Maria Ballantyne Written by Rick Archer First Published May 2005 Updated March 2009 Forward This story is not just about Maria Ballantyne.  It is about Rick Archer, Maria Ballantyne, and Saint John's School.  The purpose of this story is to illustrate how the individuals responsible for running Saint John's helped a deeply troubled, anti-social kid grow up to become a decent human being. It is also a story about a simple act of kindness. This is the story of my Senior year in high school, a time when I came ridiculously close to sabotaging nine years of hard work trying to get into college.  I was on the edge of self-destruction when a chance encounter with a remarkable woman became a turning point in my life.  Although Mrs. Ballantyne was not an administrator, as you will see, she played a huge role in the school's success. Sometimes a very small act of kindness can have a very large and powerful effect.  My unexpected 20 minute talk with Maria Ballantyne, the Matriarch of the illustrious Ballantyne clan at my high school, completely changed my attitude about a lot of things that had tormented me for a long time. I was the token poor kid at Saint John's, an exclusive private school attended by the children of the most affluent families in Houston.  It was 1968.  Nine years of comparing my own rough childhood to the privileged lives of my classmates had turned me into a deeply bitter person.  I was sullen and dangerously out of control. As you will read, this accidental talk with Mrs. Ballantyne meant a lot to me.  It helped me escape from a very serious depression.  The talk removed a huge grudge I had carried towards the Ballantyne family for some time.  In addition, our conversation helped to greatly soften my harsh attitude towards my more privileged classmates.

Background About Saint Johns Saint John's School is a college preparatory school located in the wealthy River Oaks area of Houston.  St. John's is known as the strongest academic school in the city.  My nine years of experience at the school convinced me that SJS definitely deserves its lofty reputation.  This school turns out a series of National Merit Scholars the same way an assembly line turns out cars.  If you are a parent with a very smart kid on your hands, St. John's is definitely the place to send your child.  People compliment me all the time on my writing ability. If you think I write well, thank you, but let me add I owe a great deal of credit to my English teachers at Saint John's for shaping my talent. They not only gave me a lot of encouragement to write, but they also trained me in all the do's and don'ts that make the difference between sloppy writing and polished writing.  And let me add they made me write all the time.  Paper after paper after paper.  Since I couldn't type, I wrote everything longhand. I remember my twenty page Senior Thesis on "The Graduate" for English.  I honestly thought my hand would fall off!  Little did I realize that door swung both ways.  Not only did my instructors take the time to read each paper - their scathing comments on the side proved they were definitely watching the ball - they also had to decipher my chicken scratch writing style.  I don't think I ever gave my teachers enough credit.  They were a dedicated bunch, I promise. Yes, my teachers did give me an education to be proud of.  Today, every time I write a story, I always remember in particular my English teacher Mr. Richardson yelling at me in mock anger, "Archer, you ignorant fool, you can't start a sentence with the word 'but'!"   And I would laugh at his insult and reply back, "But why not, Mr. Richardson?"  If you are a parent interested in sending your gifted child to this school, I would highly recommend reading my story that explains the reasons behind the remarkable Saint John's Pride, a reverence for achievement that permeates the hallowed halls of my school.

The People who Helped make Saint John's a Great School One of the misconceptions I grew up with is that rich people were a bunch of snobs with complete disdain for poor kids like me.  While that may be true for some rich people, the vast majority of the people at Saint John's treated me with a great deal of concern.  I just didn't always realize it at the time.  Quite a few of the SJs faculty and administration lived in River Oaks or nearby.  By and large, they lived privileged lives just like the students they taught.  Now that I look back with forty years of hindsight, I now see their wealth didn't stop them from having a big heart as well. Saint John's School is the major reason I turned out to be a credit to society.  As you will read, there were many places along the way where I stumbled badly.  Each time I fell, there was someone with kindness and decency to catch me and guide me back onto the right path. Throughout this story, I continually will say that "Saint John's" is the reason I turned out okay.  In truth, I use "Saint John's" as a term to refer to the collection of fine individuals who mentored me throughout my troubled childhood.  Keeping me in line was definitely a "team effort".  Many people stepped up along the way to keep me headed in the right direction.  Let me make this point twice.  While my home disintegrated around me, amazingly some of my teachers quietly stepped up to take on nurturing roles that far transcended their educational roles.  They weren't expected to do these things.  They did it because they cared.  I don't think they expected any credit for the roles they played, but I intend to point out their contributions whether they like it or not. Saint John's served as the center of my life for nine years.  During this time, I had almost no parental guidance to speak of.  There were no nearby relatives to help, no neighbors and no siblings.  I was literally raised as much by the people at Saint John's as I was by my own parents.  This is not embellishment; this is the absolute truth. There is no possible way for a reader to understand the magnitude of the role Saint John's served in my life except to trot out all the gory details of my childhood as well as the efforts made by the Saint John's staff to help me deal with my problems.  Okay, enough with the Introduction.  Put on your seat belts.  Here we go.   My Broken Home I grew up as an only child.  By the time I was eight (1958), my parents were fighting constantly.  Their raised voices during their nightly arguments could be heard throughout the house.  I spent many a night crying myself to sleep.  Trying to save their marriage, they consulted Dr. Mendel, a noted psychiatrist here in Houston.  One day Dr. Mendel took a look at me too. I was having trouble in public school.  I was bored out of my mind.  My school grades were average at best.  My parents had always thought I was smart, but after seeing my most recent report cards they were beginning to have their doubts.  Besides my lackluster grades, I was also a constant disruption.  To deal with my boredom, each morning I would take a seat in the back of the room.  I would begin to draw extensive tableaus of two armies complete with tanks and bazookas.  I would then spend the rest of the morning blowing up every man standing complete with sound effects.  For variety, I would draw spaceships and destroy them too... yes, complete with sound effects.  I thought I kept my noises muffled, but apparently not.   Not surprisingly, I received the lowest marks possible for discipline. I was a handful. After some testing to confirm his hunch, Dr. Mendel told my parents they didn't need to worry any more about whether I was smart or not.  In his opinion, I was a gifted child who was simply acting out.  I desperately needed a challenge, something to focus my unharnessed energy on. Dr. Mendel knew exactly where I would find that challenge.  He suggested they put me into St. John's, a private school where his own two boys were students.  He had been very pleased with their progress. Thank goodness my parents took his advice.  Throughout my life I have received several wonderful lucky breaks, but I still say my time spent at St. John's was the biggest break of all.  It is a good thing I had St. John's because it turned out to be the only break I got as a kid.  I credit Saint John's for keeping me glued together. My parents decided to divorce.  Part of the divorce settlement included my father's agreement to send me to Saint John's for three years.  So I gained a school and lost a father.  I barely saw him again for the rest of my life. My mother was ill-prepared to take care of herself, much less me.  Although she possessed some serious smarts of her own, she had no college degree.  Like many wives of that generation, she had dropped out of college to support my father while he got his degree in electrical engineering.  Mom was forced to accept secretarial jobs for which she was intellectually overqualified.  My mother was rather headstrong, especially for that era.  Furthermore, Mom didn't play politics very well.  She insisted on doing things her way, an attitude that rubbed some of her less-talented bosses the wrong way.  When the friction mounted, Mom would be shown the door. For the next nine years of my life till I left for college, my mother drifted from job to job, home to home, man to man.  I called it the Nine by Four Era - nine years, nine jobs, nine homes, nine live-in boyfriends.  Fortunately most of the boyfriends didn't last very long.  A couple months of sheer misery and then they were gone. We were constantly in debt.  I would come home at least a couple times a year to discover the electricity had been turned off.  Sometimes the water too.  Or the gas. Let me say that my mother was never mean to me.  Not at all.  She had a kind spirit.  Mom simply wasn't cut out to be a nurturer.  Her major fault was that she tended to worry about her own needs first.  So I learned at an early age to fend for myself. After the divorce in 1959, I pretty much began to raise myself.  I got myself to and from school on bike or bus.  I often fed myself.  I became the master of the peanut butter sandwich and the heated hot dog.  My mother would be home in the evening, but frequently left the house later at night to pursue new boyfriends.  No matter.  I would play with my dog Terry, do my homework, then watch TV or read a book.  I learned to get my studies done without ever being told.  I remember how lonely Mom was after the divorce. Mom immediately married some bum who ended up stealing my beloved silver dollar collection to buy booze.  He lasted six months.  This guy was simply the first in an endless procession of losers my mother brought home.  After he left, Mom got involved in the theater as a stage hand.  She volunteered to help with the Alley Theater production of Guys and Dolls.  I was 10.  Mom didn't want to leave me at home alone.  So I would do my homework backstage, watch the rehearsals for a while, and go to sleep in the car every night.  To this day, I still hate this play with a purple passion.  When Mom decided to volunteer for the next play, I put my foot down and told her to leave me at home.  I would rather spend my evenings home alone with my beloved border collie Terry and my books than watch Mom spend the night shuffling props around.  At least I could go to sleep in my own bed.  What I objected to most were the men in Mom's life.  What a collection of losers.  If she had just kept her romantic forays out of sight, I think my childhood would have been a lot easier to cope with.  After all, when it just Mom and me and the dog, life was fairly peaceful.  But Mom was lonely.   She spent all her spare time looking for love in all the wrong places.  Like stray dogs, Mom would find one and take him in.  Where did she find these guys?  Most of these men came and went within a month, but some of them needed a home so they stuck around a while.  One of them was Murray the dentist.  He was recovering from electroshock therapy in the mental hospital.  Another was Pasqual, the alcoholic who beat her and squandered away the $30,000 Mom had inherited from her father's estate.  Then there was Neal.  I shudder just typing the name.  When I was 13, my mother invited Neal home to live with us.  He was a taxi cab driver.  He smoked.  He drank.  He considered himself an intellectual.  He bragged about what a great chess player he was.  Of all the men... and there was a long list... Neal was the one I detested the most. Did you know I was the unofficial chess champion of Saint John's?  We had long lunch hours at SJS, so my friends and I used to play chess for fun during lunch.  I doubt that I ever lost a game in high school. I do not tell this to boast, but rather to share the very odd story that accounts for my skill.   I owe all my success in the realm of chess to Neal. That which doesn't kill you makes you stronger.  Our friend Nietzsche knew something about the origins of motivation. I don't know how I learned to play chess.  I have no memory.  What I do remember is that when I was 11, Mom met some sailor at the Athens Bar and Grill out in the ship channel and brought him home to spend the night.  The next morning she introduced him to me.  He spoke no English.  But he did notice I had my chess board out so he beckoned to it.  While my mother cooked breakfast, he proceeded to advance his pawns one space at a time until I was completely pinned back.  He didn't even bother taking my pieces.  His moves simply smothered me to death like an anaconda.  I have never in my life before or since been so thoroughly beaten.  I wasn't very happy about this particular experience. The sting of the defeat lingered for a long time.  One day I noticed a book on chess at my school book fair.  It was written for kids my age.  I asked Mom to buy it for my birthday.  I began to teach myself the finer points of the game.  And yes, I improved.  Soon I was able to beat the kids at school on a regular basis.  But apparently I did not improve enough. Neal came along about two years later.  He liked to play chess.  After he moved in, he beat me several times.  He would laugh derisively after each victory.  Neal told me not to take it so hard; after all, he was a great player.  He said he beat everyone.  I couldn't stand losing to him.  Finally I stopped playing him.  Gosh, I hated this guy!  But I didn't let on how angry I was.  After all, I had to live with him.  Privately, however, I fumed over my defeats.  I noticed that even though I lost, each game was pretty close.  I believed he wasn't really that much better me.  I knew that I had some natural ability.  I just lacked polish. My problem was that I couldn't figure out how to win the endgame.  If I could just figure out a way to study!  By chance, I discovered Neal owned a beat up copy of the 1960 World Chess Championship won by Russia's Mikhail Tal in an upset victory over Mikhail Botvinnik.  I found it deep in a box with some other used books.   I secretly snuck the book away from him.  I doubt it was important to him because he never missed it. To keep from going mad, that summer I decided to replay every single game in the book and analyze why Tal made each move.  On each page there was a discussion of the reasons behind Tal's most important moves.  I studied those notes to better understand Tal's strategy.  Why did he make this move?  All summer long I stayed locked in my room because Neal was playing king of the house in the other part of the apartment.  I couldn't stand to be around him.  Neal worked nights.  By day he would be puffing and drinking and snoring the day away in front of the TV while Mom was at work.  All that time I stayed hidden in my room plotting my revenge. Then came the day when Neal challenged me to another game of chess.  This time I was ready.  I cleaned his clock.  Then I did it again.  It wasn't just that I beat him.  I beat him so soundly that Neal was bewildered.  He drove himself silly trying to figure out how I had managed to improve so much.  What was I doing in my bedroom all those hours?  Had I made some secret deal with the Devil?  He looked at me like I was Damien from The Omen.  Seeing how much it bothered him, I refused to explain the circumstances.  I guess he got spooked by my supernatural powers.  Within a week, Neal moved out.  I had slain the dragon with a chessboard.  My mother even thanked me when he was gone.  She said good riddance.  My love for chess was sealed for life.  Now you know the secret of my success. Yes, I have studied Freud.  I am quite aware of the Oedipal implications of this episode.  By the way, you don't suppose I am making this nonsense up, do you?  Trust me, it is all true.  There is no embellishment in any single part of this entire saga.  You have my word on that.  What's worse, I have even more stories.  This stuff is just the tip of the iceberg. Suffice it to say, I had a thoroughly miserable childhood.  From the moment I cut my eye out when I was 5 till the day that acne turned me into a leper at 14 to the moment my father broke his promise to help me with college at 17, I had fourteen straight years of gut-wrenching struggle on my hands.  I wasn't an orphan, but I was close to being one.  I had no choice but to face the world practically single-handed this entire time. I never would have made it without Saint John's.  You have my absolute word on that.   Saint John's Becomes My Sanctuary Now you can see why my time at Saint John's was the happiest part of every day.  Saint John's was my refuge from my home.  It was the place where I could regroup from my crazy home life.  From my earliest days at Saint John's, the dream of college was the only thing that kept me going.  I formulated a plan - work, study, get ahead, and get into a college LOCATED AS FAR AWAY FROM MY MOTHER AS I POSSIBLY COULD.  That dream was my escape fantasy, my hope for salvation from this lonely broken home. My father paid the first three years of tuition at St. John's (4th, 5th, 6th grade).  Then he stopped paying.  My mother appealed to Saint John's for help.  Mr. Chidsey, the Saint John's Headmaster, was pleased to note I had made the honor roll every quarter I had been there for three years.  Once he realized the crunch my mother was in, he offered a half scholarship. For the next two years (7th and 8th), my uncle in Virginia covered the rest.  However, my uncle had four children of his own plus he was starting his own business.  He could not continue after that.  As I was about to enter the ninth grade (1964), it looked like I was headed to public school.  My mother asked Mr. Chidsey, to recommend a Houston public high school for me.  Since we were always moving anyway, she would simply find an apartment nearby whatever school he suggested.  Mr. Chidsey said he would research that question and get back to her.  A couple nights later Mr. Chidsey called my mother at home.  If Saint John's offered a full scholarship, would she be able to pay for the books and meals?  Mom said she would do her best.  Mr. Chidsey said he was proud of my record at Saint John's and would hate to lose me.  Mr. Chidsey was glad I would be staying at his school.  So that is how I received a full scholarship for my final four years.  I remember bursting into tears with relief.  To this day I credit my marvelous Saint John's education as the great miracle of my life. My education has opened many doors throughout my career. For starters, my excellent grades at St. John's paid off in a full college scholarship to Johns Hopkins University, a prestigious Eastern school. But it wasn't just the education I received that makes me so grateful to my alma mater.  During my nine year stay, many of the faculty at Saint John's quietly served as the parents I did not have. Without my knowing it, there were several men and women who always looked out for me.  Mr. Chidsey was definitely one of those people.  The Jerk and the Puppy Dog Mind you, I wasn't the easiest kid to have around.  I had a temper.  I had a smart mouth.  I was rebellious.  I hated criticism.  I took offense at many imagined slights that other people would have ignored.  Sometimes I argued just because someone had gotten under my skin.  I was one heck of an angry kid.  Of course I was grateful for my scholarship, but sometimes I had a strange way of showing it.  I never realized it at the time, but I probably posed as much of a discipline challenge as any student in the whole school.  There were a few people on the faculty who definitely didn't like having me around.  I had a running battle with two men in particular for my entire time at Saint John's.  Fortunately they weren't the ones who made the decisions on my scholarship. In retrospect I was two different people, a sort of Jekyll-Hyde.  One side of me was "The Brat".  There were a few individuals on the faculty who loved enforcing "the rules".  The length of my hair became a daily battleground for several years.  These men always rubbed me the wrong way.  In fact, I believed they took a secret delight in tormenting me.  I bristled at their insistence that my hair was an issue.  What difference does the length of my hair make?  I was constantly in trouble with my dislike of authority!  I was always defying the rules by being out of uniform or wearing my hair too long or being late to school.  Often when someone told me to do something, I would question why the rule should be respected.  I hated 'discipline' with a passion.  I bet I wore some people out in the process.  No one enjoys having to defend a rule to a defiant kid.  Just get your hair cut and stop arguing all the time!  It could not have been easy to keep patience with an angry, smart-mouthed brat like me, but somehow they did. On the other side of the coin, I never gave my instructors a bit of trouble.  I cherished my relationships with my instructors. They couldn't have cared less about the length of my hair.  All they knew is that I worked as hard as any student they had ever had and they respected me for that.  In fact, several of my instructors took a personal interest in me. They would often sit me down for the kind of 'how are you doing?' talks that I wasn't getting from my absentee parents.  For example, during high school, Mr. Curran and Mr. Weems were two instructors who went out of their way to invite me to their homes for long talks. These men were reaching out to me.  I suspect they sensed I was starting to go off the deep end again.  The invitations were made in regards to discussions about my class work, but invariably our talks drifted into long heart-to-heart conversations about my home life and problems.  The truth is, many of my teachers treated me like a friend in addition to a student.  As a result, I developed a great affection for them.  To the people at Saint John's who preferred to order me around, I would bristle and talk back, but to the teachers who showed concern for me, I was the best student they ever had.  Like a puppy dog I would do anything they asked.  I guarantee they never had any discipline problems with me.  Their kindness and respect worked wonders.  It is too bad I never realized just how skilled my teachers really were.  They showed concern for me and I responded in kind. I cooperated because I respected them so much.  In a way, maybe it is too bad so many of the instructors at Saint John's were gifted.  They all preferred to develop a rapport to get my cooperation.  As a result I never was forced to learn how to deal with hostile authority like in the military where they tell you to do something and you shut up and do it OR ELSE.  I only had three Old School teachers like this in all my nine years at SJS.  As a result, I was never forced to learn how to deal appropriately with the disciplinarians - "Do it because I tell you to!  And keep your mouth shut!"  I had no problems with authority at Johns Hopkins for a simple reason - no one ever gave me an order!  That's right, during my four years of college, no one once ever told me to do anything.  I went about my business and graduated.  However my inability to tolerate hostile authority did finally catch up with me in Graduate School at Colorado State University in 1973.  I had a rigid professor who didn't appreciate my questioning ways.  Since he was the chairman of the department, he was in a position to make sure I got kicked out of school at the end of one year.  I was crushed.  That was the toughest lesson I have ever been given in my life.  I guess I had it coming. Yes, I take responsibility for my fate in graduate school.  I had absolutely no concept of politics.  Every other grad student but me had learned to keep his mouth shut.  Everyone else knew that you don't question this kind of authority.  Not me.  It never even dawned on me that I was cutting my throat till I got the pink slip.

