Skip

Sometimes in life,one comes across a person whose impact on ones life isn't fully realized till long after they've gone from it.


Stanley "Skip" Jarocki was one of those people. I knew him from my four years at Watkinson School.
"Skip" was my high school basketball coach. He had been a star athlete at Haverford College in Pennsylvania where as the story goes,until he coached the Varsity Basketball Team at Watkinson,had never been associated with a losing team in his life.

Let me emphasize:UNTIL he coached the Varsity Basketball Team at Watkinson. Watkinson's Basketball team was a collection of wannabe and never-will-be players,and that's being generous. If not for the fact that Watkinson was a small school of 120 students,there were some on the team that would be hard pressed to make a third grade roster at other schools. My stint on the Varsity team was the result of a failed lesson in teaching a predominantly white student body that all blacks cannot play basketball.
Our team never won more than 4 games in a 15-20 game schedule during my entire 4 years on the Varsity team.
Coaching a losing team was not  an easy task for Skip. His coaching style was hard nosed. I would compare him to noted Indiana basketball coach Bobby Knight. He'd harass the refs and was prone to receiving technical fouls. He'd slam his clipboard onto the court. On one memorable occasion,after a 40 point loss,he smashed a can of soda pop against a locker,causing the can to puncture,the end result being soda sprayed all over his suit. Just like Bobby Knight,he did things that in today's world would be unacceptable such as clutching my throat following a series of errors by the team.
One would think given Jarocki's temperament and history that his memory at best would be a negative one. Truth is,the voice of Skip Jarocki sometimes still coaches me today. In playing for Watkinson,there was rarely a game where we didn't face adversity from the moment of the tip off. In many cases,for all practical purposes,the game was over within minutes of the first quarter. At that point,there would be players ready to quit and quitting was precisely what Skip Jarocki would not permit you to do unless you wanted a seat on the bench. It didn't matter if we were losing by 10,20 or 50 points..Lost a game by 73 points once..players played,quitters sat.

Sometimes life has been like the equivalent of losing by large margin with a hostile audience on one's case. Sometimes one "loses" but quitting is not an option and once we beat a previously undefeated team that had never faced adversity.

Skip Jarocki was also my English Teacher at Watkinson School and playing a game in the evening was no excuse for not finishing an assignment the next day in his classroom. He was known to pick on members of the team for answers,figuring that if we cant play basketball we were going to know our assignments. I once thought a snowstorm was going to cancel class and there was no need for me to study for an English exam. The snowstorm never materialized and Skip never hesitated in giving me a 0 for my efforts.
Given the description of Skip Jarocki on the basketball court and in the classroom,one might get the impression of a teacher,especially one teaching in a Connecticut prep school such as Watkinson as one leading a rather traditional and morbitly dull English class. Let me give you a partial list of required reading in Mr.Jarocki's classroom:
                                                       In Watermelon Sugar by Richard Brautigan
                                                       Trout Fishing in America by Richard Brautigan
                                                        Soul on Ice by Eldridge Cleaver
                                                        Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert Heinlein
                                                        The Greening of America by Charles Reich

Sometimes subversives come in the form of a Bobby Knight impersonator..



Watkinson School

 
                                                       

Where Are you Today Robert Loy?

Robert Loy was the first person I befriended in my freshman year in High School. He was tall, awkward in his movements and he would speak in a low monotone voice. One of the nicknames given to him that year was "Meet the Press".

Robert Loy was what some people would call a nerd. In 9th grade,I was painfully shy,socially awkward and a bookworm  and that's one of the reasons we got along. We both got teased and harrased much during our first year at Watkinson School. It would be for different reasons,but we'd get harrassed nonetheless and we often saw our books tossed from the secord floor window of our Study Hall room.

Robert and I also shared a  deep interest in history and politics.Robert came from a staunchly Republican family while I was brought up in a staunchly Democratic family. His mom,Helen Loy was once the Republican candidate for Connecticut Secretary of State against Democrat Ella Grasso (who later became the first woman elected Governor)

Robert however felt his parents as well as Richard Nixon were too liberal just like I thought my parents and Lyndon Johnson were too conservative. We made a good team. He was like an encyclopedia of information.

