. You know aah was just sittin’ there talkin’ to her when she starts cryin’ and telling me to get out of her office, just to leave. Aah don’t know what aah said to get her so upset. Aah was just talkin’ to her and now she’s cryin’,” said Ross, looking rather shaken.

On another occasion, Ross and I were sitting in the school lunchroom. It was crowded and noisy as kids were coming in for their short lunch period. Ross wanted to get the attention of someone at the next table over. He took a pat of butter from his tray and poised it on his plastic knife. Calculating its trajectory, he let it fly. Unfortunately, the school’s most unassuming “nerd” was sitting directly across the table from Ross. Splat! It struck the poor kid right between the eyes or rather his black horn-rimmed glasses, right where the white tape joined the two lenses. Some of the butter spattered his plastic pocket protector with its array of four pens.

Ross was hauled off to the assistant principal’s office. At our school, you went to the assistant principal’s office for serious matters of discipline. His nickname was “Tonto” (like the Lone Ranger’s Indian sidekick) and he was a buzz-cut, no nonsense ex-Marine. There were “rumors of torture and death” associated with a visit to Tonto’s office. I thought Ross was a “goner.” Later, I learned that Ross’s “sentence” was to take his lunch in Tonto’s office for a whole week. I tried to imagine what it might be like to try to eat my lunch with Tonto scowling over my every bite, beating me with a rubber hose as I choked down my green Jell-O. It sent chills down my spine. You can imagine my amazement when Ross joined me for lunch the next day. Again, I asked, “What happened?”

“Well, aah don’t know. Aah was just sittin’ there talkin’ to him and eatin’ ma lunch when he starts yellin’ at me and tellin’ me to get out of his office and not to come back. He just kept yellin’ to get out,” said Ross. “Aah was just sittin’ there talkin’ to him. I don’t know what aah said.”

One winter night, Ross and I were driving down some snow packed residential streets in his father’s old Nash Rambler station wagon. He came up with an idea. Let’s see how far we can skid the car sideways down the street. We got a few good slides, but eventually decided that we should not push our luck and looked for a quick exit from the neighborhood. We spotted a set of tracks leading across a wooded vacant lot to the next street over. We almost made it to the other street when we got stuck in the snow and mud. We sat in the car contemplating our predicament when we realized we had a six-pack of beer in the back seat. Since it did not look like we were going anywhere soon, we chose to drown our sorrows.

Eventually, we climbed out of the car and made our way to the house across the street. We rang the doorbell and an off-duty police officer with his gun still in his shoulder holster answered the door. We stepped back and tried not to breathe on him as we asked to use his phone to call a tow truck. I pictured him pulling his gun and arresting us right then and there...if for no other reason than stupidity. Ross “explained” what happened, but rather than yelling and telling us to leave, get out...the police officer said cars were always getting stuck there and he would call the tow truck for us. We marveled at our good fortune. We had just enough cash to pay the tow truck driver when he came. The old Nash was covered with mud by the time we were headed home. I knew Ross’s dad would want to know where all the mud had come from, but somehow I felt my friend would be able to “explain” it in true Ross fashion.

I have a treasury of Ross stories. He was one of a kind. Unfortunately, we lost touch over the years, but I remember those times, those small adventures we shared before I went off to college. We did a lot of stupid, dangerous things that young men do when they feel those first pangs of independence and think they will live forever. We were pals. Ross loved nothing better than to go fishing and I suppose I will always have that picture of him in my mind as he explains how to bait my hook.

FOOD for THOUGHT...