Political skills are usually acquired in the home.  Apparently I had missed that lesson.  Or maybe there wasn't any lesson.  Mom wasn't very good at keeping her mouth shut either.  She had a bad habit of speaking her mind as well.   She got fired; I got kicked out of school. The point I am making is that my CSU faculty saw me as a distinct problem and didn't care to work with me.  I wasn't worth the trouble.  Despite my excellent grades, it was easier to send me packing.  Their hard-line approach stood in decided contrast to the St. John's faculty which had always handled me with such great patience. It wasn't until I became an adult that I gained the maturity to recognize the gifted guidance I received throughout my nine years at St. John's.  Any lion tamer would smile at the work they did handling a tough, lonely, angry kid who resented authority with a passion.  My instructors had the magic touch.  They knew how to reach me and bring out my soft side.  In stark contrast to the men at Colorado State who had no patience for me, thank goodness the men at Saint John's decided I was worth taking a chance on.  For nine years, Saint John's was more my home than my own house.  The instructors were often better parents than my actual parents.  I will always be grateful for their help in keeping me on the right path.

The face only a mother could love. Fifth Grade, age 11 Ninth Grade, 14 Twelfth Grade, 17 Reflections on my Early years at Saint John's The adults at Saint John's were indeed gifted educators, but they had no way of shielding me from my share of rough times at Saint John's.  Social status has its winners and losers.  For everyone on the top rungs, there has to be someone on the lowest rung.  Take a quick guess which rung I sat on. I went to school with the sons and daughters of the wealthiest families in Houston.  I have little doubt I was the poorest kid in the school.  Let's put it another way.  I went there nine years and I never met or heard of anyone even remotely in the same situation as me.  Sure, there were some middle class kids on scholarships I knew about, but no one who rode his bike home at night wondering if the lights would be on or if there would be bread for a sandwich or if his only parent would be there. My low economic status was known to my classmates.  It happened in the sixth grade.  I was a member of a boy scout troop affiliated with Saint John's.  Several SJS classmates were members as well.  We had a weekend camping trip way out in the piney woods.  It was cold and raining.  It was miserable out there.  I got sick.  In fact, I was so sick that I could barely move.  I had a fever and was in real pain.  One of my classmates, Frank A, wanted to go home.  He wasn't sick, but he didn't like the cold.  When I found out someone was coming to pick him up, I begged Frank for a ride to my house.  I felt like a quitter, but I knew that whatever I had was too serious to tough it out.  Frank took pity on me and agreed to help.  I was astonished when I saw an enormous limousine pull up in the middle of the forest complete with a uniformed driver.  This was like a scene from a Richie Rich movie.  Too bad I wasn't in a joking mood.  When the limousine stopped in front of my run-down tenement on Travis Street, Frank's eyes bulged.  He asked, "Do you really live here?"  I nodded yes.  I hated myself.  I had been too weak to remember to ask him to drop me off at one of the nice homes a few blocks away like I had done with other kids.  I noted his wide-eyed stare of astonishment.  As I staggered out the door, Frank gave me the most profound look of pity I have ever seen directed at me.  After that incident, it may have been my imagination, but I felt like some of the kids at school began to avoid me.  I had a hunch that Frank had said something.  I doubt that he said anything to be mean.  He wasn't that kind of guy.  But whatever he said had real consequences.  I suddenly felt very isolated and wasn't sure why.  It seemed suspicious that my invitations to classmate's birthday parties and get-togethers at their homes suddenly disappeared.  Was this really happening or was it my imagination?  Sure I had a very thin skin and took every real or imagined slight to heart, but something seemed wrong.  After enough time passed, I was convinced my hunch had been right all along.  That began the Era of the Invisible Kid at Saint John's. I wasn't the victim of any overt snobbery that I can remember. Yes, there were a couple kids who enjoyed keeping me in my place, but they were the exception.  I am not even sure their comments were meant to hurt.  A lot of what they said was usually an off the cuff remark that still managed to cut me into shreds (the Genetic Curse).  By and large the majority of the students could have cared less.   I mostly remember feeling 'left out'.  I would overhear conversations about parties I hadn't been invited to, wild tales about events at family beach houses, lavish summer vacations, and times spent with friends over at the River Oaks Country Club.  It wasn't much fun hearing about all the great activities that I would never participate in.  Sure I was envious, but I learned not to let it consume me.   High School What did bother me was that I was lonely.  I never had a girlfriend during my time spent at Saint John's.  For that matter, I never had a date either.  I did not have enough confidence to hang with these girls socially.  I didn't belong in their league.  Furthermore, a serious two-year bout with acne left me so scarred inside and out that what little confidence I ever had about my attractiveness was long gone.  I contributed to my sense of isolation by avoiding activities.  I never participated in sports, plays, or anything extracurricular.  That's a shame because these activities would have solved my hermit problem.  I would go to parties after football games and hide in the shadows.  When the music came on, oh, I cannot begin to say how badly I wanted to get out there and dance!   In fact, one of the reasons I learned to dance when I was in my twenties was directly related to all the fun I saw my classmates enjoy on the dance floor at those parties. So why didn't I try out for stuff?  Why didn't I get out there and dance?  There are two reasons.  That acne was serious.  For a year and a half, I looked like something out of a horror flick.  Even when the acne finally cleared up, there was still terrible scarring.  The other reason is that I got a job at the end of my sophomore year working after school sacking groceries.  I figured the only way I was going to make it to college would be if I paid for it myself.  That afternoon job made it tough to go out for activities. So I lived in a world of near-total isolation.  My father was long gone. There was no one at home.  My mother was busy chasing men or looking for a new job.  I had no brothers and sisters.  I did have a few friends at school, but for the most part I had become the invisible loner.  What were my other choices?  During my teenage years, I was so lonely that I retreated into a deep shell.  I brooded all the time about things that bothered me.  If it wasn't for my dog Terry - my one true friend - I think I would have gone off the deep end.  And did I mention that I was an angry kid?  I only got into one fight, but it was a doozy.  That acne left me crippled emotionally.  No one enjoys feeling like a leper.  As I walked off the track after phys ed in my sophomore year, I overheard a kid talking about "the Clearasil Kid" to his buddies.  These kids were right behind me.  They meant for me to hear that taunt.  Their derisive laughter was cutting.  Oh, did I bristle!  I was seething with anger. When the same boy started up AGAIN in the shower, I had had enough.  I walked over and clapped my hands against his ears to stun him.  Then I hit him full force with my fist.  For good measure I kneed him hard in the face as he crumbled.  Then I walked away.  I guess the word got out.  No one ever bothered me again.  Although this was the only time I lost my temper in high school, people who didn't know me began to give me a wide berth.  To deal with my increasing sense of inferiority, this was about the time I started lifting weights at home.  I began to fill out.  Between my ever-present acne, my brooding countenance, and wide shoulders, I began to resemble a miniature "Incredible Hulk". It is a darn good thing they did leave me alone!  Throughout High School I was a walking powder keg.  I didn't take my anger out on anybody, but inside I was tense, wound up, worried, and bitter.  If someone had rubbed me the wrong way with some choice words about my face, I might have gone ballistic.  That fight must have done some good.  For the remaining two years, no one ever bothered me again.  No taunting, no nothing.  I didn't have an enemy of any sort at Saint John's.  Most students were cordial to me and the rest just ignored me and let me go my own way. "Don't tread on me."  That attitude might explain why everyone my age at school gave me a wide berth.  I would sit in the Senior Room listening to all the conversations, but I never participated.  I actually began to feel invisible.  I am here in this room every day, but no one notices!  Why don't they pay attention to me?  I was too lost in my own problems to realize I was largely responsible for keeping everyone at arm's length. By the end of my Senior year (1967-1968), the many years of resentment towards my fellow students had turned me into a cold, humorless young man with thin skin and a big chip on his shoulder.  I was doing everything I could to hang on and graduate before I lost it completely.   Modern day readers might wonder if I was "Columbine Crazy."  I can certainly see some parallels.  Loneliness, alienation, bitterness. Rest assured I never once dreamed of hurting anyone.  I wasn't a "bad kid", just a lonely one.  My anger was deep, but it wasn't directed at anyone at Saint John's.  The difference between those monsters at Columbine and my situation at Saint John's was completely different.  I loved my teachers at Saint John's.  I just hated my life, that's all. I was starved for attention.  I didn't have a father and I fought with my mother constantly.  What I really needed more than anything else in the world was someone to pat me on my back and appreciate me for how hard I was working.  Besides my intense loneliness, in my Senior year I was so worried about how I would pay for college that I was teetering on the edge of a nervous breakdown.  I was so tense and so scared that I could barely function. Then one day in the spring of 1968 I met Maria Ballantyne, the lady who come out out of nowhere to help put me back on the right path.

Background on Mrs. Ballantyne

During my time at Saint John's, the Ballantyne family was the most famous family in the whole school. There were many talented individuals at Saint John's, but no family could possibly rival the Ballantynes.  The Ballantynes were Saint John's answer to the Kennedys. Seven different children achieved tremendous success in academics, athletics, and leadership - Michael, Dana, Katina, Christie, Marina, George, and Lisa.  Each one of them was smart and confident.  Each one of them excelled in one school activity after another.

The Ballantynes were always being named captain of this or head prefect of that.  It was my observation that they deserved these honors.  The three Ballantyne children I knew - Dana (two years ahead of me), Katina (my own grade), and Marina (one year behind) - were humble and hard-working.  Besides being talented, they were also well-liked.  Each of the three Ballantyne children I knew was friendly and warm to everyone.  Each one of these three students was down to earth and thoughtful of others. Despite their enormous talent, not one of these individuals displayed any egotism whatsoever.  No snobbery, no airs, no pretensions.  In nine years, I never saw a single incident where the Ballantyne children acted in any way other than exemplary.  I am sure they weren't perfect, but they were a lot closer to it than any one else at that school.

In a nutshell, they were all great kids!   They received the respect of their peers because they deserved it.  Each one of them seemed to be a born leader.  Mind you, I mean it when I say "each one of them".  Every single Ballantyne child I knew was exceptional.  Personally speaking, I admired every one of the Ballantyne clan.  Although I had virtually no interaction with any of them, I could see they conducted themselves with extreme dignity.  They accomplished extraordinary things and they did it the right way - they earned it.  They worked for it.

Interestingly, the Ballantynes had the most famous parent in the school - Mrs. Maria Ballantyne. 

Saint John's was not a large school when I went there.  There were only 50 kids in my graduating class, 220 in the Upper School.  It was a very small, close-knit place. 

The Mother's Guild was an institution I was vaguely aware of.  Each one of these ladies had a child or children at Saint John's.  This was a group of confident, well-dressed women who helped guide the fortunes of Saint John's behind the scenes.  They formed a sort of revved up PTA group.  It seemed like once or twice a week during the afternoon, these ladies would meet at Saint John's for coffee and conversation in a special private dining area that looked out on our beautiful Quadrangle.  Several times a week on my way to class, I would see these women milling about in the public reception area next to the private dining area.  Obviously they were either waiting for the event to start or it had just ended.  Sometimes the ladies were laughing; sometimes they were deep in serious conversation.  I had no idea what their names were or who their children were.  Except one - Maria Ballantyne.  Mrs. Ballantyne was beautiful.  Mrs. Ballantyne was warm and outgoing.  Mrs. Ballantyne was at the center of every group.  Mrs. Ballantyne was the go-to lady at every one of these Power Lunches.  At least that was my opinion as a casual observer.  Mrs. Ballantyne was ubiquitous.  Taken from the Latin word 'ubi' meaning everywhere, Mrs. Ballantyne was indeed Everywhere.  Or is the word 'Omnipresent'?  She was a fixture at my school.  I believe I saw her at Saint John's two or three times a week for all the nine years I attended.  One more thing - I don't remember ever noticing another mother in that group.  Mrs. Ballantyne was the only woman I ever noticed.  I was very drawn to Mrs. Ballantyne.  There was something about her that was remarkable.  I had ten minutes to get to my next class.  I found myself slowing down as I walked through the reception area just so I could watch her in action a little longer.  Besides the Administrators, Mrs. Ballantyne seemed to be the most influential person at the entire school.  Indeed, I often saw her striding down the corridors side by side with Headmaster Alan Chidsey or with his successor, Mr. EK Salls.  Oh, I would have loved to have known what they were talking about! Mrs. Ballantyne was at St. John's all the time participating in many different activities.  It seemed to me that Mrs. Ballantyne was most socially gifted person I had ever come across.  I have a hunch that for the most part Mrs. Ballantyne used charm and persuasion to accomplish most of her projects.  However I suspect she had a hammer in her tool kit as well.  Mrs. Ballantyne had a reputation at my school as an effective and maybe even "forceful" go-getter.  Mrs. Ballantyne was rumored to have enormous will power.  It was also said she could be very controlling at times.  I wouldn't be surprised.  I am not quite sure how else you accomplish things in life without asserting your will.  That is why some people are called 'leaders'.

Mrs. Ballantyne was definitely the Sun around which the rest of the planets revolved around at my school.  My direct experience of her was that she appeared to possess great warmth in her public dealings with people at Saint John's.  Whenever I saw her, she was always beaming.  It is not an accident I compare her to the Sun.

A Great Mom and a Great Kid I always sensed that Mrs. Ballantyne was a very talented mother.  Mrs. Ballantyne appeared to be deeply involved in each of her children's careers at the school.  I would overhear "Mrs. Ballantyne" stories all the time about how she made quite sure her sons and daughters lived up to her expectations.  After watching the accomplishments of one Ballantyne child after another, whatever she said or did, it worked.  Seven children, seven success stories. A major reason I concluded that Mrs. Ballantyne was a superior mother was Katina Ballantyne, one of her three daughters. There is an old saying, 'the apple doesn't fall far from the tree.'  I always felt that Katina reflected her mother's talents beautifully.

Katina was my classmate for many years.  I did not know her on a personal basis, but we shared many classes together.  Modern readers might be surprised to know our classes were never larger than 15 students.  A private school education calls for close student-teacher interaction.  Not only did we get to know our teachers very well (and vice versa), we got to know our fellow students on a first-hand basis as well.  Katina always conducted herself with so much poise and grace.  Katina definitely brought honor to her parents.  A cursory glance at the 1968 yearbook says it all - Katina was all-conference in field hockey, she was captain of the volleyball team, she played lead in The Music Man, she was a Prefect, she was in the choir, and she was editor of the yearbook.  Oh, by the way, Katina was an honor student too.  Yet despite all this success, Katina was level-headed and even-tempered.  I never once saw a streak of meanness or pettiness.  There were no airs of superiority emanating from her.  And guess what?  As far as I was concerned, every single one of her brothers and sisters were the same way - talented, generous and humble.  They were in a class by themselves, but they never once abused their popularity to get an edge.  Whatever they accomplished in the classroom and the playing fields, they earned it fair and square.  Be it the classroom, the playing field, student politics, or activities, the talent and the incredible decency of the Ballantyne children permeated through the entire school.  It doesn't take a genius to conclude these seven children had some pretty special parents.  This explains why I admired Katina's mother so much.  What an accomplishment it was to raise so many gifted, wonderful children!  Maria Ballantyne was one of my personal heroes.  Let me add it is my understanding that her husband Dr. Alando Ballantyne, the children's father, was just as special as well.  Dr. Ballantyne was a cancer surgeon at MD Anderson as well as a professor in the UT system.  Talent on top of talent.  The Ballantynes were quite a family.

I haven't yet mentioned how competitive Saint John's students were.  Every one of my classmates was brilliant in his or her own way.  Academic performance was worshipped at Saint John's.   In a way, we were gladiators.  We fought on a daily basis to be the best.  Not surprisingly, there was a pecking order based on academic standing.  One of my closest rivals was Katina.  We were both Honor students. Since I was so acutely conscious of protecting my own academic standing, I always kept a close eye on her progress.  I was just a few notches from the top and Katina was right behind me.  Although neither of us ever acknowledged it, throughout our SJS careers Katina and I were neck and neck in the constant struggle to make the kind of grades that would get us into the best colleges. 

Naturally I studied one of my closest rivals. Long ago I had concluded that Katina had benefitted greatly from having such an alert and caring mother.   Considering how angry I was at my own mother, I admit I was deeply envious of all the Ballantyne children.  Why couldn't I have a mother like Mrs. Ballantyne?  I had to practically raise myself and I wasn't doing a very good job of it either.  Darn it, I believed I had just as much talent as the Ballantyne kids and every other kid at Saint John's!  However I had so much to overcome, I didn't have much of a chance to prove it.  I resented what seemed to be an uneven playing field.  I often wondered what I could have accomplished if I had a mother like Mrs. Ballantyne to encourage me.  It drove me crazy realizing how much my own social awkwardness and lack of confidence had held me back.  What if I had a Super Mom like Mrs. Ballantyne?  Maybe I would be a student leader instead of the Invisible Kid.

Yes, these were the thoughts and sad fantasies of a lonely, introverted unhappy kid.  Yet for all the years I studied Mrs. Ballantyne like a hawk, I never once spoke to her at Saint John's.  Not once.  I was content to admire her from afar and dream about how my life would have been different if I had her for a mother.


Background on my Senior Year in High School - I Spiral Out of Control

Throughout my Senior year, I constantly hovered on the brink of self-destruction.  

I had never been much an angel.  Throughout my nine years at the school, I was a fixture at the Saturday morning Detention Hall.  I was born to break rules.  My infractions varied from disrupting class (in the early years), being late (a chronic problem), back-talking to faculty who were not my teachers, out of uniform, and long hair (my favorite form of disobedience).

However, things took a definite turn for the worse during my final year at Saint John's.  Things were falling apart. 

For my previous eight years at the school, I had been a disciplined, conscientious student.  For the most part, my teachers liked me because I poured my heart into their classes.  I always did my homework and I always came prepared for tests.  I never whined about grades (not much, anyway) and I participated in every classroom conversation.  What teacher wouldn't respond to someone like me who tried so hard? 

Plain and simple, I liked school.  I knew I was getting a great education and wrapped all my self-esteem around doing well.  If it hadn't been for my sarcastic, bristling nature, I might have even been a teacher's pet like my sun-kissed classmate Katina.  I was now on the verge of achieving my nine year dream - getting into college.

However as the Finish Line beckoned, something was wrong with me in my Senior Year.  Deeply wrong.

For starters, my home life had disintegrated to an all-time low.  My mother and I were barely speaking.  She had moved me out of the Montrose area to some awful rundown house near North Main and Quitman.  We were right across the street from a Jehovah's Witness holy-roller church.  Every night I as I tried to do my homework in my bedroom, I would have to cope with an unbelievable distraction.  It wasn't easy trying to concentrate over the organ music, the loud singing and the screaming shouts of "Hallelujah, Praise Jesus!"  They were rolling in the aisles!

As I tried to shut the noise out of my mind, the disconnect between my impoverished home and my rich kid's school seemed to take a bigger toll on me than it had in the past.  For eight years I had always envied my classmates, but had managed to keep it under control.  Now as I tried to study for a math exam with the organ music blaring in my ears, my bitterness grew to new levels.  How was I supposed to concentrate with that racket?  I couldn't seem to keep my resentment at my classmates' good luck and my own rotten luck under wraps any more.  When I compared their mansions in River Oaks to this run-down shack in the slums, it just didn't seem fair. 

