thinking about thanksgiving - dave stager

I took a walk at lunchtime. It was an opportunity to stretch my legs and collect my thoughts on a busy day.

I made my way to the Habitat for Humanity Rehab Store when an Atlanta Gas Light Company truck pulled up beside me and stopped. The passenger-side window lowered to reveal Dave Stager in the driver’s seat.

I’ve known Dave since I was 11 or 12 years old. We met in junior high school, way back when middle schools were called that.

If I close my eyes and create a little bit of space in my mind, I can picture it. There’s a crowded hallway full of lockers (which I never figured out how to open until much later). Girls are dressed in painter’s pants with the cuffs rolled up, and around every corner somebody is singing You Picked a Fine time to Leave Me, Lucille mutilating Kenny’s lyrics:

Four hundred children and a crop in the field. I’ve had some bad times, lived through some sad times, But this time, the hurtin’ won’t heal. You picked a fine time to leave me, Lucille.

Dave and I weren’t buddies, but our paths crossed regularly, and we shared PE class. (You younger folks might call that class gym or something else these days.)

Junior high was largely a miserable experience for me. I was an awkward bookworm. I had tried to tame my puberty-induced curly hair into something that appeared straight. The outcome was the massive, fluffy helmet of hair that wouldn’t cooperate with my plans.

I also didn’t have a single athletic bone in my body. In 1976, PE meant you dressed in shorts and a t-shirt for an hour of sweaty basketball, softball, soccer or volleyball. I dreaded PE. I had never played a sport – any sport. I had never owned a basketball or a goal, or a bat or a baseball or a glove, or a football or a soccer ball. I was always picked last. I never knew the rules of the game or the point of it, for that matter. For me, PE was a school-sponsored, regularly scheduled hour of bullying. The butt of every junior high jeer, I can still hear their cracking voices calling me “sissy” or “queer.” It was agony.

Until Dave.

I don’t know what possessed a 12-year-old to step out of the crowd, but Dave did. One day Dave decided to pick me first for his basketball team. I’d be the first to admit that it was a poor choice from a competitive standpoint, but for a boy who needed a seed of something life-affirming, Dave’s decision may as well have been the Naismith Trophy. I’ve never forgotten his extraordinary kindness.

I’m glad I had a few moments to catch-up with Dave. He played baseball in college, and he made a career at the gas company. He’s a grandfather now, and he willingly admits that his granddaughter, Davie, has him wrapped around her little finger. We talked about Johnny and Eloise Childs – he and Johnny were hunting buddies. We talked about our kids, our spouses, the price of gas and Lord knows what else, until a van drove up, needing us to shut up so he could move on.

Forty-seven years after junior high, there’s still a piece of me that wants to retreat to a corner when I think about those excruciating years, but not when I see Dave. So, as I start thinking about Thanksgiving, I'm going on record to say I'm sure grateful for the Daves of this world. Dave represents the good, the best in people. When I see Dave, I see moral character, bravery – a friend, and I'm thankful.