MILEPOSTS OF MY LIFE: DANNY BECOMES DAN

One day in 6^th grade Danny became aware that one of his friends was going to be beat up for whatever lame reason after school. Danny left school first and arranged a signal, putting his books on his head, which meant that the bully wasn’t present and Danny’s friend could hurry home safely. Danny had another signal if the bully was nearby. The first day went well. The second day the bully had turned his wrath on Danny. Somehow he got wind of the plot to save Danny’s friend and confronted Danny after school. He called Danny a little $@%&* so Danny knew he was serious. The next day Danny was to signal “safe” so his friend would come out expecting safety. The bully would be waiting. Danny was full of anxiety and wasn’t sure what to do. So he confided in the most wise, trustworthy man he knew: Dad. No problem, Dad would call the bully’s parents and put an end to it all. And so Danny’s dad made the call and the entire problem went away. Later in life Danny sold a piece of land to a young man. After comparing notes, it was realized that the young man was the son of the bully. Danny told him the story and the young man was amused and thought that was uncharacteristic of his dad.

Junior high school was grade 7-9, and it was about time to attend the big school with lots more students and challenges in life, as well as new opportunities. Along with the new opportunities came new expenses. For years Danny had been receiving 5 cents times his age for an allowance. So at age 12 his allowance was 60 cents a week. This was fine in grade school, but Danny quickly found that $2.40 a month wasn’t going to cut it in this new world of good times. First of all, Danny’s parents came to the rescue. Seeing the new, legitimate needs, they raised his allowance to $2.50 a week! What would Danny do with all that extra cash! Well, said, Mom and Dad, first of all, tithe. So Danny was introduced to tithing and has had the privilege of being a cheerful giver ever since.

Keeping up the family trapping tradition, Danny also bought some traps and began his pocket gopher trapping career. Each gopher was worth 30 cents so a good week of trapping could turn into real money! To improve things drastically, Danny’s grandpa discovered his county paid $1.00 per gopher. So Danny cut off the front feet of each gopher, put them in Mom’s freezer for storage, and had Grandpa Erickson sell them when he had a chance.

Another income stream was mowing lawns. Danny secured two lawn mowing accounts. One paid 3.50 and the other 5.00 per mowing. But now Danny was faced with another challenge: He needed better, more dependable transportation to his mowing jobs. So Danny went bike shopping. He decided on a 1970’s orange, Schwinn Varsity. It was priced at $120 but Danny wanted fenders so it then cost him $127.00. Sold! The Bike and Danny had many good years together, until some loser stole in broad daylight.

It was now the early 1970’s. Men had walked on the moon, a president and Martin Luther King were assassinated, the unpopular Viet Nam war was coming to a close, Danny was a city slicker and most importantly he had decided to follow Jesus. Something else was happening: Danny’s voice was cracking and there was some fuzz on his upper lip. Danny was becoming Dan.

 

MILEPOSTS OF MY LIFE: THE BIGGEST LOSERS

In elementary school somewhat of a pecking order develops early on. There are three main categories: The popular, the average, and the biggest losers. Labelling is usually not arbitrary but there are real reasons why each student wears a label all his or her school years. Danny was not one of the popular ones. Occasionally he would find favor with one of the popular ones, but never attained to the nobility of the higher ups. Neither was he ridiculed or completely left out of events and friendships. He was, well, average. Danny noticed in first grade there were already those who were being left out and made fun of. And for all their growing up years, almost without exception, they were never able to shake their “loser” labels. Were they losers? Danny didn’t think so. They had great potential, given the chance, but were pretty much not going to be given the chance.

Often a child was mocked or excluded because of a physical “flaw”. There was one girl who was as wide as she was tall, dressed very poorly, had lots of warts and a funny voice. Beginning with the first day of school, she didn’t stand a chance. There were others who were from large families and were poor. As a result, they dressed in hand me downs that had been handed down…a lot. Occasionally it was grooming that blew someone’s chances at friendship of any kind. And sometimes it was just pure dumb luck.

One of the unlucky ones was a boy named Steve. He looked normal, dressed normal and was very well groomed. But somehow he was chosen to be picked on. For instance, he was very studious (maybe his only flaw), and carried lots of books. The obvious thing for the meanies to do was kick his books out of his hands. If Steve shook it off his life may have been very different. But he pouted and that was like blood to a blood thirsty hyena and the bullies couldn’t wait to see him pout again. So Steve developed a fast walk with large steps that became his trademark and he was labeled a lesser child; a loser. For years he walked the halls fast with those big steps all to avoid being picked on, thus encouraging it. After high school Danny was driving to college and saw in the distance alongside the road a young man with a walk he immediately recognized. Sure enough, it was Steve walking to the same school Danny was going to. Danny pulled over to give him a ride. The boy had become the most negative, pessimistic young man Danny had ever met. And all because he, who started out normal, was chosen to receive the short end of the stick of life.

One thing that Danny noticed through the years of encountering the popular kids and the “losers”: the popular kids were often arrogant jerks who wouldn’t allow the likes of average Danny to hang around them. Often they wouldn’t even talk with him. But the so called losers always welcomed him to their lowly groups, every time. Maybe they weren’t the losers after all.

Throughout his school years it bothered Danny to see the outcasts treated like lesser people. It just wasn’t right that, early in life, these students were being formed into someone who had far less of a chance to succeed. So often Danny risked the potential fallout and paid attention to these students. Later in high school Danny would sit with them in the cafeteria and get to know them. Aside from a few physical or social short comings, they were normal people who had been shafted in their formative years. In the Bible, recently anointed King David fled the hateful King Saul with a band of these kind of people. They were the losers of society but loyal to the King. If Jesus were in elementary school most of us know who he would hang out with. Jesus said, “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven (Matthew 5:3). To this day Danny still gravitates toward those sitting alone in a given situation. He has found great treasure hidden in the outcasts of work, church and the like. Though most kids shake some of these unfortunate labels off in adulthood, some residual pain still remains. All of us who call ourselves Christians have a great opportunity to be Jesus to them.