Every day I went to school at Saint John's and looked around.  Each student drove themselves to school in a Mustang or a GTO.  Each student had on a clean, freshly ironed uniform.  They had a safe, secure, quiet home to do their homework in.  They had their meals prepared for them.  They had their parents to encourage them and counsel them.  And here I was, living in this slum with a mother who didn't care and a father I never saw, forced to work a grocery job after school, and trying to complete my homework despite these maniacal screams across the street.  What the heck were they doing in there?  

With all these handicaps, I was trying to compete with the smartest kids at the toughest academic school in the city.  It wasn't fair!  I couldn't help but wonder what I might accomplish if I onhy had a level playing field.  In all my years at Saint John's, I had never before hated their privileged lives as much as I did now.  I was about to explode with bitterness at my own pathetic, crummy home. I am well aware that the casual observer will notice how much better I had it than millions of other kids in the world, but try explaining that to a self-centered, confused and miserable teenager like me.  I had one point of view - me myself and I.  All I could focus on was they were rich and I was poor.  Rich Man, Poor Rick.  They had beautiful homes, I lived in squalor.  They had friends, I had a dog.  They had parents who loved them and took care of them, I sacked groceries for quarters and dimes.  And I was sick of it!   Sick and tired.  And that sickness kept growing inside of me, filling me with rage and poison. Every day as I sat in class trying to concentrate, these demons haunted me.  I knew it wasn't the fault of my classmates that they had been given these advantages, but my resentment just kept building. I grew incredibly tense with anger and bitterness.  In this impaired state, I did some very stupid things.

Cheating

There were two episodes in my Senior Year that should have gotten me suspended from school or worse.

I am not proud to admit in my Senior year I was so desperate that on a couple of occasions I cheated on exams. I was fully capable of doing the work, but my self-esteem was down and I decided to take some short cuts.  

One day I was allowed to take a German makeup exam in a room by myself.  I had missed the test because I was sick.  Here I was alone behind a closed door in a remote section on the campus.  The opportunity was there.

As usual, I handled the vocabulary segment and the translation segment of the test without problem.  Yes, I had studied for this part.  I was good at German; in fact I would win the award for best German student later that year. 

However today I was in a bad mood regarding the Literature portion of the test worth about 10 points.  We were supposed to memorize the names and works of the greatest German authors - Goethe, Thomas Mann, Hermann Hesse, Gunter Grass, und so weiter (the German word for 'et cetera'.)  I decided this was a total waste of time.  Why memorize stuff I could look up any time I wanted to? 

Today I had correctly anticipated I would be allowed to take the makeup test in private.  So why bother memorizing it in the first place?   After all, I intended to thoroughly forget everything I had been forced to memorize the moment I graduated.  Here was a chance to cut a corner.  So I simply pulled out the book and copied the list.

To my surprise, a classmate of mine opened the door and walked in.  He had come in to pick up a book he had left behind earlier.  By his expression, he had no idea someone was in here or he would have knocked.  I quickly closed my open book.  I wasn't exactly caught red-handed, but my hands were definitely pink.  I remember the puzzled look on the boy's face; I am not sure he was positive what he had seen.  But he was obviously alarmed enough to report it.  

Rather than throw the book at me, a fellow student was sent to counsel me.  This fellow student took me aside in the hallway.  He said there was an odd incident that he had been asked to speak to me about.  He didn't accuse me of anything.  He never once asked me if I had cheated.  Instead, he said he wanted me to realize I was a great student and that he couldn't IMAGINE someone of my talent would ever need to cheat.  And that's all he said.  He touched me on my shoulder and walked away.

I swear to you my mouth fell open at his approach.  This was exactly how to play me - he had complimented me and appealed to my sense of pride. 

What charm!  What utter bullshit!  But it worked.  I never cheated again.  

There had to be someone's unseen hand involved in this.  I have no doubt that this student was coached.  I mean, he was a bright guy, but this was wisdom beyond his years.  Someone was watching over me.  I have little doubt this incident was discussed behind closed doors at great length.  We had a very strict Honor Code that had been drummed into us on a non-stop basis for my entire time at the school.  I had known kids who were expelled for cheating.  However, someone had decided to give me a warning instead of taking me down like I deserved.

With those other students as examples of the perils of being caught cheating, I was flabbergasted that they had shown me mercy. 

Furthermore, they even allowed me to save face!   They could have shamed me, but they chose not to.  I could have been forced to finish the year in disgrace.  They could have failed me in the course.  Instead I was allowed to graduate with honors in the top five in my class.  And they even gave me the German award to top it off. 

Unbelievable. 
 

Stealing

Believe it or not, I got caught doing something else nearly as bad.  I was a thief.

One day I was called into the Headmaster's Office.  I turned white as I entered the room.  There was Mr. Murphy, Dean of the Upper School, Mr. Salls, the Headmaster, Mr. Lee, head of the athletic department, and Mr. Osborne, Mr. Lee's second in command.  These were the four most important men at Saint Johns.  

They all had a frown and they all had their arms crossed.  This didn't look good.  Oddly enough, I didn't even know what I had done wrong.  I would soon find out.

Mr. Lee spoke first. "Mr. Archer, will you please explain to us why you have two hundred dollars worth of unauthorized Saint John's sports equipment in the back seat of your car?"

Uh oh. 

How was I caught?  I drove a Volkswagen Bug to school, a cheap used car I had bought with my grocery store money.  I was too embarrassed to park it next to the shiny brand new GTOs and Mustangs of the rich kids in the student parking lot.  Instead I always parked the car in a spot across the street next to the athletic department. 

It was true that I kept St. John's sports equipment in my car.  I used it for my after-school basketball adventures.  Obviously somebody had noticed the stuff and said something to Mr. Lee.  It wasn't hard to figure out... there were red and white tee-shirts with the SJS logo plainly visible.  There were two expensive basketballs that had "SJS" clearly printed on them.  There was other stuff too.  Lots of it!  And all of it was laying there in plain sight in the back seat.  Not only that, I left the windows rolled down.  They could inspect it with their own hands if they wanted to. 

There was no good reason why that equipment should have been there.  I certainly had not asked permission.

Now I was facing the four most important administrators in the school.  They wanted an explanation.

I told the men that I was just "borrowing" the stuff.  I fully intended to return it.  If I wanted to steal it, then why would I leave it completely visible in my unlocked car next to the Athletic Department? 

That argument had one advantage - it was actually the truth.  I explained to the men that I played basketball two or three afternoons a week after school.  I would drive to different public gyms around the city looking for pickup basketball games.  I didn't have any clean gym clothes at home; why not borrow St. John's clothes? 

Here is what I didn't tell them.  There was a deeper reason why I had that equipment, one that I could have never explained to these men without suffering acute embarrassment.  A major reason I wore those clothes was that I felt like I was symbolically representing my school on the basketball court.  Even though these were ragged, unimpressive gym clothes, it still meant I was wearing the SJS logo and colors as I went to the gyms around the city.

One of the reasons I was so miserable my final year at St. John's is that I was full of regret.  I had athletic ability.  But I also had a blind left eye from an accident when I was five.  This was an enormous handicap.

I had stupidly cut my eye out with a knife when I was five. 

I was left alone by myself on the porch with a rope and a sharp knife.  What parent lets a five-year old handle a sharp knife?  What parent leaves a five-year old alone playing with a sharp knife for over thirty minutes?  Someone who isn't paying attention. 

I was whittling on the rope trying to cut it in half.  I was pulling the knife towards me, not pushing the sharp edge away from my face I should have.  My mother hollered from another room it was time to go somewhere.  No problem.  I was almost done.  Hearing with the urgency in her voice, I decided to give it one last big tug.  The knife went right through the rope and kept on going.  The tip of the knife sliced right through my left eye.  It was a brutal accident.  There was no saving it.

A blind eye is a very dangerous problem in football.  There are players flying at you from all directions.  Even players with two eyes get blind-sided from time to time.  That's often how they end up with serious knee injuries or concussions. On the other hand, I was a tall, strong kid.  They could have used me out there.  However, despite my obvious size, my Saint John's coaches did not want me to play football.  They were too concerned about my safety to take any chances.  I would have been a sitting duck out there.  Disappointed, I still wanted to participate with Mr. Lee's football program.  At his suggestion, for the next four years I served as the football team's statistician.

Okay, football was out of the question.  However I think I could have played high school basketball with one eye.  It was a handicap, but other than my visual problem with running pick and rolls, I could have managed. Basketball was my obsession.  I daydreamed about it constantly.  Basketball was my only outlet.  It was also one of my very few sources of self-esteem. Despite my late start in the sport, by my Senior year I had become a very good player.  I honestly believe I could have been a starter on the school basketball team.  I was constantly challenging every boy on the varsity to play me one-on-one.  This was a sad attempt to measure myself against the other players.  I needed some way to know how good I was.  To date, I had beaten every one of them.  By the time I was a Senior, there was only one boy on the varsity I had not played.  He was the star of the team.  I figured that made me the second best player in the school.  At least in my own mind anyway. I had gained my ability from constant practice.  Basketball was my love.  Every afternoon I wasn't working at the grocery store, I would drive to various city parks to play pickup basketball.  Usually my opponents were powerful black kids with great leaping ability or the quick Mexicans who liked to use their elbows.  I was not a gifted athlete, but I learned to use my wits to overcome their physical advantages.  I was a master at faking defenders into the air and going around them.  At a place called Denver Harbor, a Mexican kid even pulled a knife on me when I embarrassed him one time too many. I decided that would be a good time to leave.  With all this practice against tough opponents, I had developed into a very good player.

Senior Year Phys Ed Basketball

I have an unusual story to share about phys ed basketball in my Senior year.  It help explains the stolen equipment incident,

I never once played a team sport for my school.  Of course, once they turned me down for Freshman football, I had planned to go out for the Freshman basketball team instead.  In fact, it was during tryout week that my horrible bout with acne began.  This terrible condition forced me to drop out.  Sad to say, the acne problem was so acute it became a serious long term condition which kept me from trying out in my Sophomore year as well. I realize this explanation makes little sense; we'll get to it later.

During the year and a half struggle with acne, I became a hermit when I wasn't at school.  I was so grotesque, I preferred to hide from the world.  One day on my way home from school I noticed a garage sale.  There was an old set of weights for sale cheap.  I rode home on my bike and got the money.  For lack of anything better to do, I began to lift weights at home during this time. I had to do something to work off my frustration.   Mind you, I had a lot of frustration.  Therefore I did a lot of lifting.  I began to really fill out. 

A year later, my face finally cleared up.  It was the spring of my Sophomore year.  I did two things.  I got a job sacking groceries.  I also resumed my love affair with basketball.  I couldn't drive yet, so I would ride my bike to Cherryhurst Park in the Montrose area as often as I could and play there.  To my surprise, I discovered I had grown much stronger than the kids I played against.  There was a kid from Lamar High School who was on the basketball team.  He had long been my major opponent at the park.  I found my increased strength had made it much easier to score and defend against this boy.  I was amazed at my progress.  He was too!

In my Junior year, I wanted to try out for the varsity, but I decided there were so many good Seniors on the team that I would at best be a bench player.  Since I probably wouldn't play much, I felt it was more important to keep my afternoon job sacking groceries.  I had now saved enough money to buy my used VW Bug.  This allowed me to begin driving across the city in search of stronger competition.  I played pickup basketball every spare moment I could and continued lifting weights as well. My game kept improving.

By my Senior year, I figured I was good enough to make my high school team, possibly even be a starter.  For that matter, Mr. Lee and Mr. Osborne, two of the administrators who sat in judgment over the stolen athletic equipment, had specifically told me I had the ability to play varsity basketball. 

They knew I was good player for a curious reason - both men had been my regular basketball teammates in Physical Education all winter long.

Doesn't it strike you as odd that the Athletic Director and the Head Coach of the Girl's Varsity Basketball team found the time to play Phys Ed basketball?

Every student who didn't go out for a varsity sport was required to attend Phys Ed three times a week at noon time.   Since SJS was such a small school, after you subtracted all the young men who went out for the basketball and soccer teams and cross country, there were only about ten or twelve of us left over.  Mr. Lee supervised us.  For exercise, several times a week we simply played pickup basketball, my specialty.  These boys were by and large the weakest athletes in the school.  They hated sports with a passion.  Not surprisingly, I dominated these games.  The other boys tried to double-team me. That didn't work; I went around them or through them.  So they began to foul me whenever I shot; it was the only way to stop me.  That tactic didn't work either.  I stopped driving to the basket and began taking my shots from the outside.  So then they started to double-team me outside and foul me out there too.  Irritated, I resorted to a new tactic - end to end.  I was the biggest player, so I would grab a rebound, then dribble the length of the court and lay it up.  As you can see, no one was having any fun but me. Every day I was getting my kicks beating up on the ten worst athletes in the school.  Then one day I suppose I overdid it.  No one likes to get beat by someone who has no business being there.  After the one-sided game was over, one of the boys complained to Coach Lee that it wasn't fair to let me play.  They were sick and tired of watching me score at will. Mr. Lee had witnessed the spectacle.  He didn't say anything, but I noticed he seemed to nod in agreement.  Hmm. Two days later we were all lined up waiting for Mr. Lee to pick teams.  He excused himself and went into the athletic department office.  We all looked at each other in confusion.  What's this all about?

Mr. Lee returned with two other coaches - Mr. Osborne, the girl's varsity basketball coach, and Mr. Phillips, the track coach.  Mr. Lee announced that the three coaches would be joining our basketball game today.  I saw something on Mr. Lee's face when he looked at me that gave me a bad feeling about this.

So that's what happened - the three coaches joined our game and played right along with us.  Mr. Lee and Mr. Osborne decided to guard each other.  They were old friends from way back.

So who was going to guard me, the Michael Jordan of noontime PE?   Mr. Phillips didn't have another coach to guard.  No problem.  Mr. Lee had an idea.  Why not let Mr. Phillips guard me?  I immediately complained.  No fair!  Mr. Phillips was a grown man; I was just a boy.  More important, I knew Mr. Phillips was a championship athlete.  Mr. Phillips was a pole vault champion for Rice University!  I whined that I didn't have a chance. 

Now that the shoe was on the other foot, I wasn't getting any sympathy.  Play ball.

Watching me protest, Mr. Lee and Mr. Osborne could not contain their grins.   That is when I realized they had grown a little tired of watching me beat up on the other boys.  They had specifically assigned the "young gun" to guard me.  It was his job to give me a lesson in humility!

So we get out there on the court.  I take one look at Mr. Phillips, the youngest coach at SJS.  He is six feet tall, same size as me.   I quickly discover you don't become a national champion without serious athletic ability.  He is fast, he is strong, and he can jump out of the gym.  What's worse, he agreed with Mr. Lee and Mr. Osborne - it was time to teach me a lesson.

Well, their plot succeeded.  Mr. Phillips blocked my first shot.  Mr. Phillips blocked my second shot.  In fact, he blocked practically everything I threw up there. I don't think I made a single shot that day.  I wasn't feeling so cocky any more, that's for sure.  I got my tail whipped.  The other boys thought it was wonderful.  Ha ha ha.

From what I gathered, this was meant to be a temporary trick to teach me what it felt like to be the thumpee rather than the thumper.  However, the coaches were surprised to discover they had a great time playing with us.  Mr. Lee and Mr. Osborne had a ball guarding each other.  They played like they were kids again, laughing the whole time.  They also realized that running up and down the court was a great way for them to get some much-needed exercise during the day.  So the next time we came out to play, the three coaches were suited up and ready to join us again. 

And that's how it started.  For the next couple months till basketball season ended, the three coaches played with us every day.

Mr. Phillips always guarded me.  And he liked to play defense.  Mr. Phillips took great pleasure in stopping me.  My days of world domination were over. 

Fortunately for me, Mr. Phillips was a track athlete, not a basketball player.  Soon enough I found I could fake him into the air.  Since he jumped so high, it took him half an hour to come back to earth.  That gave me enough time to get my shot off.  Using every fake and trick in the book, I began to score every now and then.

I also discovered that Mr. Phillips was not a good shooter.  Unless he was close to the basket, I didn't have to worry about him scoring.   Although I would never be the gifted athlete Mr. Phillips was, once I learned his game I realized I was at least good enough to hang with him.  We ended up more or less cancelling each other out. Playing against each other solved two problems - it stopped me from embarrassing the other boys and it made it possible to have even teams. 

Once the coaches realized how even the teams were, they decided to keep the same teams every day. With even teams and having the coaches participate, the energy really began to pick up.  Since the same people played for the same team every day, both teams developed an identity of sorts.  It was the Lee team against the Osborne team.

No team dominated.  Every game was close.  Many games went down to the last shot.  Even the phys ed kids started to take the sport seriously.  They discovered the two teams were so even in talent that they could make a difference.  The players that tried the hardest and played the best as a 'team' that day would win.  For the first time in their lives, these boys began to see how much fun competitive sports could be.  The young men began to come out on the court early to practice their shooting.  Some of them even took the extraordinary step of practicing their shooting during lunch!  In the games, they would hustle for loose balls, run hard on fast breaks, and play the best defense they could.  They began to look forward to the games almost as much as I did.  The games became very competitive; suddenly boys who had never much cared for sports were treating each game like the NBA Finals.  It was a hoot!  The coaches couldn't help but grin.  They took each game seriously too - whoever won had bragging rights for the day.

This strange scenario worked out pretty well for me too.  Although I definitely wasn't the star anymore, I wasn't the bad guy any more either.  In fact, in a close game, my teammates would set picks to help me get a shot off against my personal straightjacket Mr. Phillips. 

I even developed a mentor.  Mr. Lee was the coach who played alongside me.  Seeing how much trouble I was having scoring on Mr. Phillips, he eventually began to feel at least a little bit sorry for me.  So he began to coach me!  He taught me that if I was closely covered, why not become a passer?  Besides, I didn't have to take all the shots.  By passing the ball to an open player, the other players would feel more involved and play harder.  In other words, try being so selfish and help the other players feel important.  I responded to his coaching!  I loved it.  I loved the attention.  Mr. Lee was talking to me like I was vital to the team's fortunes.  Since I was having trouble getting my shot off anyway, I evolved my game to become the play maker who passes the ball to the open man.  However, since these guys couldn't shoot a lick, they would miss more often than not.  So I also learned to work hard at getting rebounds and maybe put one back now and then.  Not only did I become a better team player, in the process I became one of the guys too.  You know what?  I liked this better.  It was fun playing for a team.  It was everything I had ever dreamed about.

This odd story is yet another example of yet another person at Saint John's who went out of his way to help me become a human being.   In this story, you have a bully taking out his anger on a bunch of helpless athletic misfits.  Rather than punish me for being the complete jerk that I was, Mr. Lee decided to simply give me a taste of my own medicine.  Then when Mr. Lee saw how hard I was trying to cope with the superior athletic ability of Mr. Phillips, he decided to give me some tips.  He actually took the time to coach me.  Why bother?   Coach Lee could have just as easily let me stew in my own mess.  After all, I made my bed, now let me lay in it.  Besides, I was a senior with no possible way to ever contribute to the success of the sports program.  No matter.  Mr. Lee was born to coach.  He saw a "me-first" kid and did his best to help me learn to be less selfish.  Let me say that I loved his coaching.  I wish to this day I could have played football for Mr. Lee.  For that matter, too bad he wasn't the basketball coach.
 

The Dilemma

Another coach who worked with me was none other than Mr. Phillips, my daily nemesis.  On that first day he played against me, I could see he was angry at me.  I am not kidding.  Mr. Phillips guarded me with more intensity than any player I had ever come up against.  Let me add his demeanor was basically hostile.  It was personal with him.  He didn't like me.  Do you blame him?  No one likes a bully.

