My Crush to the Rescue

 Think of the most pathetic person you can in terms of being good with romantic interests.  Thought of the person? Good. Now think if that person were even worse. Then you'd have me. I don't care how bad the someone you know is. I guarantee compared to how I was at one time, they were a modern day Don Juan. 

Although I did have one girlfriend during high school, I didn't start to feel comfortable around women in a sexual/romantic/intimate way until I was well into my mid 20's. Before that point, I think I had an outright phobia of them under those circumstances. While I had female friends & was very comfortable around them, anything beyond that was quite terrifying.  

I had crushes throughout school, and 99% of the time, I did absolutely nothing about them. Most of my crushes never lasted all that long, but one did. There was a girl that moved into Sigourney from Burlington in the 4th grade and the second she flashed those baby blues my way, I was infatuated.  

It took my friend Tim Wehr all of about three seconds of watching me drool over her during lunch to figure out that I had a major crush on Jillian Kleinman. Being the loud mouth that he is, he'd say her name outloud so that others could hear.  It used to embarrass the Hell out of me. I'd turn red and if I thought she heard, I'd hope that the cooks had laced the dried piece of beef they passed as a Hamburger with poison. I just wanted to melt in my chair and die. When I discovered one of Tim's crushes a while later, I made sure to say her name as loud as a I could in epic vengeance. 

Tim and I came to an agreement that I wouldn't say the name of his crush out loud, if he didn't say the name of mine. We came up with codenames. His crush was "007" and Jillian was "R4."  You don't realize the stupidity of being young until you look back on it years later.  

What may not be so hard to believe is that my crush on Jillian lasted from the 4th grade through the 7th grade. It may have lasted even longer, but she moved back to Burlington with her family. What is hard to believe is that during that four year span, Jillian and I only communicated a handful of times.  

I guess when it came to attractive women, my stance was sorta like being a little kid at the store with your mom. You're told and you obey the rule of, "You can look, but you can't touch."  Or maybe better put driving past an expensive car lot full of Corvettes and Camaros. Dream all you want buddy, you ain't ever owning one of these. 

I enjoyed my fantasy. I enjoyed admiring Jillian from a distance. I'd day dream of us being a couple, hand in hand. I'd dream of taking her to dances. Going to movies together. The innocent stuff you think of at that age. Yet any time I got within five feet of her, I'd freeze up and become a blabbering fool.  

I have no idea what Jillian thought of me. I'm sure in four years she had to know that I was fixated with her. There's no way she couldn't have known. I doubt she was too thrilled about it, but I don't think she was horrified by the thought either. If anything, I think she probably get a kick out of it & found it humorous.   

One of the only times we conversed was when she initiated the conversation with me. 

It was 6th grade. Mrs. Wallerich's Reading class.  Now while I became a very good student in junior high, high school and college, in elementary I wasn't very good. I wasn't exactly a failing student with D's & F's. I was more along the lines of mediocre. Do what I have to do, get a few B's & settle for C's kinda guy.  

Only problem was, Mrs. Wallerich posted a question on the board every day about the books we were reading, that we were to journal about.  It was something like 25 questions & each of the answers needed to be at least a paragraph long. To a 6th grader, that's Mission Impossible.   

I can remember Mrs. Wallerich plain as day telling us that Friday afternoon, "Now remember your journal entries are due on Monday. They are 1/3 of your overall grade." 

I panicked.  

I was already struggling in Mrs. Wallerich's class as it was. I was getting a C- and I didn't have a single journal entry complete. I didn't even know what the questions were. I had actually forgotten that we even had a journal. I opened up my desk & searched through the jungle of madness that it was to find my journal near the very bottom. I opened it up and starred at the blank pages. What in the Hell was I going to do?  

Going to Mrs. Wallerich was the absolute worst thing I could do. If I were to go up to her and ask her for a copy of the questions, she would immediately know why I was asking. This would spell out certain doom. She was not a fan of mine to begin with, and me failing her class would probably have made her day.   

All I could do was sit in that chair & think of the horrific fate that awaited me. I thought of how all of my classmates would be going on to junior high, while I had to repeat the 6th grade. I thought that I might not even live to repeat the 6th grade, because once my Dad got wind of what was going on, he'd kill me. I probably looked like an inmate awaiting execution as I sat in that chair praying, hoping, wishing for someway out.  

The bell rang for our next class, as everyone else got up and headed out the door. In my own world, I noticed nothing around me until I heard a loud, "SPLAT!" 

I looked down at my desk. It was a notebook. On the cover in big black permanent marker it read READING JOURNAL MRS. WALLERICH. On the top left hand corner, Jillian K.   

I looked up to see her starring down at me.  In three years of being in lust with this girl, it was the closest we had ever been to one another. I mean that physically.  It was literally the closest we had ever been to one another. 

"Bring that to me first thing on Monday morning," She said. "If you forget it...I'll kill you." 

I slipped her notebook into my bookbag and that weekend I worked on the journal questions. I knew better than to copy what she had written. I didn't do that. I simply used her journal to know what the questions were and to remind myself of certain characters and parts in the books we had read.  