By the time my junior and senior years rolled around,I was less socially awkward and hippiedom had arrived on campus. Robert was the same old Robert,but still we'd hang out..a lot.

There was the senior year camping trip to the Adirondack Mountains. I drove with Robert. Most of the seniors driving were speeding. I'd implore Robert (sometimes I'd call him Bob,although he didn't like it) to hit the gas pedal. Because it was "against the Law",he refused.He never really got mad at me for that.

A few months later Robert was in a cabin with a group of Watkinson Seniors.It was wintertime,the windows had plastic on them and there was very little ventilation. For about 2 hours,one joint after another was being smoked by everyone..except Robert! For 2 hours in a barely ventilated cabin,Robert was debating  the rest of us on the evils of marijuana.

Robert was a good friend to have if you planned on attending certain high school parties. He would serve as the Designated Driver before that became a term,and if I was too drunk and/or stoned to go home,if I called my mom to tell her I was crashing at Loy's house,she had less reason to suspect that I might be too drunk or stoned to go home. Better to hear a philosophical lecture from Loy as opposed to a pissed off parent.

I once,on a road trip we took after our high school graduation did persuade him to try and crash the Kennedy compound in Hyannisport Massachusetts. (We got stopped)

We maintained connection well into our adult years.Robert being true to form during one of our last conversations was criticizing Bush for not being conservative enough,yet despite being a staunch Catholic and anti-abortion,was highly suspecious of the Religious Right.

Robert never did get over his extreme social awkwardness and later this led to some hard times as an adult.The last time I spoke with him,he was living in some kind of adult home.

The last time I called the home,I was informed he was no longer there.I've searched the internet and social media (though it's highly unlikely he'd wind up there) I've even searched obituaries.

As I watch the Republican Convention,I can't help but wonder what Robert Loy might be thinking. I can't imagine him supporting Trump,but can't imagine him as a Ted Cruz guy either. Kasich??

If anyone has any clue as to the whereabouts of Robert Loy,let him know his old friend David is still thinking about him.

Memories of Julian Bond

Julian Bond was one of the few Civil Rights activists who also spoke out against the Vietnam War. It was his opposition to the war which gave the Georgia State Legislature the cover to try not to seat him when he was elected to the Georgia House of Representatives. He again bucked the tide in 1968,by endorsing Sen.Eugene McCarthy for President over first President Lyndon B.Johnson and later Sen.Hubert Humphrey.

At the tumultuous 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago,McCarthy supporters placed his name in nomination for Vice President as a protest to the Johnson-Humphrey policies.This despite the fact that he was Constitutionally too young to assume the office. In 1988,when Eugene McCarthy,on one of his third party runs for the Presidency asked me to run as his Vice Presidential candidate,I quipped to him that I was following in Julian Bond's footsteps as at the time I too was Constitutionally too young to assume the office.

Julian Bond was a friend of my High School History Teacher,the late Jack Chatfield who passed away last year.. The two worked together in the Student Non Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) In fact Bond was with Jack when he was wounded in a rifle attack by the Ku Klux Klan.

He was the Graduating speaker for the Watkinson School Class of 1974. My brother Howie was part of that graduating class. I was in Alaska at the time,and was planning to spend my summer there.However upon hearing that Julian Bond was to be the speaker,I flew from Alaska to Connecticut for the Graduation Ceremony,and thanks to Jack,I got to speak with him afterwards. My brother told me he even showed up to the Graduation party.

In the year 2000,I had another chance meeting with Julian Bond. He walked into the Barnes &Noble bookstore where I was working at the time. Over coffee we had a wide ranging discussion from politics to poetry. At the time I was the Grassroots Party candidate for US Senate. Julian Bond was responsible for me being the first Third Party Candidate permitted to present my candidacy to the local chapter of the NAACP. It was one of the proudest moments of that campaign.