However, Mr. Phillips thawed out over the next two months.  First he seemed to develop the kind of begrudging respect you get for a worthy adversary.  This was his first year at Saint John's.  In fact, I am not even sure he was an official coach.  I think he was doing a student internship or something.  He was only three or four years older than me.  I am just guessing, but Mr. Phillips seemed to have a chip on his shoulder too.  Don't ask me why I felt that way except he was over-competitive just like I was.  I can't imagine what it could be, but Mr. Phillips seemed to have something to prove too.  Call it a hunch. 

Once Mr. Phillips had firmly established his athletic dominance over me, he began to ease up a little.  At this point, I got to know Mr. Phillips pretty well.  Even though we kept it formal - I was "Archer" and he was "Mr. Phillips" - slowly but surely we developed a rapport.  Since the two older coaches were best friends who liked to talk to each other, Mr. Phillips found it easier to talk to me a lot of the time.  After all, we were practically Siamese twins fused at the hip thanks to his airtight defense.

Eventually Mr. Phillips let down his guard.  Although he still wasn't going to let me have an easy shot, during the games he began to talk to me more like a casual friend than as a student to supervise.  He was constantly needling me to go out for the varsity.  I explained my grocery store job dilemma to him.  He actually took the time to analyze it and said he at least understood my problem.  But then there were times when he couldn't believe I had refused to support my school.

One day during the game I was dribbling the baseline.  I switched the ball from my right hand to my left and flipped in a shot from behind the backboard.  I did this with Mr. Phillips hanging all over me.  Mr. Phillips shook his head in frustration.  He had done everything in his power to stop me, but I had scored anyway.  He knew it wasn't a lucky shot either.  I was capable of making shots like this. 

With a frown on his face, Mr. Phillips said, "Damn it, Archer, you need to go out for the varsity.  What the hell is wrong with you?" 

This statement thrilled me and cut me wide open at the same time.  It was a compliment, but in truth Mr. Phillips was also angry at me.  He had told me several times I needed to try out.  In his mind, I was letting down my school.  Furthermore, I desperately wanted to play!  Oh how I yearned for the chance!  Moments like these twisted me up into knots.

To make a team, first you have to go out for it.  I was so worried about making money to pay for college that I didn't think I could afford to quit my job sacking groceries after school.  My dilemma was complicated by the fact that the new manager of my grocery store didn't like me very much.  Now that I think about it, there were a lot of people who didn't like me very much in those days.  No surprise there.  You had to be very patient to find my good side. 

Unlike Mr. Griffey, the kindly older man who had first hired me a year earlier, my new manager, Mr. Ocher, was young, impatient, and authoritarian.  Mr. Ocher was exactly the kind of person I didn't respond to very well.  His abrupt, critical style made me bristle.  Any perceived slight and I would snap back defensively. 

Life isn't very easy when you have a personality disorder.  Ask me.  I can give you plenty of examples where my smart mouth was my undoing.  I don't think Mr. Ocher liked my sarcasm very much.  In fact, he had recently written me up for 'insubordination' as the first step to justify firing me if I didn't shape up.  He called me into his office.  First he chewed me out.  Then he decided to write me up.  He cited me for four different infractions.  I sat there for 30 minutes - 30 minutes! - watching him write the document.  The entire time I had to listen to his non-stop comments about my poor attitude.  I will never forget the smile on his face as he ordered me to sign it.  I was skating on thin ice here.  I knew if I asked this man for time off to play basketball, I wasn't coming back.

But gee whiz, I wanted to play basketball for Saint John's so much!   If only the school's basketball coach had asked me to play... IF ONLY!
 

Crime and Punishment

I wanted the coach to ask me to play.  Yes, that's how immature I was.  I kept hanging around the gym.  I actually hoped the basketball coach would notice how good I was and encourage me to try out for the team.  It never happened.  When I realized he could care less about me, I developed a huge grudge against him. 

In the man's defense, I was good, but I wasn't that good.  Yes, I could win one-on-one matches against the varsity players, but I was a selfish player who didn't understand team sports.  Furthermore, I was an unknown quantity.  I had never once played for him.  Perhaps if I was 6' 5", the coach might have said something, but as it stood there was no compelling reason for him to approach me.  In fact, I am not even sure the basketball coach knew I existed. 

Nevertheless, I took his imagined rebuff personally. I was burning up because the coach had ignored me.  Nor did I have anyone to sit me down and give me a healthy dose of reality therapy.  Unchecked, my resentment grew and grew.

After basketball season ended, so did our noontime PE basketball games.  We switched to softball.  If I wanted to play basketball, I would have to start playing at the city gyms again.  But I had a problem - Mom wasn't big on housework.  The mature thing to do would have been to wash my own clothes.  But I had a better idea.  If the coach wouldn't ask me to play for his team, I would play for Saint John's somewhere else!  By stealing Saint John's gym clothes, not only would I have an endless supply of clean basketball clothes, by wearing the SJS tee shirt I would be representing my school! 

So that spring I started to borrow sports equipment to use for my after-school playground basketball career.  Since I played four times a week, I began to accumulate a lot of smelly clothes in the back seat of my car.  When my borrowed clothes got dirty, I would exchange them for clean clothes.  I also borrowed a couple SJS basketballs to use to warm up with or to use in our pickup games.  It wasn't basketball season anymore, so I figured they didn't need them anyway.  Who cares?  I justified everything because the coach had snubbed me. 

My pickup games were always played against inner city kids who had never heard of Saint John's.  They would look at the red "Faith and Virtue" SJS logo with the lantern and ask what kind of place that was.  I would tell them it was a rich kid's school in River Oaks only to be asked, "Are you rich?"  That didn't go over very well.  Most of these players were poor and semi-literate.  They had sensed for some time that I didn't seem to fit the mold.  A couple of the kids became suspicious of me.  They decided I didn't belong here.  Was I a cop?  Was I looking for drugs?

It became easier just to say nothing.  I wasn't going to let their suspicions stop me from wearing my red shorts and my SJS tee-shirt.  I took pride in wearing the SJS tee shirt even if it was only gym clothes. 

But now as I stood in the Headmaster's Office with these four administrators staring at me in exasperation, it didn't seem like a very good idea any more.

To be honest, I think these men would have believed me if I had taken the time to explain the clothes were a symbol of my guilt and frustration over skipping the basketball season.  However, I was a pretty confused kid.  I would not have been able to explain these feelings in any coherent way.  Nor do I think explaining my grudge against the basketball coach would have helped win my case.  Let's face it; it was my own fault I didn't go out for the team. 

So I simply said I borrowed the stuff to play basketball after school and that I intended to return it all when school ended.

I can't begin to say how ashamed I felt as I watched them wrestle to understand my explanation. 

Now as I stood before the four men, I expected serious punishment.  I certainly deserved it!  I knew I had done wrong.  You might even speculate I wanted to be caught.  After all, what thief leaves stolen goods in plain sight? 

I also knew there was ample precedent for punishment.  There had once been a star athlete at Saint John's who had been caught cheating on a final exam.  He was forced to leave the school in complete disgrace.  He wasn't allowed to participate in graduation exercises.  He had been a sports hero, but his name would always be tarnished by this extreme punishment.  If they would treat this young man so harshly, what kind of treatment could I hope for?

However, as I watched these four men, I noticed they were fidgeting in their chairs.  I noticed in particular that Mr. Lee glanced at Mr. Osborne.  He had the oddest look on his face.  What was that all about?  I got the distinct impression these men were at a loss to know what to do with me.  They dismissed me without a decision.

Later that day, Mr. Lee, the athletic director, approached me in the hallway.  He told me to return the clothes and the basketballs and to not do this again. There would be NO punishment.  All I had to do was promise I would not repeat this mistake. 

Don't worry about that!  After the terror I had experienced facing these four men earlier in the day, I would never dream of doing it again.

I never have figured out why they gave me the kid's glove treatment, but turned around and expelled other kids.  My sense of justice said that I deserved to be punished.

Based on the body language, only Mr. Murphy had obviously wanted to give me the guillotine.  Mr. Salls' face had been totally inscrutable. On the other hand, Mr. Osborne and Mr. Lee knew how crazy I was about basketball.  They had spent enough time with me that winter to know that for a fact.  They seemed the most merciful.  That probably stood in my favor.   What I had done was wrong, but after all, the equipment was there in plain sight just ten feet from the front door to Mr. Lee's office.  I guess they decided to take my word for it that I was going to return the clothes and the basketballs.  There were only three weeks left in the school year.  What good would punishing me now do?  Let it go.

Looking back over time, I believe the cheating incident and the stealing incident serve as two clear examples that the faculty at Saint John's was silently taking care of a deeply troubled kid as carefully as they could.

They knew I was having a tough time at home.  Maybe that explains why they spared me not once, but twice.  They had every right to use the figurative lash, but they chose to use their soft touch instead.  They were incredibly patient with me to my face.  I can only wonder what they thought of me in private.  Whatever their private thoughts, these men handled me perfectly.

I am so grateful to these men and to my school.  Saint John's was an elite institution for a reason.  Not only did it possess a gifted faculty, but it also had coaches and administrators who used wisdom to guide the place.  They were not my parents.  Nevertheless, through direct and indirect guidance, several faculty and administrators quietly helped to raise me.  I don't think "Being Dad" to a troubled kid was in their job description, but several men chose to volunteer for the role anyway. 

Not only that, they were so skilled that I never even realized they were watching over me the whole time.  I had no idea I had silent mentors.
 

Weingarten's Grocery Store I wanted so much to play basketball for my school.  Even to this day, my single greatest regret about Saint John's still remains not going out for the basketball team.  However it had been plain to me for some time that if I intended to go to college, I would have to do it on my own.  As ugly as this sounds, I wanted to escape my mother more than anything else in the world.  College was my obvious ticket out of town.  For years now, I had put my heart and soul into getting good grades to improve my chances of getting into a good college as far away as possible.  However, the money angle was something I had little control over.  I was very worried. Yes, I had a full scholarship at Saint John's, but I had no guarantee of a scholarship in college.  Unlike my rich kid counterparts, I knew my parents could not be counted on.  They were hopeless!  Of this I was positive.  Neither parent said a word about college tuition.  I knew my mother was incapable of contributing and my father simply avoided the subject.  As usual, I was on my own.  I was panic-stricken about the subject of college tuition.  I figured it was all up to me.  I better do something. In order to save money for college, in the spring of my Sophomore year in high school, I got a job sacking groceries.  I began to work three days a week after school and all day on Saturdays.  I worked full-time in the summer.  I kept this job for two and a half years.

Weingarten's on Alabama at Dunlavy was the same store where I had once been caught shop-lifting candy in the Eighth Grade (1963).  I would stuff candy bars in my pocket.  One day a plain clothes cop grabbed me by the collar and hauled me into a room in the back of the store.  He wrote a report and chewed me out upside down.  He threatened me with jail downtown, the works.  I kid you not, he scared the you know what out of me.  I was shaking like a leaf.

When the manager, Mr. Griffey, walked in, he recognized me immediately.  I was so ashamed!   Mr. Griffey knew who I was because he knew my mother quite well.  Mom had bounced a check or two over the years.  Mr. Griffey had patiently worked with her.  Mom always found a way to catch up on her debts.  I remember that Mom liked him very much.  I guess Mr. Griffey took care of her the same way Saint John's took care of me.  The mother bounces checks and the kid gets caught stealing.  Weren't we a pair? 

Now as I stood there in the stockroom, Mr. Griffey told me he wasn't going to press charges.  He asked me not to repeat this again.  In addition, he wanted me to tell my mother what I had done.  Furthermore, he wanted her to come speak to him the next time she in was the store.  Chastened, I promised to do what he said. 

Two years later when I applied for my job (1965),  I have no doubt that Mr. Griffey remembered this incident.  He had to know he was taking a big chance on me.  This was the same kid who had stolen from his store!  I never really expected him to hire me.  He knew I was smart, but he also had first-hand knowledge I was a problem kid. To my amazement, I got the job.  Now Weingarten's had a preppie kid sacking groceries. 

Caught stealing candy.  Caught stealing gym equipment.  Caught cheating on a test. 

These anecdotes indicate I was teetering on the edge of being a delinquent.  I strayed several times.  Fortunately for me, as you have read, each time I stumbled, decent people showed up to push me back on the right track. 

One of those decent people was Maria Ballantyne.
 

I assumed Mrs. Ballantyne had taken note of my khaki pants and white polo shirt, which was the SJS uniform at that time.  Now an amused look crossed her face.  She seemed pleased that her hunch was correct. 

Then a frown crossed her face.  What was a Saint John's kid doing working in a place like this? 

"How long have you worked here?"

"Almost two years."

"How often do you work?"

"Four days a week.  Three afternoons after school and all day Saturday."

"And you have been doing this for two years?"

"Yes, ma'am."

Mrs. Ballantyne was curious.  From her point of view, this had to be an improbable scenario.  What was a Saint John's student doing sacking groceries after school?   Sure, a lot of the kids had part-time jobs working for their parents or selling expensive shoes at Sakowitz on a Saturday afternoon, but this was not exactly a prestige job.  What was a kid who attended the most expensive prep school in the city doing working after school at a grocery store?

I made $1.25 an hour base salary.  In addition, I was allowed to keep my tips.  After I sacked their groceries, I would haul them to people's cars in hopes of a dime or a quarter tip.  You have no idea how important those quarters were for me.  They actually gave me a reason to develop a personality!  I learned at my Weingarten's job that I was well-liked by a lot of the customers.  For nine years, I had filled a specific niche at Saint John's as the resident nobody.   But here I felt appreciated.

This job had actually helped me find myself and gain some confidence.  I learned that my St. Johns-acquired skills of politeness and respect were much appreciated by the adults I came into contact with.  Thanks to my amazing education, I had a wonderful vocabulary.  I expressed myself well and could converse on a surprising variety of topics.  People were always commenting on how intelligent I seemed to be.  I deeply appreciated their kind words.  I discovered that by being nice to these people, they remembered me and would get in my line to get their groceries sacked.  I also discovered people like to reward my courtesy with dimes and quarters. 

Those dimes and quarters meant a lot more to me than just 'money'.  Thanks to my acne episode, I had been in a shell for the past two years.  These dimes and quarters were a salvation.  The tip money gave me a reason to develop a personality!   The more I talked to these adults, they more they liked me.  My pock-marked face didn't seem to bother them at all.  Slowly but surely, one tip at a time, I began to re-enter the human race and develop some self-esteem. 

I saw this job as a blessing.  This job had been very good for me. I could not have explained this to Mrs. Ballantyne, but this job had been responsible for bringing me back to the Land of the Living.

Meanwhile, Mrs. Ballantyne kept studying me.  "I think I recognize you.  Are you in my daughter Katina's class?"

"Yes, ma'am, that is correct."

"I thought so."  She nodded, pleased that she had finally placed me.

"What is your name?"

I hesitated.  What name should I tell her?  "Rick Archer"

My classmates called me "Dick Archer", a name I detested.  When I began my job at Weingarten's, I saw an opportunity to forge a new identity.  I told everyone my name was "Rick".  However, back at Saint John's I saw little reason to change my name.  They had been calling me "Dick" ever since the Fourth Grade.  Changing my name seemed too awkward to fool with.

I now expected Mrs. Ballantyne would get in her car and drive off.  This was a good opportunity to say something nice, hand me a quarter and be on her way.  To my surprise, Mrs. Ballantyne was just getting started.  She began to ask me even more questions about myself.  Right there in the middle of the parking lot she engaged me in a serious talk about what I was doing here and what did I think of Saint John's. 

Her first questions were about my job here at Weingarten's.  Mrs. Ballantyne seemed fascinated to understand how someone from a rich kid's school had ended up with a job sacking groceries!  Just as I found it difficult to believe that Mrs. Ballantyne was visiting this run-down store far from her home, I imagine this was the last place she had ever expected to find a St. John's student working!   In school uniform, no less.

One part of me wondered if she was getting the information so she could have a funny story for her wealthy friends.  But I have tell you I didn't believe that.  She seemed genuinely interested in me.  I did not get the slightest idea she was toying with me at all.

I explained that I had gotten a job here at the end of my Sophomore year because money was so scarce at home.  I proudly pointed to my used Volkswagen Beetle parked nearby.  I told her I had paid for the car myself from the money I had made sacking groceries.  Mrs. Ballantyne smiled her approval.

She asked if money was so tight at home, then how did my parents manage to send me to such an expensive school? 

Parents?  What parents?  After I did my best to  explain my scholarship status, Mrs. Ballantyne nodded.  It was starting to make sense now.  I was poor kid who went to a rich kid's school.  I had a job because I didn't know how else I was going to afford to pay for college.  She smiled and told me how impressed she was.

Inside, I was a nervous wreck.  I was tickled pink that this woman whom I had admired for so long was taking the time to talk to me.  Furthermore, her compliments were like medicine for my wounded self-esteem.  But I certainly didn't have enough self-confidence to feel at ease talking with the most famous parent at Saint John's.  I was very tense.

That is when the conversation shifted.  I think my story reminded her of her own youth in some way. Mrs. Ballantyne began to talk a little bit about herself.  She gave me the impression that things hadn't been too easy for her when she was a child.  Mrs. Ballantyne explained to me she had a similar experience of growing up around wealth without her own family being particularly wealthy.  Her dad was an interesting character but not much of a father. Her mother died when she was 12 and the family was split up.  She and her brothers attended college only because they were helped by someone in the Galveston underworld.  My eyes grew wide.  I got the distinct feeling her own story had some strange parallels to my own.

Now Mrs. Ballantyne made her point.  If she could overcome adversity, then she believed I could too.  She added it looked to her like I was well on my way already.

I was growing more at ease with my famous visitor.  I had been curious about this lady for a long time.  I had always wondered what she was like in person.  I was enjoying her attention, so I answered her questions without hesitation.  Mrs. Ballantyne was growing more curious about me as well.  If asked to guess, I think Mrs. Ballantyne was surprised to discover such an unusual Saint John's story here on a parking lot in the middle of nowhere. 

Mrs. Ballantyne asked me all kinds of questions.  I didn't mind a bit.  I felt like she was concerned about me.  She found out I was an only child and that my parents were divorced. Further prodding revealed I rarely saw my father and that my mother was having trouble keeping a job.

Mrs. Ballantyne threw me curve by noting that I was pretty tall.  She asked me why I didn't play sports. After all, St. John's was a small school and needed every "able body".  She pointed out that her own children had gained a lot of confidence through sports.  I breathed deeply and explained about my how my blind left eye kept me out of football.  Then I added how much I wanted to try out for the basketball team, but that I had made a decision to keep my job after school instead.

As we spoke, basketball season had just ended.  I told her how much I regretted never trying out for the basketball team.  I said that on one level it was the dumbest decision I had ever made and that it ate me up inside.  However, there was no conceivable way I was going to college on a basketball scholarship.  The practical side of me said keeping my grocery job had been the right thing to do.  It was sack or get sacked.  There was no way that manager was going to let me come back if I took the time off.  In retrospect, I told her I had probably made the right choice.  However my decision had left me in despair.

Mrs. Ballantyne nodded in sympathy. 

Even my own mother didn't know this story.  Isn't it odd that Mrs. Ballantyne was the only person I ever confessed my secret disappointment to?  This woman found out more about me in twenty minutes than probably any other person in the entire school!  She asked the right questions, she listened, and she seemed to care. I really liked this lady!  I just started blurting out all sorts of things.  When the dam breaks... obviously I needed someone to talk to. 

