EVERY OTHER MONDAY by JOHN KASICH

Author:JOHN KASICH
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Atria Books
Published: 2010-07-15T00:00:00+00:00

EIGHT

Returning to Speed

THERE WERE TWO OTHER DEFECTIONS OVER THE YEARS, owing to changes in circumstance, so we were back in recruiting mode soon enough. First, Coach McQuaid pulled away with regrets after a good long run. He felt he had no choice. He was a car salesman, and our noon-hour sessions were running into his prime selling time on the showroom floor. When things got a little tough in the automobile industry, he could no longer justify the time away from work.

We all understood—hey, you’ve got to do what you’ve got to do. On a strictly selfish and personal level, though, I hated seeing Coach leave the fold, because the study group seemed to have had a profound effect on him. In turn, he’d had a big impact on the group. He brought a practical, no-nonsense perspective to our sessions, which can sometimes get pretty abstract and highfalutin. We had a habit of wading knee-deep into the mess and morass of a particular story and getting tangled in some obscure line of theological mumbo-jumbo, but Coach had a way of pulling us back to reality and helping to root our conversations in real-world terms. I remember being pleasantly surprised at this when he first joined, although I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised at all, because he was the same way when we talked down at the gym.

Over time, we came to rely on Coach’s character to keep us “real” as a group. It was somewhat ironic, I think, that the weight and worry over practical, real-world concerns would ultimately be what drove a down-to-earth guy like Bob McQuaid from our study, but that only served to remind us that we can’t dwell on theory and speculation.

Sometimes life gets in the way, even of our eternal pursuits.

It’s been a couple of years, but a lot of the guys still keep in touch with Coach, and I count this as a happy outgrowth of his time with our group. Dick Vogt, in particular, considers Bob one of his closest friends, and from time to time, we’ll call him up and tell him we’re keeping his seat for him at the Monte.

That’s not just a line with us, by the way. We really mean it. Once you’re in, you’re in; once you’re one of us, you’re one of us. If life pulls you away from the group for a stretch, you’ll always be welcomed back. Coach is constantly asking one or another of us if we’re still meeting down at the Monte, saying he’ll try to drop by, and a part of me half expects to see him each time out.

That’s also how I feel about my friend Craig MacDonald, who was transferred to the Pacific Northwest around the same time Coach had to step away. I look up from the table and am stunned that these guys aren’t there. Dr. Davies, too. For the longest time, these guys were so much a part of what we were doing that I haven’t gotten used to the fact that they’re no longer doing it.

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