Note: Several months ago, after striking up a friendship with Raoul Cervantes on Facebook, I asked him to consider writing a piece or two about his memories growing up in P'burg. This post recalling the impact Sonny Skiles had on his life, both in the classroom and at Minch Park, is the first of what I hope will be many such entries here on Parkesburg Today.
By Raoul Cervantes
In the summers, between the ages of 9 and 15, I spent most
of my summer days at the playground, later named Minch Park. Every summer
became a new milestone in my life, starting with being able to hit a ball
thrown by another person, to eventually being able to control a fastball, so
that it would land in the catcher’s mitt right at the batter’s knees, on the
inside corner.
But it was in the summer of 1964, when I was 13 years old,
that I learned the fine art of “lining the field.” In the late afternoon, after the kids
finished using the baseball field, older people played baseball and
softball. A league made up of mainly
high school students used the field once or twice a week, and a softball
league, consisting of four teams, manned by grown ups used the field the rest
of the week. But the games could not be
properly played without lines.
My apprenticeship in lining the field came about because the
playground supervisor, Mr. Skiles, asked me to help him one afternoon. Looking back, I am not sure why he did
this. It is possible that he actually
needed someone to help him, since stretching out the string, and anchoring it
in the ground, was no doubt easier with two people, even if one of them was a
kid, with no lining experience. It is
also possible that this was just a logical extension of my relationship with
Mr. Skiles. He was my 8th grade social
studies teacher before he became playground supervisor. It is also possible that Mr. Skiles thought I
could use an adult male role model, not that these exact words would have
passed through his brain in 1964. He
might have thought I could use some “guidance” or maybe he sensed I needed
something that he could offer, whatever that might be. Nevertheless, one afternoon, he asked me if I
wanted to hang around and help him line the field, and I said yes, I would.
Mr. Skiles was a clear voice in my head when I was in junior
high school. He had the most sublet way
of motivating me. I sat at my desk,
riveted to his tales of American history in the 8th grade. He was a captivating storyteller, who seemed
to be oblivious to his narrative talents.
I listened to his tales and remembered everything. I was able to always
get a solid “B” on his tests, without having to read one page or take any notes
at all. This, I think, caused Mr. Skiles
to think I was lazy.
We had this thick 8th grade history book, that I mainly used
to keep my pencils and old quizzes that Mr. Skiles graded and gave back to
us. We were assigned pages in this book
every day to read and given Conestoga notebooks, with the light brown, covers,
which we were to fill with notes, based on our reading. All year long, I never read any of the pages, nor took any
notes. Of course, I knew that one day,
Mr. Skiles would collect the notebooks and see that I had not done my
homework. But, like the day I would die,
or any other unpleasant event that occurred in a future exceeding the current
week, I kept myself in complete denial.
One week, in May, Mr. Skiles announced that he would be
collecting our notebooks and grading them for our work for the year. That week, I worked for about an hour,
writing notes, filling three pages, until I realized my attempt was completely
futile, and quit. It was then that Mr.
Skiles said those words to me that I would never forget, “Gary, you will never
go to college. You are too lazy.” I
wasn’t upset or angry, I just took it as a bit of knowledge that Mr. Skiles was
sharing, and since he went to college himself, he would know. Years later, I recalled that bit of advice,
when I actually did go to college. But, Mr. Skiles was not one for sugar
coating the truth, no new age, self esteem words of encouragement, just the
simple truth, “You are just too lazy to go to college.” So, I took that to mean that if I wasn’t so
lazy, I could go to college. He was
right.
The opportunity to help Mr. Skiles line the field offered me
a chance at redemption. This was my
moment to show him that I was not lazy, that I could finish the job, that I
could do whatever it took, to line the field.
So, I often, during that summer, in the afternoon, went with Mr. Skiles,
with the white lime, with that little lining machine, and the string, and the
peg to anchor the string into the ground.
I held the peg, to stretch the string, to make a perfectly straight
line, that we could trace, with the lime machine, to make a beautiful, white
line on the grass and infield dirt.
The field needed to be lined, no matter how important the
game. The lines made the game possible,
and the quality of the lines were important.
Every game deserved clean, well formed lines. This was another lesson I took away from that
job. Sometimes it is not our game, and
it may not seem important at first, but may later be seen as critical. As people who lined the field, we had our own
responsibilities. The teams played
baseball, we lined.
After we lined the field, we put away the equipment, and
went home. Later, that afternoon, after
watching Mr. Ed, of which Mr. Skiles let me know, in no uncertain words, was a
show that insulted his intelligence, I would return to the playground and watch
the older kids or softball teams play and run down the field, down the lines I
had helped draw, beautiful white lines.