Mrs. Ballantyne was a very skilled listener.  While I spoke, Mrs. Ballantyne gave me a lot of encouragement.  She had that constant smile and watched me attentively. She definitely knew how to put people at ease.  Mrs. Ballantyne's concern meant a lot to me.  Mrs. Ballantyne made me feel like I was someone important. In her presence, I witnessed a warmth I had never seen from her status-conscious counterparts.  She talked to me just like a normal person would, not some high and mighty society matron.  This was a real person I was speaking to, not one of those superficial phonies with their put-on 'concern'. 

Mrs. Ballantyne held the highest prestige of any parent at my school.  I was deeply flattered that a woman this important would take the time to talk to me.  I was without a doubt the least visible kid in the whole school.  Nevertheless, Mrs.  Ballantyne made me feel like I belonged at that school just as much as her own talented kids.  For a young man who felt like a total outsider, the thought that someone at that school besides one of my teachers actually cared about me was a precious experience. 
 

The Grudge However, the entire time we talked, there was a mysterious dark cloud that overshadowed our conversation.  I had been nursing a pretty strong grudge towards the Ballantyne family for over a week now.  Let me be more specific - mostly I was mad at Mrs. Ballantyne, yes, the same woman who was standing here talking to me. I blamed Mrs. Ballantyne for costing me a $4,000 college scholarship one week earlier.  I was pretty sure it was her fault that I hadn't received this award.  It had to be her!  This lady was so influential.  I found it hard to imagine she had not been involved in this unfair decision.  Right now Mrs. Ballantyne and I were speaking together for the first time in our lives.  How ironic was it that the one woman I admired the most in the world had recently become one woman I disliked the most in the world?  Furthermore, what strange twist of fate had brought us together today?

This was beyond a doubt the strangest coincidence I had ever encountered in my life.  One part of me wanted to hug this woman and say 'thank you' for showing interest in me.  Another part of me wanted to chew her out and give her a piece of my mind. I wanted to tell her that rich people shouldn't push poor kids like me around.  Meanwhile a third part of me simply wanted to look up at the sky and ask exactly who up there was responsible for arranging this bizarre chance meeting today!

I knew I would never have the guts to confront Mrs. Ballantyne with my suspicions.  I was far too introverted to bring up a subject this inflammatory.  As kind as she was being to me today, I knew her reputation for being strong-willed as well.  She would eat me up and grind me to pieces for having the temerity to challenge her!  No way I was going to speak up. 

So what was this grudge all about?

Back in those days there was something known as the Jesse H. Jones Scholarship.  This scholarship was given to one student a year from each high school in the Houston area. If memory serves, it paid something like a $1,000 a year at the time, $4,000 total.  I had known about that scholarship for some time.  I definitely had my eye on it.  For the past three years, I had read the Houston Post and taken careful note of each person from Saint John's who had won the award.  I was on pins and needles hoping it would be my turn this year.

Considering my fears about college tuition, I was serious in my desire to win this scholarship. I was really counting on that money.   I certainly considered myself the top candidate.  I was easily the poorest kid in the entire school and I had nearly the best grades in my class. 

What else did it take?
 

Money from my Mother

I needed all the help I could get to pay for college.  At $1.25 an hour, I would have to sack a lot of groceries to pay for college. 

I knew my mother didn't have a nickel to contribute.  My mother was so poor that I even had to pay the final St. John's book and meal bill just to graduate!  One night in May 1968, as I came home, my mother handed me a bill from Saint John's.   Along with the bill was a note that said in order for me to graduate, my mother would have to clear the debt.  Mom shook her head and apologized, but she was broke.

So the next day I went to the business office and wrote out a check for $450.  I bet to this day I am still the only kid in the history of the school that had to clear the final bill out of his own pocket. 

I don't think I need to say anything more about my mother's ability to help me with college tuition.
 

Money from my Father

So what about my other parent?  Although I haven't said much about him, I actually did have a father.  Well, sort of. 

After the divorce in 1959, I saw my father on a regular basis for about half a year.  In fact, I think I saw him every weekend.  Then something awkward happened that first Christmas. 

I was ten years old.  My father bought me this gigantic erector set complete with some kind of electrical engine.  It was a very expensive set.  Dad was very proud of his gift.  Being an electrical engineer, this stuff was right up his alley.

Dad took out the list of projects and looked it over.  He immediately suggested we build a drawbridge.  The drawbridge had elaborate instructions.  He said all we had to do was follow the instructions.  What could be easier?

Dad handed me the tools and worked with me for a while.  I was game, but I didn't do very well.  This was way over my head.  When he realized how totally overwhelmed I was, Dad got the strangest look in his face.  I have a hunch that my father was able to build stuff like this when he was my age and couldn't understand why I couldn't.  He couldn't believe how inept I was, especially when compared to his own immense natural ability. 

Something snapped in the man.  He had just discovered his son had no mechanical ability (it was the truth; I have none).  His face was crest-fallen.  Impatient, he took the tools out of my hands and began to build the bridge himself.   He told me to watch carefully and he would show me how to do it.  Then I could do it by myself tomorrow after he took me back to Mom's apartment.  Sure, Dad. 

Three hours later, Dad finished.  It was a magnificent structure.  Hit a switch and the drawbridge went up and down.  Dad was so proud of himself.  He looked at the bridge and beamed.  Then he looked at me and frowned.  I got the message.  I had failed him.  I wasn't good enough.

After Christmas, he stopped seeing me.  At the time I was sick in my stomach.  I assumed his absence had something to do with how badly I had done with the erector set.  What else was I supposed to think?  He skipped a couple weekend visits.  He didn't call.  I missed him a lot.  My mother was still too angry about the divorce to get in touch with him, so I stayed in the dark assuming it was all my fault.

Half a year went by.  Then one day he called and said he was coming to pick me up for our scheduled Saturday.  I was thrilled!  I got my father back!  I was going to be the best kid possible.  When I got back to his apartment, he introduced me to his new girlfriend.  Dad spent the rest of the day hanging out with her.  I watched TV and watched nervously out of the corner of my eye as the two of them played court and spark in the background.  I wasn't quite sure why he was ignoring me.  I guess she was better with erector sets than I was.

Then he drove me home.  What a great father-son Saturday. 

Dad married that woman not too long afterwards.  From what Mom later told me, she was a lady from his office.  She had suspected an office affair that pre-dated the divorce, but had no proof.  It took me a few years to figure it out, but the real reason Dad had skipped his weekends was to pursue his new flame.  It had nothing to do with me at all.  Too bad I didn't know that at the time.

I did not like his new wife.  My wicked stepmother was something out of Cinderella.  She didn't like me either.  She preferred not to see me in her house (the feeling was mutual).  Once she came on the scene, my father more or less exited from my life.  His personal life became wrapped around his new family.  He had two children by his second wife, a boy and a girl.  The boy was at least 11 years younger than me, the girl probably 13 years younger.  I was never included in his second family.  To this day, I doubt I would recognize either of my half-siblings if I ran into them by chance.

Once the new family came in, Dad seemed to forget about me.  To this day, I have never figured out why he did that.

For the next eight years, I estimate I saw my father about three or four times a year.  My nickname for Dad was "Four Seasons."   Once on my birthday - Fall.  Once at Christmas - Winter.  Once in the Spring.  Once in the Summer.  Maybe.

So what city did my father live in that kept him from seeing me more often?  LA?  NY?  Dallas?  Denver? 

My father lived in Houston.  In fact, my father worked just down the street from Saint Johns.  His office was at the corner of Westheimer at Weslayan. This was less than half a mile away from my school.  If he wanted to see me, lunch was an easy option. Or coffee in the afternoon.  Heck, I could have walked to his office!  His witch of a wife wouldn't even have to know he was seeing me. 

Or what about the phone?  Nah.  Dad wasn't much of a phone guy.  Dad preferred to limit our time together to one very cheerful hour of lunch every three months. 

Oddly enough, I liked seeing my father.  Whenever we were together, he was invariably nice to me.  Dad was basically a pretty nice guy, always friendly, always affable. 

Dad always seemed happy to see me.  I guess when you spend four hours a year with your kid, you can smile with the best of them.  Dad decided to bypass the typical father-son relationship.  Instead he developed a buddy-buddy rapport with me.  I don't recall one single word of criticism from him the entire 48 years I knew him.  I don't recall any advice either.  He was more like your friendly distant uncle.  Now that I think of it, we spent a lot of our time with me listening to his problems with his job and the difficulties of raising his two children from his second marriage.  That's my father. 

I lay much of the responsibility for this pathos on the doorstep of my stepmother.  I don't know why, but she really did not want me around him.  What sort of threat could I have possibly been to her family?  I was a 10-year old kid when the brush-off began.

I have written about the kindness of several people like my teachers who took a big chance on me when it wasn't their job to do so.  I have also pointed out how my first grocery store manager hired me even though he knew I had once stolen from him.   My stepmother was a person who went exactly the opposite direction.  She never lifted a finger to help me.  Here I was an only child with a dysfunctional mother.  My mother was a good person, but she was perpetually lost at sea.  I needed my father a great deal, but for the rest of my life this woman did something to keep us apart.  I don't know how she did it, but my father occasionally alluded to her distaste for me.  I will never forgive her.

Here's a tidbit that says it all.  I wasn't even invited to Dad's funeral (1998).  I knew my father was dying.  He had been sick for some time with a cocktail of different problems.  Then he took the ominous turn for the worse.  My stepbrother left a message on the answering machine.  When I got to the hospital, my father waved to me from his bed.  Unfortunately, my stepmother saw me before I could enter the room.  She got up to block the door.  Although my father was conscious, she said he was too weak to see me.  Why not come back tomorrow?  The next day he slipped into a coma.  A week later, another phone message gave me the bad news.

A couple mornings later as I ate breakfast, I looked in the paper to see if my father's obituary was posted yet.  I was stunned to see the notice in the paper indicated his funeral service was being held at the exact moment I happened to be reading the paper!  There had been no message about this service.

Panic-stricken, I put the cereal in the sink, ran to my car, and rushed to the church.  I was wearing whatever I had on when I read the paper.  I got there just in time to catch the final 30 minutes of the service.  I was the last to enter and the first to leave.  My stepmother had not even had the courtesy to tell me about my father's funeral.  But 100 other people seemed to have gotten the message.

My stepmother was definitely not my friend.

Still, we all know who is really to blame here.  What kind of man lets his second wife bully him into avoiding his child? 
 

The Ordeal Begins

Surprisingly, my father was not a complete deadbeat.  For nine years, once a month like clockwork, Dad sent my mother $100 in child support.  He met his responsibility just like he was supposed to all the way till my 18th birthday.  My mother and I both looked forward to the money.  Sometimes Mom couldn't go grocery shopping till that check showed up.  Unless Mom wanted to bounce another check, there were times when that money was the difference between eating or not eating.  I recall many times coming home from school and checking the mailbox immediately to see if that check had arrived yet.  Why?  Because I was hungry.

I really did appreciate Dad's reliability on the child support.  However, other than that, this man was basically useless to me as a father.  It was much too much trouble for him to be involved in my everyday life.  Too busy.  Even when I did see him, all he did was tell me his problems.  I couldn't bear to listen to him whine.  I never did quite figure out when I became the Dad and he became the Kid, but that's sort of what happened. 

Consequently I learned to make absolutely no demands on him.  Why bother?

In the entire nine years after the divorce, my father came to my rescue one time.  I was fourteen.   My mother didn't have enough money to pay a dermatologist for my minor skin problems.  So one night she got out a needle and started merrily popping the pimples.  I understand if you wish to gag.  Now brace yourself.  This story is going to get worse. Well, thanks to Mom's bright idea, my lymph gland nodes got infected.  While I slept that night, the infection spread like wildfire.  Pimples erupted everywhere on my face like volcanic explosions.  It was something out of a horror movie, except in my case it was not a nightmare.  This was a living waking hell.  Overnight - yes, the very next morning - I woke up with my face burning in pain.  I had swelling too.  The swelling stretched the skin on my face so tight that I was having trouble moving my jaw.  What was wrong with me?  I rushed to the mirror and screamed.  I had the face of a monster! This picture from The Fly is a lot closer to what I really looked like than I care to admit. Overnight, my face had ballooned to twice its size with hundreds of angry red pustules.  No, I am not making this up.  I still have the scars to prove it.  This experience was something straight out of Kafka's Metamorphosis.  "Gregor Samsa awakes one morning in his family's apartment to find himself inexplicably transformed overnight into a gigantic insect."

With my face bloated out of proportion with pimples on top of pimples, how I had the guts to show my face at school that day I will never know.  That may have been the most difficult thing I have ever done in my life.  Walking around school with kids staring incredulously at me ripped me to shreds with shame.  Nor did it end there.

A couple days later, I was trying out for the Freshman basketball team.  During a drill, a kid threw a basketball at me.  The kid thought he saw me looking at him when he threw it.  Unfortunately, due to my childhood accident, I am blind in my left eye.  The kid had no way to know he was throwing to my blind side.  I never saw it coming.  The ball hit me full force on the side of my swollen face.  This was an accident of course, but the pain was searing!  

I fell down and writhed in agony as the pus in my swollen, infected face burned for an eternity.  The pain would not go away!  It hurt so bad tears welled up in my eyes.  Everyone crowded around trying to understand why I was in so much pain.  How could they possibly know what was wrong?   I put my hands over my head so people could not see me cry.  I couldn't decide what hurt worse, my face or the humiliation. 

First my face was so full of pimples I couldn't stand to look at myself in a mirror.  Now I couldn't even play basketball thanks to this hideous curse.  I just wanted to die right there on the spot.  Humiliated, I left practice.  I did not have the courage to go back to basketball practice until this outbreak went away.

But the pimples would not go away.  I had a serious infection. 

Desperate, I called my father for help. He said his insurance would pay 80% of my treatment.  He said he would go ahead and pick up the remainder of the tab.  I had never been so grateful in my life.  Unfortunately, the problem was far too gone for a quick cure.  It took a year plus of tetracycline and incalculable amounts of mental agony to get the inflammation under control. 

Next came the next brutal reality.  The aftermath was almost as bad.  Once the pimples disappeared, I despaired when I realized my face was pockmarked worse than a cratered Moon landscape.  My face was a series of peaks and valleys.  Indeed, the scarring was so bad I eventually had to undergo three dermabrasion operations to even come close to restoring my ravaged face to normalcy.  These skin planing operations helped, but to this day there are still plenty of scars left to remind me of this terrible period of my life.

My freshman and sophomore years became a living hell all because my mother couldn't afford to send me to the doctor in the first place.  Nevertheless, I was grateful that Dad did the best he could to help.  Without his help, I shudder to think what I would look like today.
 

Dad Drops the Ball in the Sixth Grade

On the other hand, my father really let me down at the end of the Sixth Grade.

My parents divorced when I was nine.  Even before the divorce, I had been miserable for some time.  Every night I could hear my parents fighting as I lay in bed.  I cried myself to sleep more nights than not.  Mom was really worried about me.  She made sure that as part of the divorce settlement, my father was legally responsible for paying my SJS tuition through the Sixth Grade.  Thanks to her psychiatrist's recommendation, my mother was convinced this school was the only place that might give me the structure and discipline I needed.  It turned out that Dr. Mendel's advice was right on the money.  Entering in the Fourth Grade (1959), to everyone's surprise (including mine), I made the Honor Roll the very first quarter at the school.  Then I did it again.  And again.  In fact, I would never miss the Honor Roll once in nine years. 

What a remarkable difference this school had made!  Saint John's School quickly became the wonderful bright spot of my otherwise miserable childhood.  After my lackluster performance in public school, you would assume that competing head to head with the best and the brightest would be too much for me.  Just the opposite happened.  The academic challenge was exactly what I needed.  I had to work my butt off to keep up, but I enjoyed proving that I could hang with these smart kids.  I was exhilarated to discover I was just as smart as they were. 

Saint John's had worked a miracle! 

Most parents would have been thrilled.  What a turnabout!  However my father could have cared less.  Although I was thriving at the school, since he was no longer legally forced to do so, Dad refused to pay my tuition after the Sixth Grade. 

Dad sat me down to explain why he wasn't going to send to Saint John's any more.  He told me had a much better idea.  At the time (1962), my father said he preferred to put aside the same money for my college tuition.  Better to let me go to public school and save all that grade school money for the future when it would really count!  This way the money would be waiting for me when college time came around. 

Needless to say, Dad's brilliant idea didn't go over too well in my book.  Saint John's had become my entire life.  However, the die was cast.  Dad was done paying.  The irony was that soon after his two children began to go to expensive private schools.  My father had a style of his own. 

I was heartsick.  Mom could see how upset I was.  She was pretty upset herself.  She scheduled a talk with Mr. Chidsey, the Headmaster.  He said he appreciated how hard I had worked and how well I had fit in here at his school for the past three years.  He said he would be able to offer a half-scholarship if my mother could manage to pay the rest. 

Well, she couldn't.  Mom couldn't even pay her own rent most of the time.  That's why we always kept moving.  Thank goodness Uncle Dick and Aunt Lynn from Virginia stepped in at this time to keep me at Saint Johns for two more years.   I was so happy!   I always felt I could count on my beloved Aunt and Uncle more than my own parents.  They were very good to me.  I was incredibly grateful to both of them.  Too bad they had to live so far away.

Two years later (1964), Uncle Dick told Mom he couldn't continue to pay after the Eighth Grade.  He had four kids of his own.  The expenses of caring for them as well as me were too much.  Fortunately, at this time Mr. Chidsey offered to upgrade me to a full scholarship starting in the Ninth Grade.  I cannot begin to tell you how relieved I was. 
 

Dad's College Surprise

Let's fast forward to my Senior year in high school.  Three weeks before my March 1968 encounter with Mrs. Ballantyne, my father met me for lunch.  It must have been time for our Spring visit.  To my surprise, he handed me $400 in cash.  I frowned.  What was this for?  Dad was beaming with pride.  He announced this was the money he had saved up for my college tuition!  

Look, Son, it's Four Hundred Dollars!  See, I'm helping!  I am doing my part!  This will help you go to college!

I stared in disbelief.  The tuition at the colleges I had applied to were $4,000 a year.  And what about room and board? 

This $400 my father was handing me didn't even cover the money I had spent out of my own pocket on college application fees.  $400 was a drop in the bucket. What was he thinking?  And there he was, grinning from ear to ear at this amazing contribution he had just made!  You would think he had just won Father of the Year.

I was sick.  I was beyond sick.  I was disgusted.  Unfortunately I was far too introverted to confront him.  I just stared at the money dumbfounded.  I wouldn't even touch it.

I guess Dad finally figured out that something was bothering me.  While I sat there in shock, Dad used my silence as an opening to inform me how tough things were for him financially at the moment.  As he talked, all I could think about was how expensive it had to be sending my stepbrother and stepsister to their private schools.  No wonder it was so hard for him!

As my father rambled on and on about all his problems, all I could think about was that promise he had made to help me with college back in the sixth grade.  Did he think I had forgotten?  It was now six years since that promise.  In the six years since that promise, Dad had amassed the princely sum of four hundred dollars. 

Dad concluded his sob story by saying this was probably going to be his one and only contribution towards my college education.

What good would it do to tell him what a jerk he was?   I just accepted what little money he had to offer and said thank you.  That was that.  I said I had to go.  I got up and left him sitting there.

