Passages

Last night I had a dream about playing football. I never did it that well. Thinking about it, though, led me back through many years to my freshman year at Moorestown High School. I was the right end, and on offense I had either to block, or (only very seldom) to go out to receive a jump pass from Billy Laubenstein, our quarterback. The right tackle was Ricardo Sharpe, known as Tickle, and I had known him since fifth grade. In fifth grade, Tickle and I were the big fat boys, called upon by Grover Wearshing, lengendary Moorestown baseball coach and in his declining years our PE person, as captains of gym teams during the gym period. Only later did I come to believe that Mr. Wearshing was hoping for our improvement, and perhaps even respecting our prowess, rather than making fun of us. I'm not sure, still, and I'll not find out from Tickle. When I Googled him tonight, I found he had died in 2009, leaving a wife, three children, five grandchildren, six sisters, and more He spent his life in Moorestown, retiring several years ago from the Department of Public Works.
When we played together, as freshmen, on the right side of the offensive line, we would often be called upon to cross-block, when that call happened, Tickle would grin, because he loved to ambush the other team's defensive end. Tickle was bigger than I was, especially around the middle, but he had tiny ankles. When he got down in a lineman's stance, he was unique and uncoached. "You look like you're taking a craaap," said the assistant coach one day to him. But he made the block, always.
I grew up in a town that was integrated. Its history was Quaker, and I went to First Day School each Sunday for years. Tickle was black, as were others on our team, and that certainly did not matter at school, or when we were playing sports. But we lived in different parts of town. In fifth grade I did not understand what that meant, although by ninth grade I had an intimation. Things have changed, but not enough.