A note from Dr. Hendrix
This is a boyhood love letter to Tom — the older kid down the street who made a scrawny ten-year-old feel like he belonged. Fights, movies, sneaked cigarettes, and the latest Elvis song; those three years between us were everything. I wrote it because the heroes who shape us are often just the kids who let us tag along.
My day would start out with Tom knocking on my front door, inviting me to this or that: going to a fight, playing over the line, going to a movie watching him make out with a girlfriend, sneaking a smoke, and listening to the latest Elvis Presley song.
Tom was three years older than me. He was thirteen and I was ten. That made all the difference in the world. He wore Levi’s with the belt loops cut off, I wore heavy duty jeans with extra padding in the knees.
Tom was the fourth toughest guy in junior high, I was in elementary school where up until fifth grade I was still on crutches from having suffered from polio.
Tom wore his hair in a jelly roll and started looking like a hood. I had a flat top and resembled a skinny little blond runt.
But through it all, he took me with him wherever he went and with whomever he met. Even to a summer hardball baseball league where he did his best to fit me in at times.
By the time I was a senior in high school and he had already done a hitch in the navy, our lifestyles had separated. But, One night after a high school football game had ended, the crowd was descending the stands. To my surprise Tom appeared in the crowd. I was still on the field saying goodby to players and fans alike. I was the head yell king at the time. Tom and I locked eyes.
He shook his head in disappointment. “What you doing down there?” He said his lips pierced with anger. Out of the clear still autumn night, he said, “ you should have stuck with me.”
By this time Tom stayed at 5’6” and I was just peaking at 6’. “Sure Tom,” I shouted back half sardonically.
He exited the stadium and I never saw him again. But, as I was going home that night, whatever Tom meant when he said I should have stuck with him, I felt, on second thought, he had the best of intentions in mind. He defended and involved me when I was learning to walk again. I do truly believe he was looking out for my best interest.
Just one last thought. An ironic one at that. As I drove home in my own car, I remembered being told by our common neighbor that Tom still had no car. And I was preparing myself to enter college – that has redounded to me the rest of my life – I remembered that Tom still had not finished high school. And still he was looking out for me. That was right out of the cult movie hit American Graffiti – our childhood heroes never seem to leave us.