Now as I drove away in my little beat-up VW Bug, I seethed inside.  I was angry, but even more I was really hurt.  What in the hell was wrong with me?  Here I was one of the very best students at the finest school in Houston, but my father treated me like I was worthless.  Okay, so maybe I didn't have any mechanical ability, but at least I did well in school.  It wasn't like I was stupid.  Did he have any idea how hard I tried, how hard I studied? 

His indifferent attitude towards me made no sense.  Why did my own father think so little of me?

The ironic thing is, my father had money.  My father was one of the finest electrical engineers in all of America.  In fact, from what I gather, my father was a genius.  Dad once designed the electrical system for the cranes that held the space rockets at Cape Canaveral.  He designed systems that removed spent radioactive rods from nuclear reactors.  He designed electrical systems for cranes in northern Canada that could withstand the deep cold in the logging industry.  He even told me a wild UFO story about a crane he helped designed for some secret prototype aircraft in New Mexico.

Now here is the great mystery of my life, one I have never solved.  I assume my father was financially rewarded for his talent.  Most people with his special kind of ability are.  For starters, Dad made enough money to own a home in West Memorial.  In addition Dad worked his tail off to send my half-sister to Kinkaid, the expensive private school in the Memorial area, and then later on to Tulane.  Dad also spent a great deal of money sending my half-brother to a special ed private school.  I have no doubt that his salary was stretched thin, but he obviously did have money for what he considered important.  Therein lies the rub... what he considered important.

And from what he told me, Dad spent his retirement years devoted to helping my half-brother in many crucial ways.  In other words, based on what he told me, it seemed to me like Dad was a pretty good father to those two kids. 

Now, mind you, I don't begrudge the attention he gave to his two children.  I have no issues with them.

But I just don't get it.  Why did Dad function as a good father to those two children and totally ignore me?  What kind of sense did that make?  My father didn't want to pay for my education, but he had no problem paying tremendous amounts of money for the education of my two half siblings.  Dad was good to me when he was married to my mother.  The change came when he remarried.  What kind of evil spell did my stepmother cast over this man?  That woman must have had some serious black magic going for her.

I looked at the $400 again.  I had thrown it on the car seat in disgust.  Now I began to cry.  The money problem was depressing enough, but most of all I wondered why my own father didn't love me. 
 

The Jesse Jones Scholarship

No wonder I was coming unglued.  My mother was useless.  My father was useless.  It was going to take a lot of grocery sacking to pay my way through college.  I was running out of options.  There was not one single person I could turn to.  I felt like it was me against the world.  Winning the Jesse H Jones scholarship seemed like my last best chance to make it to college.  I was feeling pretty desperate.

Within this context, try to imagine my disappointment in late February 1968 when I discovered I didn't get the award.  The Houston Post listed the winners.  My heart raced as I scanned down the schools.  Saint John's... and the winner is... I paled as I realized my classmate Katina from the mighty Ballantyne clan had been given that scholarship grant instead of me.  

Katina Ballantyne had won the scholarship?  I couldn't believe it.  The first thing that crossed my mind was: "You've got to be kidding!  Katina lives in River Oaks and I live in a slum with holy rollers next door.  Why didn't I win this award?"

Dumbfounded, I stared at the paper.  It said that candidates are nominated by each participating high school.  Then a committee makes the final selection based on scholastic achievement, economic need, community service and leadership.

Scholastic achievement.  Katina Ballantyne had always been a good student, no question about it.  However I was an excellent student.  I treated academics as my ticket out of town.  I studied with the same kind intensity a man might use to escape a death sentence.  For the past nine years, my grades had always been 5 points better than Katina's.  I am not saying I was smarter, but with my back to the wall I definitely had more incentive to try as hard as I possibly could.  I was probably the most over-achieving kid in the entire school for the simple reason that I was also the most desperate.

Economic need.  When it came to "need", I could not imagine any kid in that entire school who needed the money more than I did.  Heck, I was the Oliver Twist of Saint John's.

Community service and leadership.  Hmm.  That gave me pause.  By those criteria, Katina definitely had me beat.  But they were listed third in order of importance.  I had been robbed.

As I stared numbly at the newspaper, I assumed the powerful Mrs. Ballantyne had pulled strings to steer the money her daughter's way.  I was pretty bitter. The rich just keep getting richer.  I began to feel intense resentment towards this woman.

I was in a terrible frame of mind.  First Dad had dropped his $400 bomb on me.  Two weeks later I got the bad news about the Jones scholarship. This wicked one-two punch had left me reeling.   How was I ever going to pay for college? 

There were no clear options left.  I was sick with worry.  I couldn't eat.  Every day was full of dread.  I could barely concentrate.  I was barely hanging on by a thread. 

This was the start of my enormous grudge towards Mrs. Ballantyne.  Every day as I obsessed over my problems, I blamed her for stealing my scholarship.

Showdown in the Parking Lot

On the day Mrs. Ballantyne came to my grocery store, it had only been a single week since the Jones scholarship disappointment.  I was still convinced that Mrs. Ballantyne had something to do with that decision.  I was going nuts.  One part of me was thrilled to be talking to her while another part was screaming for justice.

As Mrs. Ballantyne and I stood talking in the parking lot, I could not comprehend what bizarre twist of fate had presented the woman who had stolen my scholarship right before my eyes!

In nine years, our paths had never crossed once at Saint John's.  For nine years, I saw her three times a week at Saint John's, but not once had we even made eye contact, much less communicated.  Now, just one short week after my cruel scholarship disappointment, our paths had suddenly crossed in this strange, out of the way location.  This was too weird.

I suppose if Mrs. Ballantyne and I had this same chance meeting on the Saint John's campus, the coincidence would have been easier to accept.  But this grocery store was so far out of her way that I could not believe she was standing here before me.  But here she was nonetheless.

As I stood there answering questions about my grocery job and my time at Saint John's, I had an overwhelming urge to say something to her about the scholarship.  However I knew I didn't have the guts to bring up the subject.  One reason I held back is that I had no proof.  Another reason is that I don't know what good it would have done.

However the main reason I didn't speak up was some doubt had crept into my mind.  Mrs. Ballantyne had been so nice to me I was having trouble seeing her as Cruella de Ville.  My mental image of Mrs. Ballantyne as the bad guy was rapidly sliding out of focus.  I was surprised to feel my anger towards her start to subside. 

Why couldn't I stay mad at her?  After all, this woman stole my scholarship! 

Maybe so.  But I wasn't angry any more.  I had to admit this woman whom I had assumed was one of the haughty high and mighty had turned out to be a pretty nice lady.

I was having second thoughts about my grudge.  Maybe I needed to rethink this.  For starters, I liked Katina.  It wasn't her fault she had won the award.  Katina had always been nice to me.  I had never had a single issue with her in all these years.  We had never once had a cross word.  My grades were a little better, but not by much.  In fact, now that I wasn't quite so mad any more, I was even ready to admit Katina's leadership and school participation made her a lot more deserving than me in many ways.  The only place where I had her beat was "need", but maybe the committee didn't base their decisions completely on "need".  In that case, Katina was definitely the right person.  Maybe it was a fair fight after all.  I decided if anyone had to win it besides me, I was glad it was Katina. 

Now I was drained.  This was such an emotional moment for me.  Thanks to all my fears about money, I was already full of dread before Mrs. Ballantyne even entered the picture.  Now the exhilaration of meeting one of my idols combined with all the pain that was exposed by this chance meeting had turned me into a nervous wreck.  As we stood there along in the parking lot, I was a mess.  So many thoughts.  So many emotions.  I really couldn't think straight. 

I didn't know what to say next.  I stood there staring into space shuffling my weight from one foot to the other.  Now that my anger was gone, all the hurt was flooding in to take its place.  I was incredibly vulnerable.  Yes, I was on the verge of tears. Fortunately, Mrs. Ballantyne took control.  That is when Mrs. Ballantyne dropped her bombshell. Mrs. Ballantyne said, "Did you know that Katina was recently awarded the Jesse Jones scholarship?" My eyes grew wide.  Did she really say that?  Did Mrs. Ballantyne really just bring up the subject of the scholarship?  This had to be a dream.  If this is a dream, when do I start flying?  This moment had become utterly surreal.  Suddenly I was angry again.  I had just been on the verge of totally forgiving Mrs. Ballantyne for the scholarship theft and now she had the nerve to put the whole damn thing in front of my nose! It wasn't easy, but I held my tongue as my mind raced through the angles.  This was the most sensitive issue in my fragile psyche.  Did Mrs. Ballantyne just figure out on the spot during our conversation that I probably had energy on the subject?  And why would she take such a big chance by bringing it up?  Didn't she know I was a walking time bomb?  This was the a subject that could easily make me explode.

I have a temper.  Everyone knows that.  But not this day.  Do you want to know the real reason I didn't lose my temper?  Because everything was too weird!  I didn't know what to make of this woman.  None of my preconceptions about her seemed to fit.

Mrs. Ballantyne was smiling at me when she brought up the subject.  I could tell she wasn't trying to be mean to me.

Previously this entire meeting was difficult enough to believe, but now the conversation had just taken an even stranger turn.  But rather than lose my temper, I concentrated on trying to make some sense out of this amazing moment. 

What did Mrs. Ballantyne know that I didn't know?  Did she have even the slightest idea that I was furious towards her on the issue of the scholarship?  If so, how could she know I was mad at her?  I had never said a word to anyone!  Like everything else, I just kept it bottled up. 

Did this woman read minds?  Was she telepathic in her spare time?  Or was she simply the most perceptive person I had ever met?
 

Into the Twilight Zone Fighting to maintain control, my mind raced over the facts.  One, this was the woman I admired for nine years.  Two, this was also the woman I blamed for costing me my scholarship.  Three, this meeting place was way off her beaten path.  She had no business being here. Four, in 9 years we had never spoken even though our paths briefly crossed at least 3 times a week. Five, just one week after I had begun to hate her, we had just met for the first time.  Six, we were basically complete strangers, but this woman was talking to me as if we had known each other for years.  Seven, Mrs. Ballantyne had just brought up the burning SECRET issue that linked us without the slightest hint from me. I couldn't think straight.  I was feeling massive Twilight Zone vibes.

This was too weird.  Was this really an accidental meeting?  Or had Mrs. Ballantyne planned it? 

I could not shake how eerie this coincidence was.  And it had to be a coincidence.  Only a few classmates at Saint John's knew I worked here and Katina certainly wasn't one of them.  This meeting could not have been planned. 

By now I was much too confused to say anything.  Don't forget I was a mixed up teenager and this conversation was straight out of a Rod Serling story.  Except that Serling's stuff was make believe.  This was really happening to me.

Fortunately, Mrs. Ballantyne kept talking.  She began to explain the circumstances behind Katina's award.  Mrs. Ballantyne said that despite her family's obvious affluence, it would be impossible to simultaneously send SEVEN children to an expensive private school like St. John's as well as private colleges without some kind of help.  She said every child in her family was receiving at least some financial aid.

I may not have been able to speak, but my mind still worked.  That was an interesting piece of information.  It also made sense.  This was the first time I had ever considered the possibility that even rich people had to struggle to make ends meet.  

Let me add what she said further convinced me that the Ballantyne political clout had ineed had something to do with Katina winning that scholarship.  I also realized I didn't care any more.  I liked this woman so much it didn't matter.  She was too amazing for words. 

Mrs. Ballantyne had simply done what a parent is supposed to do - look out for her children.  Who could blame her for that?  Besides, Katina was light years ahead of me in school participation, a criterion for the award I had never previously considered till I read about it in the paper.  From that point of view, Katina deserved a lot of credit.  She had poured her heart and soul into sports, drama, choir, student council, the yearbook, you name it.  I shrugged.  Maybe the decision wasn't so unfair after all.

This was turning into a bible lesson... "soft words turneth away wrath."  Mrs. Ballantyne didn't even know I was mad at her, but as she continued to speak on the touchy subject, I could feel the anger draining out of me.

However, here is what was weird about what Mrs. Ballantyne said.  She spoke to me as if she already KNEW I had energy on the subject.  In other words, she was explaining how Katina won and why Katina won.  You have to hand it to her - she was starting to convince me that Katina deserved it over me!

True enough, I began to nod in agreement with what Mrs. Ballantyne was telling me.  There was an incredible healing taking place inside of me.  When she finished, to my surprise, I was able to speak again.  I smiled and said, "You know what, Mrs. Ballantyne, I am glad Katina won that scholarship.  I wish I had won it, but it's okay.  I appreciate your explanation."

Besides, in the back of my mind I knew I still had one more option.  Maybe I could get a scholarship from some college.  In fact, now that I wasn't angry any more, it crossed my mind for the first time that thanks to my acute poverty I would probably have a much easier time getting a scholarship than a doctor's daughter like Katina ever would.  Maybe this was for the best after all.  Now that I wasn't blinded by anger, Katina's award finally made some sense.

This was the correct time for the lady to exit, but Mrs. Ballantyne wasn't finished yet.  She had something serious to say.

Even though we were standing in the middle of the parking with no one in sight, Mrs. Ballantyne lowered her voice.  I had to move closer to hear her.  She was preparing to take me into confidence on something.  Mrs. Ballantyne told me not to worry about college tuition.  She assured me that with the kind of grades I had made, financial aid would never be a problem for me.  Never.

Was this woman reading my mind again?  How did she know I had already begun to wonder how to apply for a college scholarship?  This lady seemed to know what my next thought was before I did!  I asked her to explain.

Mrs. Ballantyne was not even slightly defensive about being asked to elaborate.  Mrs. Ballantyne said that she knew how scholarship money worked based on her experience with her own children.  In my case, the three-way combination of a great college preparatory school like St. John's, great grades, and great need would guarantee me scholarship money at practically any well-endowed college in America.  She said she would bet money on it.  Then she smiled at me and told me to stop worrying about it.

No one had ever told me this about college scholarship money.  This was news to me.  But it made sense.  I trusted what she said.  I began to grin.  Her words had just lifted a huge worry from my shoulders.  

I couldn't believe how much of my anxiety had disappeared.  This was the happiest I had felt in a long long time.  I had worried myself sick wondering how I was going to afford college.  I couldn't talk to anyone about it, not even to my own mother and certainly not anyone at the school.  I didn't want anyone to know how scared I was.  For weeks now I had brooded about how I would ever pay for college.  This anxiety followed me every waking minute of every day.  

Now this strange coincidental meeting with Mrs. Ballantyne had totally relieved me of both my enormous grudge as well as my greatest fear.  Was Mrs. Ballantyne sent from another planet to explain things to me?  Was she my guardian angel in her spare time?  I still couldn't get over how strange this conversation was. 

Now it was time for her to go.  Mrs. Ballantyne touched me on the shoulder, gave me that megawatt smile, then got in her car.  But before she drove off, she rolled down the window and said, "Please don't worry about the money.  I promise you things will work out."  And then she was gone.

After Mrs. Ballantyne left, I just stood there in the parking lot trying to make sense of it all.  My grudge was completely gone now.  My anger had been replaced by admiration.  I was thrilled to have met her!  My hero worship was restored.  If anything, my respect for her had grown.  I had just been given the chance to see Mrs. Ballantyne in action.  All the press clippings were true.  She was quite a lady. 

The more I thought about it, I was amazed at Mrs. Ballantyne for a number of reasons. 

First of all, without even a word from me, Mrs. Ballantyne had recognized I might have energy on her daughter's scholarship.  How did she do that?   Although I did not know how to explain it at the time, there can only be one answer - Mrs. Ballantyne had a great deal of empathy. She saw how poor I was, she put herself in my shoes, and made an educated guess that I was worried sick about how I would pay for college.

Second, I gave her a lot of credit for her willingness to deal so openly with such a sensitive topic.  I believed most people would have completely avoided the issue, but not her.  Not Mrs. Ballantyne.  Despite the potential awkwardness, she had brought up the subject voluntarily and cleared up all the misunderstandings.  How did she do that? 

I had never witnessed anyone deal so candidly with problems before.  The people I knew, my own parents for example, avoided talking about problems directly.  I was amazed at her ability to deal with sensitive things so directly!  No wonder her kids were so sharp.  I had the feeling I could learn a few things from her myself. 

However, there was one last thing that stuck in my mind.  Mrs. Ballantyne's parting words were, "Please don't worry about the money.  I promise you things will work out."

What did she mean by that?  Did she know something? 
 

Mr. EK Salls "I promise you things will work out."  Those were Mrs. Ballantyne's parting words to me. Not long after the chance meeting in the parking lot, I received an acceptance letter to Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland.  So what?  This was not a school I was interested in.  I had only applied to this school based on the recommendation of Mr. Salls five months earlier.

Mr. Salls was a man I trusted implicitly. He was the person you went to see for help on where to apply for college.  I was told he was very good at this and I believed the rumor. If memory is correct, my Senior year (67-68) was also Mr. Salls' first year as the new Headmaster at Saint John's.  Mr. Salls had been my German teacher for the previous three years (Grades 9, 10, 11). However he was not my German instructor in my final year.  He handed off that responsibility when Mr. Chidsey retired.  One responsibility Mr. Salls did keep was his role as the college counselor. Mr. Salls' basic advice was to apply to at least three schools - your fondest dream, your best match, and a school you were certain to get into.  A practical man, yes? My basic strategy was to go as far west or as far east as I possibly could.  I chose Pomona in California and Georgetown in Washington, DC.  Mr. Salls asked if he could make a suggestion.  Why not consider Johns Hopkins?  He said that Hopkins was on par academically with Rice University.  He added that Hopkins was just one notch below the Ivy Schools.  Mr. Salls said that in his opinion, this was a school that matched my academic performance perfectly.   Johns Hopkins?  I had never even heard of the school.  Who wants to go to school in Baltimore?   Not one thing Mr. Salls had said had made me even remotely interested in the place.  However, Mr. Salls had just personally asked me to apply there.  Mr. Salls was a man I respected tremendously. If Mr. Salls asked me to apply there, then I would do so simply because he asked me to.

When I first met Mr. Salls in my Freshman year at Saint John's, he scared me to death.  He had the gruffest voice.  And he had such a stern face!  

Mr. Salls was a very intimidating man.  He was also a disciplinarian.  You did not fool around in his class.  You paid attention.

I promise you I paid attention.  Let me amend that.  I never took my eye off the man!

Mr. Salls definitely got my attention the first year I had him for German.  Some student was daydreaming and looking out the window.  Mr. Salls called on the boy, but he didn't respond.  So Mr. Salls picked up an eraser and threw it at the kid's desk.  He didn't lob it either.  Mr. Salls chunked that eraser in there with steam!  The eraser hit the top of the desk and bounced in the air.  Chalk dust flew everywhere!  I think the kid nearly had a heart attack.  Now that I think of it, I almost had one too.  From that point on, I was petrified of the man.  I never wanted to make him mad at me! 

I paid absolute attention.  Whatever I did, it worked.  Mr. Salls fussed at a lot of people to keep up, but he never once rebuked me in the three years I was his student.

Who would have guessed German would become my favorite subject?  In my Freshman year, I wasn't very happy when I showed up for Mr. Salls' first class.  Who cares about German?  This is Houston, Texas.  I was a poor kid who thought Galveston was a far off place.  What am I doing learning German?  Weren't the Germans the bad guys in the war?  And how exactly do I intend to use my German skills?  What an enormous waste of time.  Why not offer an auto mechanics course or something useful like typing?

Let's face it, I took German for one reason - they made us take a language. 

Fortunately Mr. Salls turned out to be a brilliant teacher.  I was mesmerized by the man.  I began to love German because I respected Mr. Salls so much.  I took to his training like a duck takes to water.  I willingly worked hard in his class because I wanted his approval. 

