Remembering Coach Tucker, Pt. 3
Coach Tucker and Carolyn loved to travel, and always sent me postcards from locales around the country during the summer. They kind of kept us accountable to keep running when we really wanted to be sleeping in late and trying to score beer…these postcards let us know he was thinking of the upcoming season, and we should be too. This one’s from Dallas. Reading RHT’s handwriting was an art in itself…but after a few years, you picked up on it. It was like a secret language only our team could read. It says “Thanks for helping at the fair.” We got to sit in the heat together and park cars for the Rushville Demo derby, to raise money for the track. It was one of the longest, dryest, hottest days ever. It really sucked, actually. But he and I got to talk about movies for hours on end. He loved movies, especially Sci-Fi, nerdy stuff like Star Wars and Dune. We definitely had that in common. He was the first to tell me they were making new Star Wars movies, and I was actually excited at the time. He had recently went to see “Striptease” with Demi Moore, which was controversial at the time, and I thought this was hilarious in itself. I don’t think I was old enough to see an R movie in 1996. He said the movie wasn’t any good, but Demi Moore had “bazongas the size of basketballs for some reason” and then eyes got really big and he puffed his cheeks out. We laughed about that all afternoon. The end of the card says “Be careful of heat, use belt at pool. Jog with Stear, Dustin and Caleb. —Coach rht” He had bought a special belt used for training runners in a pool. It was a very odd device, and we rarely used it because we were shiftless and lazy and couldn’t be bothered. We couldn’t even figure it out how to use it for a few weeks. I think we did cannonballs with it on. Coach always wrote his initials in three lowercase letters like that. Kind of humble, in a way. That was his trademark.
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The fair makes me think of the first time Mr. Tucker met Justin… maybe you were with us – I can’t remember. I snuck Justin into the fair in the trunk of my car – those admission prices where high! And as I was letting Justin out of the trunk Tucker was there parking cars – so Justin just hopped out and I introduced them.
Also…the fair was always a good way for the team to make money – but I think it negated 80% of my summer running… corn dogs and cheese fries every day!
Sounds like he was a real stand-up guy…and obviously you two were close. Thanks for sharing the stories. Though “Chris Ward, High School Running Star” is still hard to fathom.