First thing Monday morning, I found her, handed her the notebook and simply told her thank you. She rolled her eyes at me and nodded her head. I handed in my journal and much to my surprise, I got an A on it. It raised my grade to an even C.  I was going to pass Mrs. Wallerich's class & I was headed to the 7th grade with the rest of my classmates. 

I'll never known why Jillian did that for me. Maybe she just felt sorry for me. It may have been an act of pity.  Eric Bates tried convincing me that she did it as a motion to show me that she liked me as much as I liked her. He tried to drill it into my head that she opened up a door for me & I was too stupid to walk through it. All these years later, all I can do is guess and speculate. Regardless of why she did it for me, I will forever be thankful. She kept me from failing a class & potentially from having to repeat the 6th grade.  

I'd like to tell you that I was able to repay the favor one day, but I never did. It's not that I wouldn't have, but the opportunity never came up.  She moved away before the end of 7th grade the next year & I only saw her once more after that. 

I believe it was my sophomore year of high school. She came from Burlington to watch a football game. We had a dance afterwards.  For some reason while most nights I had zero confidence, that night I was full of it. Perhaps I was possessed by someone else. I walked right up to her and started a conversation with her. I hung out with her all night. Then towards the end of the game I told her that there was a dance, and I'd love for her to go with me.  She said yes.  It was the first time in my life I had ever asked a girl to do something with me and she said yes.  Unfortunately she came up to me a while later and said she couldn't go. Originally her and her family weren't going to leave back to Burlington until Saturday, but her mom decided they were going back tonight. She seemed genuinely bummed, and I'd like to think she was.  It was the last time I ever saw her. 

It's been 20 years or more since I last saw Jillian. I've had many girlfriends since her & I'm in a very happy relationship with my current girlfriend of 7 years. I'm sure she's probably married with 10 kids by now. I don't know if I believe all things happen as they should, but I do believe the Universe has some sort of order.  I don't regret that she and I never got together. It obviously wasn't meant to happen. She wasn't my someone and I wasn't her's.  Yet I do regret that I never got to repay the favor. I do wish that I would have gotten to do that. She literally saved my ass that day.  I'll forever be thankful and I'll never forget it. 

The Door

 I was conceived Catholic. My mother had grown up a member of the St Joseph Catholic Church in North English, Iowa & when her and my father first got together, this is the religious path that they took.  When my sister was born in 1982, she was baptized Catholic & a man I don't believe she's ever met, Terry Seip (I've met him twice myself) became her Godfather. I was always curious as a child why Sara had a Godfather and why I didn't. I guess my Dad who grew up going to the Hayesville Church (Which I don't even know if it is there anymore) wasn't too keen on the way that Catholics did things. So sometime before the 22nd of May, 1985 they switched it up & became Methodists. 

Long before I ever had any real conscious idea of what Christianity was or took a deep inner analysis, I was being held in my mother's arms in the pews of the Sigourney Methodist Church. So I guess in some ways it is fair to say that I was born Christian, specifically Methodist. When people inquire when I became agnostic, I usually answer June of 2007.  Consciously that is an accurate answer, but I wonder if sometimes my entire life I was an agnostic, but I just didn't know it. 

I can remember being really little & listening to other people talk about God. I can remember sitting in the pews with my mother at Church & listening to our pastor Danny Lemons speak of all of the great things God had done. Of how someone had a scare with cancer, and now because of God they were ok. How someone else had lost their job, but God helped them find one better. How this guy had gotten in a car accident, but God kept them safe. How this girl had fallen off a boat, but God saved her from drowning. This God sounded like a really cool guy to me. I wanted to meet him. I wanted to shake his hand and give him a hug. 

"God is here with us!" Danny would state it loud and clear as I looked about the room. I looked all over. If he was there with us, then where in the Hell was he? I wanted to see him. I wanted to see what he looked like. Point him out. Have him come up to the front of the room and introduce himself.  

There was a man that used to sit all by himself in the far corner of the room. I'd find out years later the real reason he always sat alone was because he didn't bathe & he stunk to high Heavens. No one wanted to sit next to him or better put, even if they wanted to be friendly, their noses strictly forbid it. At the time though, I thought maybe he was God. I remember asking my mother once. 

"Is that man God?" I asked her

"Be quiet!" Was the answer I received. 

I didn't think he was God. After all he didn't have a beard.  I just couldn't picture God without a beard. God had to have a beard. Besides that he wore glasses. Danny & everyone else kept saying that God was perfect and a perfect man wouldn't wear glasses.  

During our songs, Danny would leave the room. He'd open up this door, close it behind him & then he'd come out once we were done singing. I was 100% positive that it had to be where God was. I figured for one reason or another God was in this room. I pictured Danny going in there and discussing with God what he was going to do next in the service. It made me think of God in the same way as I thought of the principal at my sister's school. He might come out if he absolutely has to, but for the most part he was going to sit in his office and do his work from there. 

I made up my mind one day, that I was going into that room. I knew God was in there and I was going to see him. 