Did I become the teacher's pet?  Oh, heavens no.  Far from it.  Mr. Salls wasn't like that.  He kept everyone at arm's length.  I will say one thing.  Although Mr. Salls was very formal with me, he did give me a lot of compliments on my effort.  I really came to like him.  I lived for those compliments. 

If you are wondering if he was a father figure to me, I suppose in retrospect he was.  I didn't think of him in that way at the time, probably because he was so aloof.  I did get a kick out of watching his tremendous bearing and self-control.  He was so intense!  He never missed a thing.  I have never seen anyone have control of a class like Mr. Salls did.  In the beginning, I paid attention out of fear.  However, it wasn't fear that made me continue to behave.  Mr. Salls kept my attention because he made his subject fascinating.  It was like a game to stay up with him.  I still can't totally understand how he kept me so interested in what should have been a boring subject, but he did.  Mr. Salls was quite a teacher.

I would see Mr. Salls smile from time to time, but I can only remember one time that Mr. Salls smiled at me.  One of our assignments was to trace out a giant map of Germany (like the one above in the picture).  One day we all turned in our maps.  My eyes bulged when I compared my own pitiful job to the map of one of the girls in the class.  Her map was a tour de force.  I had worked for days on this project and thought I had done a great job.  Wrong.  The moment I saw her map, I gasped in disbelief.  How could anyone draw something so beautiful? My own map consisted of two colors: black and white.  Not this girl.  Her map was a veritable rainbow! My gosh, the girl had drawn out the green forests of Bavaria and had colored the Baltic Sea blue.  She had artistically drawn the major rivers complete with Lorelei mermaids along the banks of the Rhine.  She had shaded all the German borders in black and red trim (the colors of Germany).  She had drawn in the great mountains of the Alps in southern Germany.  She had used Gothic stencil to label the regions.  She drew a German flag in one empty corner, a German opera singer in another corner, the third corner had a perfect miniature drawing of the famous Neuschwanstein Castle, and the fourth corner had a miniature Oktoberfest drawing. Her map was so pretty!   It wasn't just a map, it was a work of art. A professional could not have done a better job. This girl had considerable talent.  I could not stop shaking head in awe. Mr. Salls and I were alone in the room.  He saw me staring in shock and laughed.  His words, "Girls. Aren't they amazing?"  And then he flashed me the biggest grin!

In my Senior year, shortly after I received notification of my acceptance at Hopkins, something unusual happened at school.  I was minding my own business in study hall when over the loudspeaker I heard, "Richard Archer, please report to Mr. Salls' office."

That was very unsettling, I assure you.  I did not know the purpose of this request, so I was pretty worried.  Now what did I do?   As I entered his office, Mr. Salls was all business as usual.  He was courteous as always, but brusque as well.  No smiles today.  Same old Mr. Salls.

"Mr. Archer, please sit down.  I understand you have been accepted at Johns Hopkins University, is this correct?"

"Yes, sir."  

Mr. Salls continued.  "Are you still interested in this school?  Because if you are, I would give it my highest recommendation.  Hopkins is a fine school."

At the time I really preferred to go to Georgetown, but Mr. Salls' recommendation carried a lot of weight.  If he said 'consider it', of course I would 'consider it'.  I replied I didn't know much about the place, but from what he had told me the previous fall, yes, I was very interested.  Well, the truth was I hadn't been interested at all earlier today, but that was before I had been summoned over the loudspeaker to his office.  I was a lot more interested now than I had been before I entered his office.

As Mr. Salls stared at me intently, I could tell he was headed somewhere with this.  I breathed deeply and nodded.  "Yes, sir, I am definitely interested in Johns Hopkins."  I checked to see if my nose had grown any longer.  It was still intact.  I still wasn't enamored with the thought of going to Baltimore.

"Good.  In that case, I want you to do me a favor.  I want you to call an old friend of mine, Mr. Ralph O'Connor.  Mr. O'Connor is the Houston-area representative for Johns Hopkins.  I would like for you to meet him and learn more about the university.  I think you will be pleased."  Mr. Salls handed me a card with Mr. O'Connor's number on it. That was the end of the meeting.  I estimate it took two minutes. 

How often does Mr. Salls ask me to do a favor for him?  Exactly.  I wasted no time calling Mr. O'Connor.  Mr. O'Connor said he had been expecting my call.  Could I drop by his house sometime this week in the evening to discuss Johns Hopkins? 

Two nights later, I drove to Mr. O'Connor's house.  I was very surprised to see the address led me to a huge River Oaks mansion.  Who is this guy?

Mr. O'Connor was a very gracious host.  He made me feel at ease immediately.  The two of us spoke for half an hour about Johns Hopkins.  Mr. O'Connor was also very persuasive. After he was done telling me the glories of Hopkins - the medical school, the lacrosse tradition, the academic excellence - I told him that he had clearly sold me on the school.  He then asked me to explain my financial situation.  I explained the strange problems I faced.  I told him my mother was broke and my father was pathetic.  He nodded.  He seemed to take my word for it at face value.  Mr. O'Connor thanked me for coming and said he would be in touch.

Actually I never heard from him again.  However, the following week I received a letter from Johns Hopkins University.  I had been awarded a four year full scholarship to the University.  As my eyes bulged, I could only assume that Mr. O'Connor had arranged this based on our conversation.  The grant was worth $16,000, four times the amount of the award Katina had wrestled from me.  Maybe I didn't win the Jones Scholarship, but this was quite a consolation prize!

I was so relieved.  I had to be the luckiest guy on earth.  My dream was coming true.  I was going to college!
 

Ralph O'Connor Back in 1971, I was in my Junior year at Hopkins. One day I read in the campus newspaper that  Ralph O'Connor had organized a lacrosse game between Hopkins and Navy. It would be played in the Houston Astrodome.  I was flabbergasted.  I had no idea that my benefactor was so highly connected! When I wrote my update to this story in 2009, I took a quick peek on Google.  The first thing I noticed was an article about the Ralph O'Connor Recreation Center at Hopkins.  The article said: Ralph O'Connor, member of the Hopkins Class of 1951 and University trustee emeritus, achieved his wealth in oil and gas production in Houston, Texas.  He has since become a well-recognized philanthropist and civic leader and is a recipient of the University President's Medal for exemplary service. O'Connor's bequest helped make possible the establishment of the 63,000-sq.ft. facility. I had no idea that Mr. O'Connor was a Hopkins legend, but I wasn't surprised.  I will always remember Ralph O'Connor as the man who got me a full scholarship to college. I am grateful for his tremendous help. There is something else I would like to add.  I was an Honor student at Hopkins.  I graduated with a 3.44 average.  Along the way, I became very close to the people in the Financial Aid office.  Although my scholarship paid my tuition, I still had to find a way to pay my rent and expenses for all four years.  These people were kind enough to help me find jobs around campus.  I worked in the library, I worked in the Reading Room, and I worked in the Alumni Office.  Along the way, there were times when I held three different work-study jobs at once.  These people were proud of me for working so hard and told me so.  I was so grateful for their kindness, I voluntarily graduated half a year early to save the University some of my scholarship money.  To do this, I had to take six classes instead of the usual five for five straight semesters.   When I graduated, one of the ladies in the Financial Aid office smiled.  She told me I had set a record for the most work-study hours of any student she knew of.  I appreciated her compliment, but I had no choice but to work all these jobs.  At $1.60 an hour, it wasn't easy to earn enough to pay my room and board. Let's not kid ourselves.  Although I will always love Saint John's and cherish my time there, my childhood problems did not magically go away when I graduated.  When I left Saint John's, I still had one heck of a chip on my shoulder. It was me against the world.  One of the reasons I worked so hard at Hopkins was to justify Mr. O'Connor's faith in me.  I wanted to prove to him, to my useless father and to the rest of the world that I thoroughly deserved that scholarship.  Or maybe I just wanted to prove it to myself.  After all, I had an inferiority complex the size of an abyss.

My Mother Passes Away

I have written this story about my childhood and Mrs. Ballantyne twice - 2005 and 2009.  I first wrote this story in 2005 when I discovered that Dana Ballantyne, one of Mrs. Ballantyne's sons, was taking Salsa classes here at my dance studio.  Although I never actually saw Dana here at SSQQ, just thinking about him brought back a flood of memories.  I stopped to wonder if he knew this amazing story about his mother.  So I sent him an email telling about the strange coincidence and how much it meant to me. 

I never received a reply.  No matter.  Now that my memories were engaged, I wanted to add the story to my web site.  The 2005 story had an interesting consequence - Mrs. Ballantyne contacted me again!  I will get to that in a moment. 

My mother passed away in December 2008.  Mom was 83.  I would have preferred she die a more gentle, peaceful death, but modern medicine seems to think they must do every possible procedure to prolong life an extra five or six minutes.  What's the point?  I am sure you get my drift.

One consequence of Mom's passing was that I was free to say whatever I wanted to in 2009.  Sad to say, in 2005 I had held back from telling the entire story because I did not want to hurt my mother's feelings. 

My mother and I were never close for our entire lives.  Although we lived in close proximity, we never once had a heart to heart conversation in the later years.  In 1986, I bought the house next door to mine to give my mother, broke as usual, a comfortable place to live.  She lived there for 22 years till she passed away.  Even though our parallel houses were no more than twelve feet apart, months would go by when we might not speak at all.  Were we mad at each other?  No.  Although we were not close, on a superficial level we got along fine.  She had her life and I had mine.  Whenever she needed something, I was right there.  I made sure her final years were secure.  What I didn't do was spend much time with her.

So why weren't Mom and I close in the final years?  I assume the problems of the past created a barrier between us that neither of us had the guts to deal with directly.

Mom was a good woman.  Throughout her life she was known for her warm heart and total lack of prejudice.  Like my father, she too raised a second family.  By her marriage to Pasqual, she inherited his 9 children from a previous marriage.  I was about 25 when Mom got married.  She had just inherited $30,000 after her father's death.  She used some of this money to buy Pasqual a tailor shop here in Houston.  Unfortunately, one night he got drunk.  The police picked him up.  When they discovered he was here illegally, they had Immigration deport him back to Mexico. There went the tailor shop.

Mom followed Pasqual to Mexico.  That's when she discovered the nine children living in pretty miserable conditions.  So with the remainder of her inheritance, she bought them a cinder block house in Reynosa and moved in with them.  Mom began to care for them.

One day Pasqual had a headache.  He sent his young son Fernando to the drug store for medicine.  In Mexico, frequently the apothecary is right next door to a bar.  Some drunks saw Fernando and painted something on his forehead.  When Pasqual discovered what had happened, in a rage he stormed over to the bar.  One of the drunks simply shot him dead.  The man was never punished.

Now these nine children had no one.  No one, that is, except my mother who had no blood ties whatsoever.  Nevertheless, Mom made it her job to protect them.  Over the next ten years, Mom systematically managed to get every one of those kids into the States legally.  Now they were safe.

To her many stepchildren, my mother died a real hero.  In an eerie parallel to my father's obvious love for his second family, I never quite understood how she managed to be a much better mother to these nine stepchildren than she ever was to me.  It is another one of those mysteries.

Oddly enough, at the same time my mother kept an eye on her extended family, she completely neglected my daughter Sam.  How can a grandmother who lives next door ignore her only flesh and blood grandchild? 

Instead my mother lavished attention on the children of her step-children.  I would look out my window to see huge birthday parties in the back yard next door for these kids, yet I can't remember a single birthday present my mother ever got for my daughter.  Or Christmas for that matter.

Strange?  You better believe it.  That word really sums up my mother.  Mom was definitely strange.  She was a modern-day gypsy.  I have some wild tales to tell about my mother and maybe one day I will share them, but for the moment I think you get the picture.

Although my mother was an extremely intelligent woman, she always seemed to lack basic common sense.  Mom had her own demons to face.  She neglected me because she was busy trying to find herself.  However, despite her neglect, I don't have anywhere near the same energy on her that I do for my father.  Mom was a perpetual mess, but let's just say Mom did the best she could. 

Unlike my father, I am convinced my mother cared about me even though she had great difficulty showing it. 

 

2009: My Unknown Benefactor

After Mom's passing, in 2009 I decided to finish telling the rest of the story.  During the rewrite, I made a startling discovery.  For the first time in my life, I realized that Mr. Salls had been responsible for my amazing $16,000 scholarship at Hopkins all along... and I never once had the slightest inkling at the time.

A recent incident in my life helped give it away.  In 2007, money was tight at my home.  My daughter's tuition at Duchesne Academy here in Houston was an expensive burden.  I considered asking for a partial scholarship, so I contacted the school.  One day a thick envelope came in the mail from the school.  It contained a ten-page form to fill out to initiate the scholarship process.  I shook my head in dismay.  There was no way I was going to spend an entire day filling out these forms.  I wasn't too keen on begging for the money in the first place.  I would find the money somewhere else. 

However, I had just been given a first-hand look at how the financial aid process is supposed to work... forms, documentation on savings, income tax statements, bank accounts, maybe even interviews.  It is a complicated process.   And probably a necessary one as well.   I have learned the hard way that not everyone tells the truth.  Why should the school be expected to take my word for it that I need a scholarship for my daughter? 

During my rewrite of this story in 2009, it dawned on me that forty years ago my mother never had to fill out a single piece of paper for me to receive my Hopkins scholarship.  One day a letter had just appeared out of nowhere granting me $16,000!   Back then I didn't give it a second thought, but through my adult eyes I became skeptical.  How exactly would Johns Hopkins know my financial situation well enough to decide some unknown kid in Houston, Texas, deserved this kind of money without any sort of documentation?

Maybe Saint John's told Johns Hopkins that I was poor.  Exactly.  And who at Saint John's had the strongest connection to Johns Hopkins?

How stupid could I be?  It took me forty years to figure out who my real benefactor was!  After all, I didn't choose Johns Hopkins.  Mr. Salls chose me for Johns Hopkins!   And then he made it possible for me to go there for free. 

How could I miss this?  Yet it had to be true.  Back when I was a teenager, it never once dawned on me that Mr. Salls had arranged my scholarship.  I figured that after Ralph O'Connor had put in a good word for me, the Johns Hopkins administrators looked at my high school grades, read a note from Mr. O'Connor that said I needed financial aid and decided I was worth it.  So I gave all the credit to Mr. O'Connor.  What utter nonsense! 

Yes, Mr. O'Connor did help me get the scholarship.  However I realize now that Mr. Salls had already persuaded him to help me way in advance.  I can only assume that my meeting with Mr. O'Connor was pre-arranged so he could confirm with his own eyes what Mr. Salls had already told him about me.  It makes perfect sense that Mr. O'Connor was prepared to give Hopkins a very strong recommendation on my behalf, but before asking the school to make this kind of investment, he wanted to be double-sure about who I was.  That's why he casually asked me to explain my financial situation.  When I told him the story, he just kind of nodded. 

In hindsight, I realize I had simply confirmed something he already knew.  And how do you suppose he already knew?

It had to be Mr. Salls! 

There is too much writing on the wall.  Mr. Salls encouraged me to apply at Hopkins five months earlier for a specific reason - he knew somebody (Ralph O'Connor) who was very influential at Hopkins.  It is now obvious that Mr. Salls arranged my scholarship using his "Old Boy Network" connection with Mr. O'Connor.  However Mr. Salls saw no reason to explain to me what he had done and I didn't catch it. In retrospect, this is an obvious conclusion, but I had a blind spot for some unknown reason.  Just to give you an idea how stupid I am, I didn't even see the connection the FIRST TIME I wrote this story four years ago.  Thank goodness the veils of secrecy have finally parted. Now I feel sad.  I am crushed to realize I never thanked Mr. Salls.  He was my patron all along and I never even realized it.  However, knowing Mr. Salls, I suppose he would have denied everything.  That was just his way.  He was the wizard who preferred to pull the strings and work his magic behind the scenes. Mr. Salls did not seek credit.  He would have complimented me on a good job like he always did, but denied any participation.  Furthermore, I bet my story is just the tip of the iceberg.  There are probably all kinds of stories involving Mr. Salls that read the same way mine does.  I bet that Mr. Salls did unseen favors for many unsuspecting kids just like he did for me.   Mr. Chidsey, the first Headmaster, has always been a hero to me because I knew exactly what he did.  Mr. Chidsey was the man who arranged my two scholarships to Saint John's.  Now it is obvious to me now that Mr. Salls is yet another hero from my childhood, perhaps the biggest hero of all.  Isn't it a shame it took me forty years to figure it all out? Mr. Salls passed away several years ago.  It is a shame that I will never get the chance to thank him.  However, through this story, I can make sure his name lives on.  I hope my story will let other members of the Saint John's community in on the secret I have discovered - Mr. Salls was not only a great teacher and a great leader, he was also a very kind man.  In my opinion, Mr. EK Salls was a great and gifted man.  What a heart.  I will forever be in his debt.

