Georgia is On My Mind by Gary Lunsford

Author:Gary Lunsford
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Publish on Demand Global LLC

Billy Lee: 1967-1968

The mines had another layoff the summer of 1966, and when it happened, most of Billy Lee's good friends had to move. Their parents decided it best to find a job with more security than the mines. In fact, most of the best football players at High View moved out of town. That left him with some of his High View friends and the Eisenhower boys to fill the ninth grade athletic teams. They weren't very good.

They started two-a-days for the first time in his career. But Three Lakes had a flood that summer. Sometimes it rained pretty hard and flashfloods filled the once dry canyons. In fact the rich people on River Road Drive had their backyards filled with the Puerco River…some homes even had water all the way to their back doors when there should've been a hundred feet downhill distance between the river and their back doors. Everywhere in town, the water stood several inches deep. Devil's Canyon was flowing above the bridge. They had never seen that happen.

Anyway, life goes on. His ninth grade football coach looked around and saw that there was not much talent. So, because Billy Lee was a Leeds, coach put him at quarterback. In the eighth grade he never played offense at all, and suddenly he was a quarterback. He stood about 5’7” and weighed about a hundred thirty-five pounds. He had a serious growth spurt since the eighth grade when he was only 4’11” and weighed ninety-five pounds. He wished he had grown more.

They had a terrible season at 1-6. There was a guy on his team who was really good. He was the fullback and the best player on the team. He came up one day and quit football. They couldn't believe it. They called him a chicken. He said, “I just don't want to play because I lost interest in it.” That winter he died of leukemia. Billy Lee and his friends felt like jerks, calling him a chicken. The football team was dismissed from school to go to his funeral. Man, that's sad to go to a funeral of someone who was just fifteen. He reflected on Mr. Thompson's funeral and wondered if that friend was going through the same thing. He felt his presence and also began to feel that you just don't die. There is something else out there! The question is what? For the first time in his early life he learned that there is more to life than sports. Sports seemed so small compared to life.

They had the Pony-Colt football game at the end of the year. That was when the two local ninth grade teams played each other. He was a Pony. They had won their first game, and then they lost the next five in a row. But the Colts had lost all their games, so the Ponies were expected to win.

He joined the choir that year. His choir was called the Crusaders. He really enjoyed singing and met a lot of different kinds of friends.

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