After the service, every Sunday we'd go down into the Church basement.  One one side the adults would get snacks and drinks, as they sat around tables visiting. On the other side, the kids would gather around a TV watching McGee and Me videos, or play with toys. I figured this was my chance to sneak up stairs, go into that room and get a glimpse of God. 

I did a good job of sneaking back upstairs, but when I got up there, I began to shake with fear. What if God didn't want me to see him? What if he was busy and I was disturbing him? I know how angry my Dad could get with me when I bothered him when he didn't want to be bothered.  Was God gonna get mad when I walked in on him? Would he blow up at me the way my Dad sometimes did?  

I walked all around the room & checked places I knew God wasn't. The room had a balcony with some rooms in it & checked them simply to waste time if nothing else. I had exhausted every crook and cranny of that entire space until all that was left was that single door, that I was almost certain God was behind.  

I stood by that door for what felt like an eternity. My heart raced 1,000 beats per second. I shook with fear of the unknown.  I reached out and put my hand on the door handle. 

"Stephen!" 

I turned. It was Dick Coffman, one of the members of the Church. 

"What are you doing up here?" He asked. "We've been looking all over for you. Come on." 

In a way I was relieved. For all I knew maybe Dick saved me from getting in trouble. Yet I couldn't help but wonder what would have happened had I opened up the door that day. 

Years would go by, decades. I was no longer a curious 5 year old full of wonder and ponder. I was now a 23 year old adult, who had explored the depths of my curiosity. I was out hanging with my good friend Andrew Nieuwsma, whose mom worked for the Methodist Church. At this point in my life, I hadn't been in the building in years. Probably close to 10 years. 

When I went in with him, I told him that I was gonna go walk around for a minute. The Church was empty other than me, him & his mother. I knew how silly it was, but now that I had the chance, I had to see what was finally behind that door. I had to know.  

Call me crazy and in many ways, I'd have no defense. I suppose it's the true possiblistic agnostic that I am. I believe in the realms of possibility, entertaining all ideas, being allegiant to none. In terms of the unknown, certainty is rare. So is it insane to think that a small part of me still though that God might be behind that door? Of course it is, but a part of me did still think that.  When I reached out for that door handle, I still shook with anticipation. I still hesitated with fear. 

Before I turned the knob, I took a deep breath and forced myself to relax. I closed my eyes as it opened, having to summon up the courage to open them again. It was nothing at all like I had imagined.  It was a small, simple room. Hardly big enough for one person, let alone two. Even if God had been there, I don't know how he and Danny would have fit at the same time. It was a small rack for a coat, a desk with some stationary and a chair. A door on the other side that led to a staircase that I had always wondered where in the world it went. For close to twenty years I wondered where this door led, thinking it might be a gateway to Heaven itself, and in reality it was about the size of a broom closet. 

Karma

 Years ago, when I was doing professional wrestling, I witnessed probably the worst beating I've ever seen in my life. It all stemmed from someone taking revenge on another person. 

There was this guy that had zero training, & he was absolutely careless and reckless in the ring. He had zero concern for the health or safety of his fellow workers. I had a run in with him once during a battle royal for APW in Milo, Iowa. He went up behind another worker and legit hit him in the back of the head as hard as he could. The other worker went down grabbing the back of his head, saying, "Dude! This is supposed to be a work." He responded, "I gotta make it look real." Which was contrary to what he was actually doing. You make it look real, you don't actually really do it. Especially hitting someone in a vital area like the back of the head. Anyway I grabbed him, pressed thim up over my head & threw him out of the ring. He said that he wasn't ready to go out yet, but I didn't care. He had already hurt one guy, he didn't need to be hurting anyone else. 

A while later he was put into a match with a trainee, who had a lot of potential. A good kid, with the good attitude that I think could have made it pretty far had he not gotten injured by this idiot. 

During the match, the guy dropped the trainee on his head doing a very risky maneuver that he never should have done. As a result the trainee messed up his neck and his shoulder, as well as his clavicle really bad. It more or less ended his professional wrestling career before it even began. There was no guilt or remorse on the other guy's part at all. He treated it like it was a part of the business of professional wrestling and as if those things just happened. He took no responsibility or accountability at all. 

Fast forward about 2 months later and the trainee's brother and the guy who had hurt the trainee are in a six-man tag team match. 3 on 3. Only when the idiot was tagged in, suddenly it became a five on one match.

It went from being a work to a shoot in a matter of seconds. 

It was like a gang beating. They beat him senseless. We're talking full-fledged punches to the face & picking him up and just tossing him. 

Two of the guys held him, while the trainee's brother took a chair and hit him on the head about three times harder than Stevie Richards hit Bradshaw the night he gave him a receipt for what he had done to the Blue Meanie.  I've never seen someone get hit so hard. 

The idiot never knew what hit him. He was knocked silly. From what I heard, he had some people take him to the emergency room. He never came back to any of the shows that I was ever a part of. I never heard or saw from him again. 

Nobody felt sorry for him and no one was mad at the other guys for what they did. He was a reckless, careless and above anything else he didn't care about what he had done to the trainee. So everyone's response to situation is that he got what he deserved.