Job Well Done Julian Bond..Rest in Peace

Lessons from the Court

My High School basketball team from Watkinson School in Hartford Connecticut was terrible..and that's being nice about it. When I first entered Watkinson,I never imagined myself playing basketball on the Varsity level. Initially,my primary reason going out for basketball was to utterly destroy at this predominantly white prep school  the stereotype of all black guys being good at basketball.
But that's another story for another time.

We were short. I was the second tallest on my team one year. We were slow. In Basketball,being short and slow is a fatal condition and with the Watkinson Varsity Basketball team of the early '70's it proved itself with 20,30,and 50 point losses not being uncommon.

The coach of this hapless team was Stanley "Skip" Jarocki. He doubled up as an English teacher at the school. How that worked out as a student also is another story for another time. Skip was part of the Haverford College championship soccer team,and never had been associated with a losing team..till he met us.

Skip was a Bobby Knight type coach. Tough on the refs. Would get called for several technical fouls. Tough on his players too. In a game against Milford Academy we had 5 consecutive backcourt violations. On the sixth try,we got the ball past halfcourt. I then traveled. On the ensuing time out,I thought he was going to strangle the entire team. The image on his face is burned in my memory forever.
 "DANIELS!!"
There's something else from Coach Jarocki that has burned in the heart ever since. When one is getting beatdown time after time,it would be easy to call it quits,and given certain situations,it would have made sense. With this team,the outcome of the game was often decided within the first few minutes of the first quarter. By the fourth quarter,even the opposing team would be laughing at us. Nevertheless,the thing that got you benched in a hurry was NOT the mistakes,but rather giving up no matter how out of reach the game was.

There have been those moments in life when it would seem like I'd be down 10 points within the first few minutes of a game. Life can throw one for a loop at times. I'd hate it when Skip would bench me,and generally would not permit it from happening.
When times have been tough,I still see Skip's image and hear the voice..and I keep playing. Hard.

By the way,we did beat a previously undefeated team once..
 

The Nor'easter that Never Happened

Chances are that if you lived in the Greater Hartford Area in the '60s or '70s,you began your morning listening to Bob Steele on radio station WTIC. Bob Steele played Big Band and Easy Listening music,told corny jokes,made poor baseball predictions,and made note of your birthday if you were 80 years old or older.

If you were a kid growing up in Hartford,you kinda hated him based on the music he'd play,plus the mere fact that your parents loved him,but on the other hand,you kinda liked him too. Chances are when one was younger,you listened to his Children's Story segment..something like Peter and the Wolf which he'd break up in segments throughout the week... "Part 3 Tomorrow" in his distinctive voice.
Later when you went to school,there was another reason worth listening to Bob Steele. During the winter,when there was a severe blizzard or Nor'easter,when school was cancelled,you'd hear it first from Bob Steele. If I knew snow was in the forecast,soon as I heard the radio going off in my mom's room,I'd peak out the window,and if it was snowing,I would strain to listen..waiting to hear the words "No School for..."

Stanley "Skip"Jarocki was my English teacher in both my sophomore and senior years of High School,and for me,one of the more memorable teachers I had during that time. Thanks to Mr.Jarocki,I was introduced to the writer who became my all time favorite-Richard Brautigan. Trout Fishing in America and In Watermelon Sugar were both required reading! So was the Hermann Hesse classic Siddartha. Based on that,one might get the impression that Skip Jarocki was some non-conformist teacher,constantly in trouble with the Administration. Nothing could be further from the truth. Skip Jarocki was a hard nosed,highly driven man who also doubled up as the Varsity Basketball Coach. On the court,Skip was the second coming of Indiana basketball coach Bobby Knight..not afraid to send a player on his ear for a mistake made on the court,and not above yelling at the refs and incurring numerous technical fouls. Problem was,unlike Indiana and Knight,Skip Jarocki's basketball teams didn't win. In fact,losing by 20 and 30 points wasn't uncommon. In fact,there were games where his teams lost by 50 or more points.Before this experience,Skip had never been associated with losing teams..even won a soccer championship at Haverford College. It drove him crazy at times and while most of the time,Skip's basketball persona never entered the classroom,it was never a good idea for a member of the Varsity Basketball team to enter his classroom on a day after a loss unless one was absolutely on top of all the assignments.

