Cheering for Homer

When I was a freshman in high school, there was a senior named Jason on the basketball team.  I had played football with him earlier in the year, so I knew Jason a little.  I was one of only two freshman who had made the varsity, and he was one of the few seniors who went out of his way to be nice to us and make us feel welcome.
 
I wish I could say that I showed my appreciation by being nice to him in return, but I'm ashamed to say that I didn't.  Instead, I'd go to the basketball games with several of my friends and...whenever Jason did anything at all, good or bad...we'd cheer to beat all hell.  And it wasn't that enthusiastic way that you cheer for your team in high school, when winning seems the most important thing in the world.  It was that phony, sarcastic cheering.  Basically, we were just taunting a guy who deserved better.
 
Jason, you see, stood about six-two and had bright red hair that never could stay combed.  He had a round, moon-pie face filled with freckles, and had ears that looked like they belonged on a head about four hat sizes larger.  He had practically no neck to speak of, just a series of chins that sort of melted into his chest, and he always had a stubble because you can't shave a face like that.  He was homely...not cute-homely like some people...but HOMELY, and there was no way to dance around it.  He looked like some grotesque Opie Taylor gone to seed.
 
And about that time in Augusta (the nearest city of any size), there was an independent TV station desperate for inexpensive programming.  So it was running a series of old sit-coms:  The Andy Griffith Show, The Beverly Hillbillies, Gilligan's Island, etc.  And along with these old shows, it also broadcast a few old-time commercials, including a corn-flake commercial that featured a country music comedy duo called "Homer & Jethro".  (If you've ever sung that old Boys of Camp Kookamonga song at summer camp, you should know that Homer & Jethro were the ones who originally recorded it.)   And be damned if the "Homer" of that pair didn't look almost EXACTLY like Jason.  (In the facial features, at least...there's no way his ears could compete.)  

So Jason became "Homer" for us.  We'd scream for him and beg the coach to "Put Homer in!"  I'm sure Coach Hemphill, always a bit daft, had no idea what was going on.  Pretty soon we had the whole freshman class in on it, and whenever Jason came into a game, we would explode.  We screamed and hollered: "Let HOMER shoot! Let HOMER shoot! "  It's a wonder the team won a single game that season.
 
Through it all, Jason remained a pretty good player.  He always hustled.  Any time there was a loose ball, he'd dive on the floor after it, getting a lot of bruises and scraping his knees.  By the end of a hard game, the color of his kneecaps would almost match his hair.  

I remember one night he scored 18 points, and led our school to a victory over a team that...frankly...was a lot better then we were.  And in the very next game, he only scored three points.  But we again beat a better team, and Coach Hemphill cited Jason in the local newsweekly writeup as Player of the Game because of all the little unselfish and unheralded things he did to help the team win.  It took Hom...uh...Jason about half the season to realize what was going on, and I'm not sure what he thought about it.  He never asked, and probably figured it had something to do with The Simpsons.  By the end of the season, he'd just wave and flash that little sheepish grin whenever we cheered.  Then he'd go out and play as hard as he could.
 
When Jason graduated, he attended a small junior college in Tennessee on a football scholarship.  He went for two years, then came back to our little hometown.  He worked for a heating and air conditioning contractor in Augusta for a couple of years, and then started his own business.  He married a classmate of mine, a girl named Vicky, who was always quiet and nice.  She wasn't overly popular, because she was a little shy.  She was never a cheerleader or class officer, but she was always liked and respected.  Like a lot of girls who go through school under the radar, by the time she was a senior she had grown into an absolute beauty...and we guys all wondered "When did that happen?"  

After she graduated, Vicky married Jason and went to work at a local bank.  She's done well there, I think.  It's a small town, and everyone knows everybody else and what they're like and what they do.  And people like the idea that somebody somber and serious like Vicky is helping look after their money.
 
Jason's business has done well, too.  He gets his share of the heating and air conditioning business in and around our hometown, and even gets some in Augusta as well.  When he does a job, he's careful and thorough.  He's got people working for him now, but he always visits the job sites from time to time just to make sure that everything is being done correctly and on time.  He gets a lot of repeat business, and good word-of-mouth recommendations.  When my parents bought the last house they ever lived in, he's the person my father hired to replace the heat pump...even though he was not the lowest bidder.
 
I got to know Jason pretty well over the years.  He and I played a lot of basketball together, both in pickup games and in summer leagues.  We often guarded each other.  Even when I was a senior in high school and in the best shape of my life, he still played me tough, especially on defense.  I could out-jump and out-muscle him, but never could out-hustle him.  And that was rare for me, because I was scrappy and had a lot of grit in my garter, too.
 
The last time I saw him was this past Thanksgiving.  I went back to my hometown to see some friends, and learned that the old crowd was going to play a few pickup games at the gym one night.  I went and played a couple of games, and it was fun...though I could tell I hadn't played basketball in a while.  I jump just as hard as I ever did, but don't get quite as high off the ground as I used to.  I figure that gravity has somehow gotten a lot stronger than it was when I was eighteen.  (My teammates had a different theory about that, but it's too ridiculous to mention.)
 
After my last game, I sat in the bleachers with Jason, cooling off and chatting a while, just to catch up.  He and Vicky have two little girls now, and...naturally...he had to show me pictures.  Their youngest is absolutely beautiful, looks so much like her mother.  And the oldest, bless her heart, looks just like Jason, though (thankfully) with regular ears.  You could hear the pride in his voice as he told me all about his daughters.  The oldest looks just like him, but in personality is exactly like Vicky...while the youngest looks like Vicky, but has his temper.  He told me how the older one took a fly swatter and beat down every ant hill in the yard because a fire ant bit her sister...and how the youngest ate half the candy eggs in her sister's Easter basket, and put real eggs from the refrigerator in there, hoping she wouldn't notice.  Then he said, "It's funny how you just KNOW that the little silly things like that will be the things you'll always look back on and remember most."
 
I had to go, so we shook hands and I left.  Walking out the door, I turned back around just to take in my old high school gym once more, and get a final glimpse at the hard-core players squeezing in that one last game.  And I saw that Jason was still sitting there in the bleachers, lost in his own little world...smiling at those pictures of his two little girls and chuckling quietly to himself

Looking back, I sure am ashamed of the way we used to mock-cheer for Jason, calling him "Homer" in such a juvenile, ridiculous manner.
 
But I sure am glad we picked him to cheer for.