2009: Looking Back at my 1968 Meeting with Mrs. Ballantyne From a 40 Year Perspective Was our 1968 encounter a chance meeting or did Mrs. Ballantyne deliberately seek me out?   As I look back our coincidental encounter from forty years ago, I still can't shake the feeling that my meeting with Mrs. Ballantyne was more than "just chance".  I was in so much distress.  And then I was touched by an angel. There was such perfect timing to Mrs. Ballantyne's visit, it was almost like a miracle.  Her kindness cured me of a tremendous despair.  Her soft words released me from my tremendous rage.  She gave me hope that things would work out.  She bolstered my confidence. Do you believe in miracles?  Do you believe in coincidences? I don't like coincidences. I hate coincidences.  I don't trust them. If my own story was a Dickens novel, I would scoff at the author's laziness at resorting to "coincidence" to further the plot.  Coincidences are just too convenient for my skeptical mind. However, just because I don't like coincidences doesn't mean they don't exist. Maybe Mrs. Ballantyne and I really did just run into each other by accident that day.  Maybe she had afternoon business at the University of Saint Thomas down the street and dropped in to pick up something to fix for dinner on the way home.  I just happened to be at the grocery store and decided to read a lot more into the event than was called for. If that is the case, I would estimate the odds of my meeting with Mrs. Ballantyne in that particular place somewhere around a thousand to one.  I passed Mrs. Ballantyne in the hall at Saint John's three times a week for nine years without once meeting her.  Assuming there are 40 weeks in the school year, that is 1,080 times we passed each other in nine years without connecting. However if you factor in the unique timing and critical importance of our meeting, then I think the odds of the coincidence increase dramatically. WAS OUR MEETING AN ACCIDENT? One part of me says our meeting was an accident.  Mrs. Ballantyne seemed curious about me from the moment we met inside the store, but I didn't see any signs of recognition on her face.  Maybe she thought she knew me, but she clearly wasn't sure.  I definitely remember the puzzled look on her face.  In addition, her initial questions were far too tentative to indicate she already knew that I was the kid who had come in second to her daughter in the scholarship award.  Instead Mrs. Ballantyne gave me the impression she figured all this stuff out as the conversation continued.  If she did figure out the scholarship angle involving me and her daughter on the spot, then you have to give the woman a lot of credit for her insight.  This is plausible.  I imagine Mrs. Ballantyne could see the Big Picture much faster than your ordinary person.  It might take me forty years to figure things out, but I have little doubt Mrs. Ballantyne had the ability to go straight to the heart of the problem with laser accuracy.   WAS THE MEETING DELIBERATE? The part of me that hates coincidences suggests that Mrs. Ballantyne made a deliberate effort to seek me out.  That would certainly take a lot of the mystery out of this strange encounter.  Did Mrs. Ballantyne hear my name come up in conjunction with the decision on the Jesse Jones scholarship?  After all, it would have been the Saint John's administration (including Mr. Salls) who made the decision on whom to give the award to.  I have little doubt they agonized between giving it to me or to Katina.  I would not be at all surprised if Mrs. Ballantyne was either directly involved in the decision of who to give it to or at least aware of the debate.  Maybe during the deliberations a faculty member mentioned my name to Mrs. Ballantyne.  Was it possible that either Mr. Salls or Mrs. Ballantyne anticipated how upset I would be over losing the Jones scholarship?  Did Mrs. Ballantyne offer to make a trip to see me and bolster my spirits?  Given the amount of time she spent with me and her willingness to broach such a touchy subject with a total stranger, that seems like a real possibility.  Mrs. Ballantyne was deeply committed to our conversation.  She was in no hurry to leave whatsoever.  She made sure she stayed with me until our talk reached its dramatic conclusion.  Maybe Mrs. Ballantyne gave so much of herself because Mr. Salls had asked her to pay me a visit. Or maybe she knew my story and just guessed on her own that I would be upset. This is all possible, but I doubt it. For starters, I had never complained to anyone about losing the Jesse Jones scholarship, not even to my mother.  How would Mr. Salls know that I was upset over the decision?   Or for that matter, why would Mrs. Ballantyne or Mr. Salls think I deserved an explanation?   They didn't owe me an apology!  Katina was just as deserving as I was. Most of all, why would a busy woman like Mrs. Ballantyne go to the extreme lengths of figuring out where I worked and when I worked, drive over to find me, and then pretend it was a chance meeting?  How ridiculous. Considering how direct Mrs. Ballantyne was, it would be more likely that she would drive to the store, spot me and ask to speak to me in private about an important subject.  Or even more likely than that, if Mrs. Ballantyne was worried about me, she could have just pulled me aside at Saint John's and had a nice talk.  That would make a lot more sense.  Why waste an afternoon driving to a grocery store when she could have effortlessly struck up a conversation with me any day of the week at Saint John's? Of course our meeting was an accident.     OR WAS IT FATE? There is perhaps another explanation.  Maybe it was Fate.  Now that would be an interesting explanation.  The Greeks believed in it.  Mrs. Ballantyne is Greek.  There you have it.  All kidding aside, this wasn't a small coincidence.  This was an incredible coincidence. Let's go over it one more time. Mrs. Ballantyne was a woman I had specifically admired for nine years but had never spoken to.  How is it that my secret hero suddenly appeared out of nowhere at a time of great crisis?  I swear she talked to me as if we had known each other for many years!  The depth of our communication was that profound.  Mrs. Ballantyne did not live anywhere near my grocery store.  She never gave me any explanation why she was shopping at my store that day.  So what was she doing there in the middle of nowhere? Isn't it unusual that the person at Saint John's whose daughter had just nosed me out for a valuable scholarship coincidentally spoke to me for the first time in our lives just one week later, thereby breaking a silence of nine years?  Isn't it unusual that this extremely busy woman would plunge so deeply into such sensitive topics with a kid she barely knew?  And isn't it wonderful that she had the compassion and skill to help me? Probably only a half dozen people at Saint John's knew that Mr. Salls was secretly arranging a substantial scholarship for me behind my back.  I believe that Mrs. Ballantyne was one of those six people.  I believe she had prior knowledge about my Hopkins scholarship!  After all, her parting words were "I promise you things will work out."   Since perhaps only six people on the planet knew about my scholarship, isn't it cosmically convenient that one of those six people came to my grocery store that day?  Is it possible that there is more to our existence than the Material World that we can sense with our eyes and ears?   I don't know the answer to that question. They say there is such a thing as guardian angels.  Unfortunately I have no first-hand knowledge of any guardian angels.   If guardian angels do exist, is it possible that my guardian angel realized how much trouble I was in and guided the best person on earth to solve my problem to come see me? This is a very interesting possibility.  It might just be that a metaphysical explanation is the one that makes the most sense of all.   A MEDITATION ON COINCIDENCE “A Coincidence is a small miracle in which God chooses to remain anonymous.”  Unknown “Coincidence is the word we use when we can't see the levers and pulleys.”  Emma Bull "Coincidences are God's way of remaining anonymous."  Doris Lessing "When you live your life with an appreciation of Coincidences and their meanings, you connect with the underlying field of infinite possibilities."  Deepak Chopra "The more frequently one uses the word ‘Coincidence’ to explain bizarre happenings, the more obvious it becomes that one is not seeking, but rather evading the real explanation."    Robert Shea & Robert Anton Wilson
2009: A Deeper Importance
The depth of our conversation still astounds me to this day.  Laugh at me if you will, but there was so much meaning to that encounter I can't help but wonder what really happened.  I was so deeply affected.  As I look back, I will always have a hard time accepting it was just an accidental meeting.  And yet I don't believe it was deliberate. When I began to update the story in 2009, this story grabbed me and would not let go.  I knew I was obsessed, but I had no idea why.  I simply could not stop thinking about that meeting from long ago.  For days I kept digging up old memories.  Then on the fourth day it hit me.  Maybe this meeting really was created by a hidden hand. I suppose this story has bothered me so much because I now realize it is the closest thing to a religious experience I have ever had in my life.  I do not go to church.  I do not read the Bible.  As a rule, I don't pray.  Nor do I see ghosts, burning bushes or parting seas.  But so help me God, in my heart I can't shake the feeling that Mrs. Ballantyne was sent by someone to put me out of my suffering.  There is no other explanation that makes any sense to me. The easiest way for me to explain the impact of her visit would be to compare it to Clarence, the angel in Jimmy Stewart's "Wonderful Life" movie who is sent to help George Bailey in his hour of need.  For that single moment in time, Mrs. Ballantyne filled the role as my angel of mercy as well. This strange encounter literally changed my life at the time.  I responded the same way a kicked and wounded dog would to the kind soul who offers water, food and a gentle touch.  That is how important this healing event was to me.  Mrs. Ballantyne's pep talk gave my spirits a giant lift.  Not only did I stop worrying about college tuition, I also let go of the destructive bitterness I felt towards my classmates.  My talk with Mrs. Ballantyne opened my eyes to the possibility that many people at Saint John's were actually very nice.  If I could have just let down my walls, I might have learned this valuable lesson even earlier.  Oh well.  Better late than never. Most of all, I was grateful that the single person at Saint John's that I had admired the most had taken the time to compliment me.  It isn't often that someone on the top rung of the ladder reaches down to pat the shoulder of the person on the bottom rung.  I will always remember Mrs. Ballantyne fondly for her moment of kindness to me.  Her healing words made an enormous difference in my life.
2005 - Another Meeting with Mrs. Ballantyne Shorty after I wrote the first version of this story in 2005, out of the blue Mrs. Ballantyne called me on the phone.  This was third time in my life that Mrs. Ballantyne had appeared out of nowhere to surprise me.  She certainly has her way of sneaking up on me! However this time her 2005 phone call was no coincidence.  There was a very good explanation for her phone call.  Mrs. Ballantyne said that one of her granddaughters had accidentally come across this story on my website doing a Google Search.  The granddaughter was so excited.  She couldn't wait to tell her grandmother! Mrs. Ballantyne said that her granddaughter's discovery had intrigued her.  She went to her computer and found my story.  She said she was very flattered to receive such kind words from me.  I assured her I meant every word I said.  Then I asked Mrs. Ballantyne what she remembered about the chance meeting in the parking lot 40 years earlier. Mrs. Ballantyne said that back in the old days she had always watched me too.  She had noticed that I always seemed to be studying her from some corner of a room at Saint John's.  Over the years, she liked to look and see if her secret admirer was anywhere around.  For a long time she never really knew who I was, but she knew I was always watching.  It wasn't until high school that she became aware I was a classmate of Katina's.  This revelation embarrassed me.  I didn't realize I was that obvious, but then kids always think they are a lot sneakier than they turn out to be.  I was also surprised to discover that Mrs. Ballantyne and I had this connection ahead of time. I should have known better.  I don't think Mrs. Ballantyne misses a thing.  I think that once she finally recognized who I was in the parking lot, she decided this was the opportunity to get to know her 'secret admirer'.  That would explain why there was such an immediate depth to our conversation.  She already knew that I had been studying her for years. As we continued our 2005 conversation, Mrs. Ballantyne began to talk about the Saint John's years.  She said she had always known I was in pain.  Mrs. Ballantyne said she had great empathy for me because she herself had led a very secluded and stressful life as a teenager.  My years as the outsider looking in at Saint Johns reminded her very much of her own difficulties growing up. Her 2005 recollections took me very much by surprise.  I had no idea she even knew I existed at Saint John's beforehand.  After all, that one conversation in the parking lot was the first and only time I had ever spoken with her during my nine years at SJS.   I began to suspect that Mrs. Ballantyne had given me so much precious extra time that day because she knew a lot more about me that day than she let on, but I did not wish to pry.  I decided not to pursue.  Then something happened four years later that broke the mystery open.   2009 - Final Thoughts In 2009 I ran into Mrs. Ballantyne again.  This time we spoke in person.  In the course of the conversation, Mrs. Ballantyne told me she kept my story bookmarked on her computer.  I smiled with great fondness.  What a neat compliment!  As we sat next to each other, I reached for her hand.  Now we began a lovely chat. Mrs. Ballantyne brought up the issue of Katina's Jones Scholarship again.   She repeated exactly what she had told me forty years earlier.  Mrs. Ballantyne said she was constantly scrounging around for any financial help she could find to help make ends meet.  She added it was hard to explain, but the task of sending seven children to expensive private schools and colleges was overwhelming.  She was so apologetic, I swear I wanted to hug her!  Good grief, we cleared this up forty years ago.  Besides, I completely understood.  After sending my daughter to Duchesne for 14 years ($1,700 a month), I had first-hand knowledge of my own about the difficulties of financing private school tuition. Mrs. Ballantyne was still locked into her own memories of our encounter.  She recalled that one day when Mr. Salls was at her house, they were sitting in her living room.  Mrs. Ballantyne told me she still remembered the day when she asked her friend Charlie what he knew about me.  "Her friend Charlie..."  My ears perked up.  Did I really hear what I thought I just heard?  "Charlie" was the name Mr. Salls went by with his friends! Charlie, i.e. Mr. Salls, had told her I was a pretty good student.  Then he added he often worried about me.  He explained my history at the school to her, then remarked that he had heard from one of my teachers that my home situation was pretty miserable.  I listened in quiet surprise.  I had suspected that Mrs. Ballantyne and Mr. Salls knew each other pretty well, but I had no idea they were this close.  It was obvious now that Mrs. Ballantyne had a direct pipeline to my silent benefactor all along.  Mrs. Ballantyne had been completely wired in to all the secret wheeling and dealings at my school from the start.  Amazing. That meant out of all the people in the world to bump into that fateful day in March 1968, I had met the woman who was the direct confidant of Mr. Salls, my unknown benefactor.  It's a small world, isn't it? As we sat on the couch, Mrs. Ballantyne switched gears and began to talk about Mr. Salls.  I listened with fascination as Mrs. Ballantyne described her friend to me.  As I said earlier, Mr. Salls seemed like such a stern man.  I was certainly scared to death of him.  However, as Mrs. Ballantyne spoke of him, I realized she knew a warm side to Mr. Salls that I was never privileged to see.   With that gruff, gravely voice and fierce demeanor, he seemed pretty tough on the outside.  However, Mrs.  Ballantyne knew Mr. Salls as a kind man who deeply cared about his school and took his responsibilities to his students seriously.  I had to laugh.  Who would have ever guessed Mr. Salls was a softy!  And so down to earth!  Gosh, during my Saint John's days, Mrs. Ballantyne and Mr. Salls were like Olympic Deities.  They were Hera and Zeus.  I wonder why it was so hard for me as a kid to imagine they were normal people when they weren't on center stage at Saint John's. Furthermore, I wondered why I had never guessed that Mr. Salls and Mrs. Ballantyne were close friends.  It certainly made sense.  I had seen them walking together enough times in the hallways at Saint John's during my secret scouting missions.  In fact, I later discovered that the Salls family and the Ballantyne family had neighboring beach homes in West Galveston.  Although I can't be sure, my hunch indicates the two families were very close. I began to smile.  I was certain that Mrs. Ballantyne had indirectly confirmed the identity of my unseen benefactor at Saint John's.  Of course it was Mr. Salls.  This meant my biggest hunch was right all along.  "I promise you things will work out."  No wonder Mrs. Ballantyne had spoken with such confidence.  She already knew about my upcoming scholarship to Hopkins.  That's why at the end of our fateful meeting she began to whisper.  Mrs. Ballantyne knew she had no business revealing this secret ahead of time, but she still wanted to say something that would give me hope before she left.  Believe me, I am glad she did! No doubt when Mrs. Ballantyne and Mr. Salls had discussed the Jones Scholarship for Katina, he told her about his plan for my scholarship to Hopkins.  Mind you, I have no proof, but these seem to be logical conclusions.  Let's say that Mr. Salls compared my own situation to Katina's.  Let's say that he imagined it would be more difficult for Katina, the daughter of a prominent doctor, to obtain a scholarship than the poorest kid in the school who just happened to be a good student.  Since Mr. Salls had control over the Jones scholarship, why not give it to Katina to help pay her expensive college tuition at Vanderbilt?   Then, after that, why not call Ralph O'Connor and tell him he had a young man in mind who had a great financial need and also had the potential to be a great student at Hopkins?  After all, Mr. Salls had called Mr. O'Connor "his old friend".  Maybe they had worked together many times before.  This would be a way that Mr. Salls could take care of not just one, but two deserving students.  Now doesn't that make sense? I smiled.  Mr. Salls was certainly quite the mastermind.  He made sure everybody was covered!  He took care of Katina, he took care of me, and no doubt he took care of many other deserving Saint John's students as well. My mind drifted to another subject. Who let me off the hook when I cheated on my German exam?  Who let me off the hook when I stole that gym equipment?  Who else could it be?  Who else had that kind of authority?  There was probably some sort of disciplinary council at Saint John's where a group of men met to decide how to handle serious incidents like my own.  I have little doubt some of these men recommended that I be punished.  In cases where there were disagreements on how to approach a serious problem, Mr. Salls would surely have the final word.  I now believe that Mr. Salls liked me more than I ever realized.  Lord knows he never showed it.  I suppose he respected me for a couple reasons.  One, he saw how hard I worked in his class for three years.  I was his best German student not because I had the greatest talent, but rather because I tried so hard.  Any teacher will appreciate hard work.  The other reason was that as Assistant Headmaster, he had been able to follow my career at the school for all nine years.  He knew how pitiful my home life was.  There could be only one explanation for his approach to me - Compassion.  Yes, I screwed up bad.  Not once, but twice.  Truth be told, once I got that scholarship, I developed a terrible case of "Senioritis."  Both of these incidents occurred late in my Senior year. As surely you know, Senioritis is a colloquial term used throughout the United States to describe the decreased motivation toward studies displayed by students who are nearing the end of their high school careers.  The main symptom of "senioritis" is "coasting", i.e. the art of going through classes with very little concentration or application of intent. That would be me.  Once the pressure was off, I lost control.  My vaunted self-discipline collapsed badly.  First the cheating problem landed me on Mr. Salls' plate.  Then the stealing incident occurred. That entire Spring, I was a total mess.  Poor Mr. Salls.  Oh, my goodness.  He had gone to all that trouble to arrange my scholarship and here I was making a fool of myself.  In his case, how does the saying go, "No good deed goes unpunished"?  I must have tried Mr. Salls' patience dearly.  I can only surmise that after Mr. Salls had worked so hard in my behalf, he was determined not to let me to fail.  So that Spring he decided to intercede on my behalf not once, but twice.   Thank goodness Mr. Salls believed in me. Conclusion As we sat on the couch, there was something I wanted to tell Mrs. Ballantyne before our conversation ended.  I wanted to tell Mrs. Ballantyne how much I had admired her during my years at Saint Johns.  As a kid who was very lonely, I often watched her go about her business with a fascination.  I told her I often fantasized how different my life at Saint Johns would have been if I had only had a mother like her. Mrs. Ballantyne laughed.  She said I was very kind to give her so much credit.  She said she never quite understood the connection she felt for me, but she was very touched to know how important our chance meeting had been to me.  Mrs. Ballantyne added that any mother would have been proud of a kid like me who tried so hard to overcome adversity.  I was 59 years old as she spoke, but I swear I choked up just like I was a 17 year old kid again. It saddens me to admit that I had so little respect for my own mother that I gave a total stranger like Mrs. Ballantyne such mythical importance.  It is a testimony to Mrs. Ballantyne that she handled my puppy-dog admiration for her with such grace and understanding.  Another person with less compassion might easily have written me off as a creepy loser kid. Mrs. Ballantyne is a great woman.  I feel privileged to have had the chance to meet her.  I think it is amazing that a woman with seven children of her own, 23 grand-children and 5 great grand-children has the room in her heart to worry about other kids as well, even kids like me who are 59!    This has been the story of how a 20 minute talk in a grocery store parking lot chat made all the difference in the world to me.  Her gentle words helped me overcome a terrible crisis. Someday I am going to come across a kid that clearly needs a lift.  Perhaps I will know the child well or maybe just barely.  And when I get my opportunity, I hope a few kind words and suggestions of my own will have the same healing effect that Mrs. Ballantyne's conversation had on me many many years ago.  I will do this because I have learned the power of a simple act of kindness.

2009 Footnote - "But what if they think you really are a creepy loser kid?"

My deeply personal story made Marla, my wife, very uncomfortable.  She pointed out that my candor about my troubled youth didn't make me look particularly good.  I nodded and told Marla I agreed with her.  Let's face it - my teenage years were a miserable time for me.  I was lonely for a good reason - I was a hard kid to like.  I walked around that school with a perpetual frown.  I was a loner with a big chip on my shoulder.

I told Marla I wrote this story to show people why it is so important to lend a helping hand when the opportunity presents itself.  It's a Wonderful Life resonates with all of us because it shows what might happen if someone's life were to take a different direction.  The film shows how even the best person can stumble, but if there is someone around willing to pick him up, he can go on to do so many good things.

The story of my years at Saint John's illustrates how a series of people - Mr. Chidsey, so many of my teachers like Mr. Curran and Mr. Weems, Mr. Griffey the manager who took a chance on me at the grocery store, Mr. Salls, Mr. O'Connor and finally the wonderful Mrs. Ballantyne - reached out to keep a lonely kid from spiraling out of control.  Each of these people helped me without any expectation of a reward.  They helped me because they were humanitarians.  They did it because it was the right thing to do.  No one can read this story and deny I was headed in the wrong direction on many occasions.  I was an angry kid full of hate.  Without their help, who knows how much trouble I would have gotten into?
 
Instead, thanks in large part to these people, my life story reads like a modern rags to riches saga.  I crawled out my early hole and went on to achieve great success.  I am happily married.  I have a great daughter who is heading off to college.  I paid tuition for  her 14 years at Duchesne out of my own pocket.  I don't make nearly as much money as the other parents at that school, but I figure I have had my fair share of scholarships.  Why not let that money go to another kid who needs it more?

I have never been in the slightest trouble with the law.  I have no debt.  I pay my bills on time.  I pay my taxes on time.  I own a dance studio business that I created myself.  I do my best to run my business in an ethical way.  By being a credit to society, I have tried to reward the faith of these people who took such a big chance on a messed up kid long ago.  Every day of my life I want to prove that I was worth their gamble.