After a 30 point loss on the road,I returned home to do my homework. Had a few assignments to complete but weighing most heavily was an English test in Mr.Jarocki's class. It was a test on a book I just could not get into and had continually put off completing till the night before the exam. The week before, during a discussion of the book,Mr Jarocki continually called upon members of the team in the classroom. When none of us gave the answers he was looking for,those in our classroom who never attended a Varsity game hear in true Bobby Knight fashion that we were not going to perform in the classroom like we did on the basketball court!
I knew there was going to be hell to pay by not reading the book,but I also knew there was something going in my favor...Weather forecasters were predicting a monster Nor'easter to be coming up the coast with enough snow predicted that would surely mean the cancellation of school.
I started to read the book,realized I wasn't retaining anything,put the book down and then began to devise a plan to spend my snow day absorbing this book.
When my mom's radio alarm went off at 6 am with Bob Steele on the radio,I didn't bother to look out the window.Instead I kept my eyes shut. I wanted to enjoy the fact that I would be able to stay in bed longer. I also wanted to lay and think as to how soon in the day I wanted to start reading this book again.I knew I would have to shovel some snow first.

Now when Bob Steele would announce snow days,he would often start with the cancellations of schools farther out of the Greater Hartford area.Many of those kids had longer distances to travel,and there weren't many roads for those kids to travel on,so I'd wait to hear about those schools first. Bob Steele would start with the school cancellations shortly after the hour and again shortly after the half hour. I thought it was strange that no school was mentioned after the hour.
My mom would start to get on my case about getting ready for school around 7. 6:30 comes and goes and there is the bad music,Bob Steele's "Word of the Day"..and no school cancellations anywhere. There's a little concern,but in my mind,I cant hear everything coming from the radio in my mom's room,and maybe I missed it.

7 am. My mom begins getting on my case. I want to resist and stay in bed,but unless Bob Steele gives the word,I WILL have to prepare for school or at least respond to my mom's pleadings. 7:05 and there's more music and no announcement. I look out the window,and instead of white,I see the ground.
The best Skip got out of me in that exam was my signature,signifying that I indeed was responsible for this 0 grade exam.
I think there was a lesson in there somewhere..

When Baseball Created Rebels

In 1987,the last daytime World Series game was played.  That means now,there's a couple generations out there where night games for postseason baseball is very much the norm. The popularity of baseball has declined over the years,some people attribute the decline to its slower pastoral pace,especially in this day and age of video games. Others claim football is now America's sport.

I have my own theory.

America has long been an incubator for mavericks,iconoclasts,and rebels of various stripes,and daytime World Series games helped to develop them. When postseason baseball was played in the day,kids had to hope their teacher was a baseball fan,and hope that teacher would bring a television into the classroom. If the teacher was not a fan,then one had to resort to other means to keep up with the scores.

