SWARTHOS

High School 1978, it’s football season and conditions are harsh. The coaches have no empathy or tolerance for excuses. A teamate of mine, a kindhearted young man named Robert Davies misses practice one day and upon his return the following day he is severely disciplined. His excuse was that his father had cut his lip and needed to be driven to the hospital.

The coaches ridiculed Robert, mocking his excuse with “oh your daddy cut his lip”. They shook their heads in disgust as they did so. In their minds such an excuse was worthless. After all, what is a little cut on a lip anyway? As far as they were concerned it certainly didn’t warrant an excuse from one of their practices.

Years go by and now I’m a young man in my mid 20s, working on a Naval base in the pass office. A place not unlike a DMV where active duty, civilians and retired all would come to renew ID’s, vehicle decals and such. I would see 100s of people every day as I worked the lines that often ran out the front door and down the side of the building.

One such day as I helped the customers, an elderly gentleman approached me needing to renew the base decal for his car. He was a retired Navyman with the name Robert Davies. I asked him if he by chance had a son with the same name, about my age who would have attended my high school… Well as it turned out yes he did! He was in fact the father of the same Robert Davies I had played football with in school.

We chatted for a bit and he took great pride and pleasure in showing me photos of his son completing Army Ranger training, performing his first parachute jump from a plane. It was a nice encounter as Mr. Davies was a kind hearted, gracious gentleman.

Oh, there’s one more thing I failed to mention. As I spoke to Mr. Davies I looked upon his face. Running from just below his nose, nearly down to his chin was one very deep and unsightly scar, the kind that would have been caused by a violent cut resulting in a great loss of blood and pain, obviously requiring immediate medical attention.

Oh, your daddy cut his lip… Now I shake my head in disgust.