Bob Riley's Life Story
- Cranbrook Class of 1963 --> Cranbrook Class of 1963 - Life Stories --> here
Guys:
The deafening silence in response to my friend Jess' attempt to prioritize "life stories" has prompted me, against my better judgment, to leap into the breach with a suggested alternative.
I take as my text the classic 1997 film "Romy and Michelle's High School Reunion", that proved once again that only two particular subsets of high/prep schoolers really thrive on such episodic opportunities. First, that insecure subset of the self-anointed "in crowd", who wishes to say many years on "you were right in taking me at my own appraisal as a winner and leader. Since then I have won this prize, this award, this tribute, this encomium, and etc., and have my own website, two wikis, three thousand virtual "friends" on Facebook, and I'm well-loved on Ruck.us, Pinterest, Tumblr, and even Groupon!"
The second subset is that group of outsiders/losers who wish to say "you were wrong about me, I was cool after all, which is proven by the fact that I have won this prize, etc., etc." Both subsets are what Vance Packard called status-seekers, people who define their own value primarily by what others think of them.
A. My Own Life Story. I have no "life story", which implies an overriding narrative that operates to tie the various freestanding periods of a life into a successful whole. Instead, I, like everyone else, have lived a life that is a largely uncontrollable pastiche of luck, fate, chance, and the like, all mixed together. The high/lowlights:
My father picked me up for spring break our senior year and advised me that he and my mother had divorced, split our "nuclear" family in half (I became a mu-meson, Jess), and that there was no money to send me to Amherst where Kimble and I had both been accepted, and where he then went alone. My sole option was Michigan State, my hometown school. It turned out beautifully, as no better place existed to experience all of sex, drugs, communism, and national-class football. My first day on campus I walked out on the deck at the Intramural Building, looked down at an Olympic-sized swimming pool with 5000-odd chicks in bikinis, and pointed my finger and stated, like Brigham Young gazing down at the future site of Salt Lake City amongst the alkali flats, "This is the place". Most people were surprised when I graduated from State as I was only there three terms (Kennedy's, Johnson's, and Nixon's). I then bought a deerstalker hat like Sherlock Holmes, subscribed to the anthropology newsletter (my undergraduate major), and advised the head of the department that I wanted to enroll in graduate school. His response: "I don't care what you got on the GRE Mr. Riley, nobody who took nine years to graduate from State with a cumulative 2.4 GPA is entering grad school here." "What do I do?", I said. "Go in the Army", he said. "I just completed 6 years in the reserves". I replied. "Go to law school", he said. "Hmmmmm", I replied. I doped the LSAT, was accepted to one of the five best law schools in Michigan, the U of D, moved back to 7 mile and Lahser, spent most of my evenings for three years jogging at Cranbrook, while my eldest daughter played with Star Wars figures in the longjump pit, graduated with honors, got a job in Grand Rapids (home town of one Bob Friz of our corporate acquaintance), and am still there. Believe it or not, my life boils down to family and friends, not fame and fortune. Married 44 years to the same woman (terrorized by her father, Col. Spike Warner, who was a big game hunter and poured his own bullets, and advised that one had my name on it if I ever cheated on his daughter), five children (now age 29 to 43, all best friends, each with each), 38 years a lawyer (largely insurance defense, i.e., trying to keep money in undeserving corporate hands), 27 years (and counting) in the same house. In one word: "Prosaic". Scarcely "Edifying", in light of each of your own likely "life stories." No prizes, awards, tributes, encomia, that I wish (or need) to share.
2. Cranbrook memories. I suggest that each of us instead recite three or more particularly noteworthy Cranbrook memories.
First... I believe it was Fifth Form when we were all gathered into the chapel for a sendoff for Christmas vacation. There was a stool on stage with a book on it, illuminated by a spotlight. One Carl G. Wonnberger walked out and read Dicken's "A Christmas Carol" all the way through, doing all of the roles in character (Scrooge, Marley, Cratchit, the Ghosts, Tiny Tim, etc.). The best entertainment experience of my life to that date. I was spellbound the whole two-odd hours. 20 years later I had one other experience as good, when the world-renowned Irish Seanachi (Storyteller), Eamon Kelly, delivered "In My Father's Time" at Aquinas College's Theater in the Round in Grand Rapids, the same format (darkened arena, stool, spot light). Kelly's best story that night was about the local high school kids sneaking out on Saturday nights to barn dances they called "balls" in rural county Kerry, where the constipated assistant pastor at the local Catholic parish would try to catch them. One night he did, and accosted a handful of girls and informed them that they should eschew such sinful assemblages as the barndance balls, and instead come to church and trust him to "get them all the boys they wanted, without any balls". The six nuns sitting in front of Pat and I roared with appreciative laughter. What I learned the night of Mr. Wonnberger's performance was how special a place that Cranbrook was to have people like him available to mold our young minds.
Second... I played varsity tennis Junior Year, if "played" means remained between 11th and 13th on the challenge ladder where only the top 10 played in the meets. Had I gone to my neighborhood school back home (Lansing Sexton) I would have been No. 1 singles, as that role was filled by my best homeboy, Jim Ramsey, whom I beat 80% of the time in our three or more matches per week over the summer. We (Cranbrook) hosted Hamtramck High, led by the greatest coach in Michigan high school history in any sport, Jean Hoxie. Between 1949 and 1969, Mrs. Hoxie and Hamtramck won 18 of 21 Class A state team titles. This particular day I was standing about five feet from her twirling my black Kramer Pro racket on my finger like a cool fool when she turned to me and said: "Are you playing today, son". I said: "No, ma'am". She said, "will you rally with Peaches?", and a shrimpy 13-year-old girl stepped out from behind her and said "I'll take far side", and took off jogging. You talk about no upside. Jane "Peaches" Bartkowicz was a 17-time age group national champion who, in 1964, won the girls' division (which they had then) at Wimbledon. I got to rally balls with her while the varsity players on both teams stood by and smirked at me. Amazingly, it went well, largely because no matter what I hit at her, she put a laser back about two inches over the net right in my wheelhouse (forehand, then backhand, then repeat). Hence, because she was great, I looked very good, and we kept the rallies going. The highlight of my tennis "career". Another opportunity that Cranbrook was essential in making available. Fortunately, we didn't keep score. She would have won 6-0, 6-0.
Third... about three weeks before graduation I was off on one of my endless jaunts across the 300 acres and in deep woods behind the Greek Theater, when I saw something odd in a pine tree about twenty feet off the ground. After watching it for about five minutes, I climbed the tree high enough to verify my suspicion -- a stone squirrel, likely sculpted 35 years before by the great Carl Milles, the renowned Swedish sculptor that the Booths had hired when they built Cranbrook, and who left a stone squirrel in the deep woods where nobody might ever see it (and its likely still there). Another experience revelatory as to what Cranbrook was, showing me a guy who pursued his craft, and life, for the pure private pleasure of it.
Anybody else with similar experiences they wish to share? I also expect somebody to answer the following question for me at the reunion: "Who stole the P?" This is a question we all asked back then, but most people likely won't remember. However, I really need to know, even though the mayor of the village once said to Dr. Frankenstein, "there are some things men weren't meant to know".
Best regards,
Ryly 14:48, 15 June 2013 (PDT)