From the time I first became a baseball fan in third grade, (the 1963 Dodgers-Yankees World Series was the Series that got me hooked) till I was in eighth grade,catching the World Series games at school was standard fare. Then came ninth grade,Watkinson School,and Colonel Leiby. This was 1969,the final year of a tumultuous decade.
Watkinson School is a small prep school in Hartford Connecticut.Ninth grade was my first year at Watkinson,and Colonel Leiby was my Algebra teacher.
Colonel Leiby was a rather mild mannered,soft spoken teacher. He kinda looked like Peter O' Toole in the movie Goodbye Mr. Chips. At the same time,you didn't mess with Colonel Leiby. For one,should you call him MR. Leiby by mistake,he would immediately stop you and say my name is COLONEL LEIBY. Watkinson for discipline had a demerit system. Anything from failing to wear your tie to class,to long hair(or short skirts for the girls)or being late could get you a demerit. Five demerits,and you were at school on Saturday morning. Colonel Leiby never hesitated to hand out demerits when he deemed it necessary.On top of it,Colonel Leiby was a no nonsense Algebra teacher. As one who always struggled with math,I immediately knew I was in trouble from the moment I first stepped foot in Colonel Leiby's classroom.
I was in for even more trouble when,in 1969,my favorite team,the New York Mets defied 100-1 odds and went from the bottom of the league to its first ever World Series appearance. For me,as well as many others,this was more miraculous than men landing on the moon. If Neil Armstrong had made his small step for man during the school year,I doubt if anyone in Colonel Leiby's class would have been permitted to watch it. It was just my luck that Game 3 of the 1969 World Series between the New York Mets and the Baltimore Orioles would start while I'm in Colonel Leiby's classroom.

I may have been the only Mets fan in the class but luckily,there were a couple other students who loved baseball,and who were not going to stand for missing the game. One of them was Bruce Edwards. Bruce was a troublemaker from the moment he stepped foot on Watkinson's campus. Saturday detention was generally just another day at school for Bruce. I generally did not get along with Bruce,in fact he would sometimes bully me in 9th grade,but getting over on Colonel Leiby would create strange alliances. The day before the game,Bruce,another student Mike Morgan,and myself agreed to bring our transistor radios to class. The plan was for all three of us to listen to the game,relay the score to those students interested,and with three of us tuned in,should Colonel Leiby catch one of us,there would be the other two to carry on..

Each of us had our own way of concealing our transistors. I chose to hide my radio in my pocket with the earphone cord going underneath my shirt. It was also imperative that the volume be at a whisper. I also had to appear somewhat slumped on my desk,which actually wasn't too unusual because being a poor math student,I tried to avoid Colonel Leiby calling on me in class. Each of us sat in different locations in the classroom. I was closest to the door. Edwards was towards the middle of the class,and Morgan was in the back of the classroom. When the starting lineups were being introduced,I used my notebook to write it down..Agee..Garrett..Cleon Jones. It was not uncommon for Edwards to be writing notes and to get away with it. It was his job to pass on the Orioles' lineup..Frank Robinson,Boog Powell,Brooks Robinson... We created hand signals to inform the class what was going on. It was Edwards' job to let folks know who was up for the Orioles,my job was the Mets lineup,and Morgan was to supply the play by play.

The first inning went without a hitch,but then came trouble. Mike Morgan was the first to get caught. "That will be 5 demerits for you" said Colonel Leiby as he pulled Morgan's transistor from the desk.
This created immediate problems for me,because now it was up to me to relay the play by play. It was easier for Morgan and Edwards to pull that sort of thing off.They were generally talkative in the classroom. I tried to keep a low profile in the classroom,but now I was going to have to raise my hand to signify outs. The first time I raised my hand,Colonel Leiby was pleased that I actually participated in the classroom,but after that he got suspected something was wrong,and sure enough caught me and confiscated my transistor. Bruce Edwards was the only one who got away unscathed,but he had demerits from other classes,so the end result was all of us saw a Watkinson study hall on Saturday morning.

I don't know whatever happened to Mike Morgan. He left Watkinson before we graduated..Somehow I can imagine him being involved in some Wall Street insider trading scheme.
Bruce Edwards ended up following his own muse,after getting busted with marijuana in the trunk of his car,he found his calling as a golf caddy for Tom Watson and was the subject of a book Caddy for Life by John Feinstein. Edwards passed away a few years ago of Lou Gehrig's disease. Some say I still carry the spirit of 1969 onto this day.
Some people rue the fact that the rebellious and idealistic spirit of the time seemed to fade with the era..Others are concerned that the youth are losing interest in baseball. Perhaps we can take care of both by bringing back Daytime Postseason Baseball!