Life in Rewind. Terry Murphy Weible

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       Chapter 2 Time Equals Progression, Progression Equals Death

      Times were tough in New England. In 1990, banks up and down the Eastern seaboard of the US were fore-closing as the property market collapsed, sending the economy into freefall. For guys like Ed’s dad, working in the construction business, the pressure of the recession was unrelenting. Tensions ran high all round, and dreams of big fortunes degenerated into modest quests for survival.

      But Ed was a dreamer. A year out of high school he still believed his mother’s prediction that he was destined for something special, and wasn’t prepared to accept the status quo. He was a talented self-taught artist who’d done his first oil painting at the age of four, and drawing had become his passion. But without support or direction he didn’t have any idea what to do with his talent. His dad didn’t think being an artist was a ‘real’ job, so Ed floundered-doing odds-and-ends jobs for his dad in the plumbing business, yet fighting the pressure to make the family business a full-time career. The rest of the time he locked himself up in the basement and watched television, contemplating his future, but also taking refuge from the deep feelings of loss that consumed him when his friends left for university.

      ‘Do something or get the hell out of my house.’ It wasn’t easy trying to figure out one’s life goal under the constant pressure of a threat, but it was the only way that Ed’s father knew how to motivate him. Pushing and prodding is what had worked for Bob when he was in the Marines, and threats worked in the rough-and-tumble world of construction. But Ed was programmed differently. As a child he’d been taught by his mother to respond to gentle, loving, nurturing support and direction. He didn’t respond well to Bob’s ‘tough love’ approach, and was quickly becoming immobilized by anxiety.

      Ed’s childhood friend, Rudy Harris, was off at university living his own dream as a starting fullback for the Clemson University Tigers. After Ed and his family had moved to Cape Cod, Rudy had become something of a local celebrity as the star player for Brockton High School’s football team, the number-one high school team in the country in 1989. Years later, Rudy would wonder how different Ed’s life might have been if he had been able to stay in Stoughton and the two of them allowed to grow up together. Each of them understood what it was like to lose a mother so young, and with his family frequently absent Ed perhaps could have benefited from Rudy’s ‘older brother’ compassion and positive attitude. Maybe Ed, too, would have developed as a star athlete.

      As it was, the two continued their long-distance friendship through their high school years. There wasn’t a high school football player in Massachusetts who didn’t know the name Rudy Harris, and Ed was proud of his childhood friend.

      In the autumn of 1990, tired of his loneliness, Ed spontaneously decided to visit Rudy down at Clemson University. After the 14-hour drive, Ed pulled his car up just a few streets away from the campus and made his way Rudy’s hall of residence. The sun was shining, the weather was crisp and there was an excitement in the air that felt fresh and alive. As Ed looked around at the happy faces of the students, he could feel the anxiety of his life melt away.

      Ed had no specific time plan for his visit, but he quickly became known as ‘Rudy’s boy from back East’. With this acceptance by members of the football crew-which at Clemson really meant something-Ed could enjoy the vicarious thrill of watching his childhood friend practise each day from the sideline.

      One afternoon, while casually tossing the ball back and forth with Rudy along the perimeter of the Clemson practice field after one of the team’s workouts, and as Ed imagined how proud his mother would have been to see him play football alongside Rudy, he was approached by head coach for the Tigers, Gary Wade, who seemed to have taken notice of some zip in those relaxed tosses, and asked where he’d played his high school football.

      Ed was a scrawny guy in high school who had a lot of heart, but who never really spent much time on the radar of his coaches. Now, according to Rudy, a Clemson coach was taking notice of Ed.

      Ed says he followed Coach Wade to the Jervey Athletic Center, and that on the way there they spoke about what it would take for him to be considered for the Tigers football squad. ‘I felt Coach Wade recognized in me something that he saw in the athletes who were full-scale recruits and Division One starters,’ says Ed. ‘He invested the time in me to make me feel positive, and made me feel that I had the ability to find greatness within myself.’

      This escape from the confines of his father’s basement had suddenly turned into a new lease on life for Ed. The prospect of attending Clemson as a student athlete sounded like a long shot for a guy already one year out of high school who’d never even started in a high school game. But even though he was a lithe 10 stone, he knew his 6 foot 2 frame could handle the added bulk he’d need to put on in order to play. The biggest obstacle, as Ed saw it, was not so much the athletic component, but the additional requirements for Clemson’s stringent admission process.

      Regardless, he placed his faith in his mother’s prescience, and his resolve was strong. With a copy of Coach Wade’s workout routine in hand, Ed returned home to Cape Cod, dream in tow, ready to fulfil the commitment he’d made to himself to one day play for the Clemson Tigers. But within days of coming home after that promising trip to South Carolina, and making that pronouncement to family and friends, his anxiety returned. It was the kind of anxiety he’d experienced when he was young-that nagging feeling that something bad would happen if he made the wrong choice of direction to go in while driving or walking.

      Dual carriageways caused him overwhelming stress, and Ed would plan his daily travels to avoid them. He was panic-stricken by the thought of roundabouts, which are very common in his home state of Massachusetts. None of it made sense to him, and he didn’t understand why doing any of these things seemed so СКАЧАТЬ