“Nelson!” Michael called out my name when he heard me enter the school building. Then he would give me a big hug. Michael did not like to read, so sometimes I just read to him. The Monday before last he lay on the floor of my office as I read to him from “East Side Dreams,” an autobiography of a young man from East Los Angeles. Michael liked a good story.
Michael had what they call, a “canon.” He once said to me, “Watch this!,” and he threw a football thirty yards and right through a basketball hoop. We spoke of him one day being the quarterback at Lower Lake High and maybe one day getting a “free ride” football scholarship to a university. “But,” I reminded him, “you have to pass your classes, and that is why we have to work on reading.” He seemed unconvinced.
Michael was a horrid student. But I never believed the labels. That kid had an intelligence that belied his academic performance. And, beyond that, he seemed to me to be a natural leader.
Michael could be a bully. And all the words that we used could not dissuade him, and the walls of the school still have the holes where he put his fist through them. If all that spirit could have been channeled, there would have been no stopping that kid.
He was riding his bicycle at eight o”clock at night. I know that he had no helmet, because he refused the one that I had offered, and he said, “I will never wear a helmet”, and, he never did.
He was hit by a car and went into a coma and never came back.
Now, I won”t hear Michael call my name when I get to school, and I won”t get the bear hug. I am overwhelmed with sadness.
Nelson Strasser
Kelseyville
