Unlike a GOOD writer, I do my research after the story is written! And so, yesterday I checked with Don to see if he knew whether Mr. Beher was the druggist or the barber. Don believes that he was the barber. This is strange, because for years now, I have thought that Nancy Bartle grew up and married a pharmacist because she admired her pharmacist grandpa. Nancy married Gene Maddy who has the pharmacies located at the Pay Less Super Markets. Oh well, I have lived my life under many false impressions! To understand this paragraph, you need to read the blog immediately preceding this one.
Well, our conversation about Mr. Beher led into our remembering all the thousands of times we rode the city buses when we were children. I was almost always accompanied by some family member. Don, on the other hand, went all around Anderson, mostly by himself. That's what happens when you are an only child whose parents are working.
Let me explain what is happening in the picture above. The year is 1949. Don is an eigthth grader at Washington Junior High School. There were four Junior High Schools in Anderson at that time: Washington, Central, North Anderson, and Central Avenue. This picture was taken at the city-wide junior high school basketball tournament. No, Washington did not win the tourney, but Don did win the Sportsmanship award. He says that means he was a good loser. I say it was because he has always had a good attitude, win or lose. He is receiving the award from Carl Bonge who was the athletic director and track coach at Anderson High School. He was an excellent and much admired coach, and a very short man. Behind Don and Mr. Bonge are four boys from Central Avenue Junior High School. If you look carefully at the one on the far right, you will see that it is my brother, David. He had no idea that he was looking at his future brother-in-law.
Don went on to high school the next fall as a freshman. Naturally, he went out for the freshman basketball team. About 48 boys from all over the city went out for the team, and he was one of the 12 chosen. The freshman team had no place to practice. So their practices were held at Hazelwood Elementary School at six o'clock at night all winter. Don had to get a city bus downtown, then transfer to the Hazelwood bus and go way out west of town for practice. Then he reversed that trip and didn't get home until 8 o'clock or later. During his sophomore year he played on the reserve team.
t Then, during his junior year he went out for the team, and practiced right up until the Christmas break. At their last practice before going home for Christmas, the coach treated the whole team to Bert T. Owens ice cream, and then cut three players from the team. Don was one of the three. He didn't have a really good Christmas that year.
The other two players who were cut never played team basketball again. One of them did become a team manager. However, Don went immediately to the YMCA and joined a team that played league ball there. He also joined a church league team. He says that he probably played in a hundred very rough basketball games that winner. He was the leading scorer that year in the YMCA league.
The next year was his Senior year in high school. Again, Don went out for the team with the same coach who had cut him the year before. He made the team his senior year, and played in every game. We don't know of any other player who was cut his junior year and then went back the next year and made the team. But, because he did, Don earned a basketball scholarship to Anderson College and it payed for his four years there.
It just shows what determination and hard work can accomplish.
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