Reflections in a Window

I wonder if you've ever considered just how much music a high school coach has to listen to as he or she drives teams to and from games and tournaments.  If you ever did consider this, you would be far kinder to your teachers.  Over thirty years of teaching and coaching, believe me it adds up to a lot of music.

It hasn't always been pretty.  There's been some dry years.  There was Milli Vanilli on the way up to Algonquin Park for a camping trip. Three hours of  "Blame it on the Rain" does something to you.  Not quite sure what it does but it does something to you.  They don't even do that to detainees in Guantanamo.

The millennium wasn't much better.  Katy Perry's  Hot 'n Cold coming back from a tournament in Kingston was a difficult time.   "You're in and you're out, you're up and you're down".  You don't just shrug off insight like that.

Then there was Blind River (Old Neil sings about her ya know), who could forget Blind River.

I'm driving a van full of boys to Blind River. I don't know why it's Blind River...just accept that as our destination.  It's the early '90's and we leave the school at 6 am.  This basketball trip, like all basketball trips, past, present and future begins with the fight over who rides shotgun and by default, who controls the music. The '90's  is the decade of the mix tape and each player wants to take his turn playing his favourite music. This will be a trip dominated by The Tragically Hip.  We will listen to it in one form or another in one mix tape or another, on both legs of the journey.

When I check into the Mom and Pop motel after a long, long drive, the owner keeps looking over my shoulder and asking "Are they are good boys?".  I reassure him but he seems nervous.  And then I see what he sees; the van is rocking side to side, two wheels off the ground in beat, as the boys jam to Little Bones. The windows are fogged and they are singing at the top of their lungs.

It could be quite a weekend.

There's the games themselves, which are endless and relentless.  There's the host school, W.C. Eaket,  inviting all the teams to a dance on the Friday night.  There's me, in my pajamas, clearing every teenage girl in Blind River out of the motel parking lot after the dance.  There's my point guard developing a throat abscess, collapsing after the semi-final game.  There's his trip to a Sault Ste. Marie Hospital, in an ambulance, and my co-coach having to borrow a car and stay for two nights on a friend's couch in the Soo until the parents arrive.  To this day I have no idea how the coach got home.

There's the Innkeeper on Sunday morning asking "if I'd like to take the empties back to the beer store?"  It's one of the few times there is absolute silence in the van.

Then there's the knifing snowstorm home; a white knuckle drive along old highway 69.  We are asked to leave a Pizza Hut in Parry Sound because the boys have devoured the entire Hut. Serves them right to advertise "all you can eat for $5.99."  The van at this point is a rolling compost pile encrusted in road salt; food wrappers, empty cups and of course the unmistakable smell of adolescence having played four games and not having showered.  Did you know sometimes players think that not changing your socks brings you luck? True fact.

It is very late now.  The van is quiet.  Most of the players are asleep except for Matt in the shotgun seat.  He begins to talk.  They always begin to talk at this moment.  It's Matt this time but it could be Daniel or Katie or Pat or Kelly or Phil.  Each will stare out the window, while the music is low and will ask me questions or will tell me about his or her family or his or her dreams.  I won't say much, nod a bit, shift in my seat. They'll talk and talk, coming to conclusions about themselves that they will only find in the reflection of a window at night.

I drop the last player off.  It has been a twelve hour drive.   He turns to me,"Sir, you are so lucky."
"Why's that?"
"You get to do this every year."

Yes, yes I do.