One of my favorite songs of all time is "Done Somebody Wrong", as performed by The Allman Brothers Band.
The lyrics, to me, have always made perfect sense, and sort of define how I always felt about everything: “It’s all my fault, I musta’ did somebody wrong...” Some might think this a selfish, self-centered way of operating, and perhaps (on one level) it is. But I see it another way: I see it as a practical expression, the embodiment and application of that age-old and universal aphorism: ‘You reap as you sow’.
I bring this all up, as usual, because my wife and I were talking this past weekend, and she was asking me why I take things ‘so-to-heart’; why, as she put it, “you live your life so enmeshed in self-blame. Everything isn’t always your fault, ya know.” “Oh, yeah?” I replied, “Than tell me: exactly whose fault is the economic crisis?”
So, during my discussion this past weekend with my wife I was reminded of an episode that occurred during my time playing high school football at Panas High (all roads seem to lead back there for me, don’t they...it's kinda sad.)
I described it to my wife as I remembered it:
It was our junior season, and we had a pretty good team that year. Mike Savarise was our quarterback, a pure athlete constantly at war with his own demons. Ed Schiefelbein was his favorite target. Ed was (is) one of the best athletes to ever come out of Walter Panas High, period. John Ricci, Sean Bowdren, Jimmy Haviland, Seth Kaplan, Paul Russo, Mike Howard, Mike Simunek...lots of real good athletes from the class of ’77 were on that team.
There was a budget problem that year, as there was every year in our school district in the 1970’s (culminating of course with the prolonged Teacher-Union strike during our senior year). The net effect was that, although the football program wasn’t actually cut, our schedule couldn’t be finalized until after the budget vote passed (or didn't). So that season we took on who-ever we could get; that is, teams who still had room in their schedule to play us. For example, we played Poughkeepsie, a school way out of our normal travel range, and Gorton, a tough Yonkers team from the opposite end of the county, whom we had never faced before. And, interestingly, for the first and only time, we played Lakeland twice that year: our first and our last games of the season. [They were having school budget problems too (no surprise, same district), and had the same last-minute scheduling dilemma as us].
Anyway, we lost a close one in the season opener at Lakeland. Then we reeled off a string of five straight wins. As I said, we were good that year, so good that I think we kind of surprised ourselves. Suddenly we were 5-1, and heading into the season finale against our arch enemy Lakeland. They also were very good, led by a ferocious middle linebacker named Kenny Kienle (he went on to play at West Point). They were 5-1, too.
It was a big game, obviously, to be played on our home field. Mike Perrelle, myself, and Kenny Dahl, all juniors, were the starting defensive backs on that team. My job, my specific task that day was to cover their tight-end, Jeff Guerra. Per Coach Scozzafava, I was to “not let him touch the ball, at all, ever, end of story. Got it, man!?!” “Yeah, Coach, I got it....”
So, the game was on, and it was a real slugfest, and it was late, very late, in the 4th quarter. I was doing okay so far. I don’t think Guerra caught anything (significant) to that point in the game. If I remember correctly, the score was tied 0-0, or 6-6; it was a nail-biter. They had the ball deep in our territory, and their quarterback dropped back for some sort of pass play, and our blitz was on. Whatever their set play was, it was broken-up, and in desperation their quarterback semi-lobbed the ball behind the line of scrimmage to Jeff Guerra, who was nearby as the outlet. I held my position, and was right with him (thankfully), and I lowered my head and dove in take him down low. I had him. And then, I didn’t. Something happened, there was a collision, and suddenly I was on my back, and the crowd was roaring, and Jeff Guerra was running across the goal line. Ed Schiefelbein was on the ground next to me, and we exchanged one long, forlorn look, and hoisted each other up.
And we lost the game by that one touchdown.
Well, I still remember, right now, the leaden pit in my stomach as my older brother and his (stunning) girlfriend drove me home from the game. They, quietly trying to console me with small talk and platitudes, and me, having none of it. None...of...it. We lost the game by one touchdown, and it was all my fault.
That next week I skipped the final team meeting, and the review of the game film. I couldn’t face it.
And that night, after the team meeting, my friend Kenny Dahl called me on the phone. “Soos”, he said, “it wasn’t your fault. You gotta see the game tape. It wasn’t your fault at all.”
But I wasn’t buying it. None...of...it.
Fast forward seven years. Go past my senior year, and four years of college, and one year into the ‘work force’, my so-called professional life. It’s 1983, and I am woefully under-employed, working as a substitute teacher at, yes, my alma mater Walter Panas High during the day, and as a ‘Nautilus Instructor’ at a local health club, at night.
My friend Kenny DaRos was subbing at Panas at that time, too. He would sometimes watch old game films in the locker room office during his lunch break. He encouraged me to watch some film; this one particular time I did, and it happened to be the Lakeland-Panas game, our junior year, 1976. And I finally saw what happened, I saw how and why I missed that tackle, seven long years after the fact.
It all unfolded as I remembered it, the broken play, the shovel pass to Guerra, me right there going for his legs...and then Ed Schiefelbein came barreling in. Schief, as I said earlier, was a tremendous athlete, the best guy we had on the team that year. He went on to have a distinguished collegiate career at William and Mary, one of only a handful of Panas grads ever to play football, and play it well, at that level.
So Schief came thundering in to take Guerra’s head off, and ended up taking off mine. He ran right over me, and that is how I found myself suddenly on the ground, with Schief by my side, and Guerra strolling into the end zone.
There is a picture in the Class of ’77 yearbook, a picture I only saw one time. It is of my backside, you can just see the number 33, and it captures the exact moment that I’m diving at Jeff Guerra’s legs. And just barely entering the right hand frame of the photo is Ed Schiefelbein’s extended foreleg. It’s the moment before impact, the impact that tore me off of Guerra’s legs, the impact I never imagined happened, the impact I never forgave myself for.
Truth be told, I still don’t. Ya know, if I was just a little quicker, a little better positioned, I might have gotten between Guerra and his quarterback, and batted that pass away...
But it’s all my fault, I musta’ done somebody wrong...
I do not own the Class of ’77 yearbook. If anyone does, and can scan that photo, and send it to me, I would be extremely grateful. Very grateful, indeed. It might provide me with a small measure of comfort, I guess.
Or, at the very least, I could show it to my wife;)
Done Somebody Wrong by Elmore James (As performed by The Allman Brothers Band, Live at Fillmore East, 1971).
"The bell has tolled, my baby caught that train 'n gone
The barrel-house told me, my baby caught that train 'n gone
It was all my fault, I musta' did somebody wrong.
Everything that happens, you know I am to blame.
Everything that happens, you know I am to blame.
I'm gonna find myself a doctor, perhaps my luck will change.
Ah, my mamma she told me, these days will surely come.
I wouldn't listen to her, had to have my fun.
The barrel-house told me, my baby caught that train 'n gone.
But it's all my fault, I musta' done somebody wrong, oh yeah.
The barrel-house told me, my baby caught that train 'n gone
The barrel-house told me, my baby caught that train 'n gone
It was all my fault, I musta' did somebody wrong. Oh play the blues..." |
