Hometown Hero

I had the same best friend for several years of my childhood. “Mae” lived right across the road from me, so we walked back and forth to each other’s houses all the time. She only stopped being my best friend when she moved away and we lost touch. She was very confident and outgoing and I was extremely shy and introverted, so spending time with her probably made my life a lot more interesting.

One of the things I think of the most when I remember our time together is that she always somehow came up with crazy, elaborate plans that she talked me into helping her carry out. They were always kind of ridiculous ideas that you might see kids on cartoons or sitcoms trying to pull off. I was usually very nervous about the plan and didn’t want to be involved, but she always managed to talk me into helping her.

Usually her plans didn’t turn out at all the way she wanted them to, but we once managed to pull off one of the biggest ideas she ever had. We were in 5th or 6th grade. Mae had a huge crush on one of the high school basketball players in my town. We lived in a very small town where basketball was the sport that everyone followed. If you’ve ever seen the Friday Night Lights TV series it very closely resembles the way my town felt about basketball, only multiplied by a factor of five.

Every home game managed to fill the gym at the high school. Large crowds of people travelled to away games too, though. When the team went to the state tournament, which was pretty much every year, people would drive across the state and cheer the team on. The players on the Varsity team were treated like celebrities. Everyone in town knew their names and what position they played. Little kids would see them on the street and call out to them by name. They were seen as heroes.

As luck would have it, the basketball player that my friend decided she was in love with lived right behind me. She showed up one day with an idea that I was completely unable to talk her out of. She decided that we should go to the player’s house and pretend to be reporters for the school newspaper and ask to interview him. The point of the plan, and all the details that went into it, was to give her a chance to spend time with him.

Mae’s plan made me more uncomfortable than most of her other plans because her favorite basketball star was my neighbor and it just hit too close to home. I wish I could summon even a fraction of the enthusiasm she had for putting the plan into play, though. It was impossible to discourage her because she was so excited to go talk to the player. She was so sure that her plan would work that there was no talking her out of it. She ran home and got a camera and notebook, wrote out several interview questions, and she was ready to go knock on his door.

With all of our props in order we walked out my back door and went around his yard to his sidewalk and knocked on the door. My heart pounded while we waited for someone to answer. I silently hoped nobody would be home, but I knew by the cars in the driveway that someone was there. All too soon the door opened and our target’s mother answered the door. I let Mae do all the talking, which she didn’t hesitate to take care of. She explained that we were reporters for the school newspaper and asked if “Roger” was home, because we wanted to ask if we could interview him. Roger’s mother smiled and called him out of his room. I’m sure she knew who I was and I hoped she wouldn’t mention this to my parents.

Roger graciously accepted the interview and answered all of Mae’s questions. I took notes so I wouldn’t have to talk too much. I was still very nervous about being there under false pretenses. I don’t remember most of the questions she asked him, but I do remember that she asked him what type of music he liked to listen to. He showed us a “Metallica” poster on his wall. This question stood out to me because I had never heard of Metallica before, but they would eventually become my favorite band of all time.

Roger was actually a really cool guy. I sometimes wonder if he knew that we weren’t real reporters. The town was small enough that he might have found out later there wasn’t actually a newspaper at our school. He asked when the article would be printed and seemed genuinely interested in it. If he had any doubts about the interview he didn’t express them, though.

At the conclusion of the interview Mae asked if we could take his picture for the article. She went over to stand next to Roger, whom she was waist-high to, and said, “Take a picture! I’m standing by him!” I can still see the excited look on her face as she waved enthusiastically. Her eyes were lit up like it was Christmas morning. I took the picture and we thanked him for the interview and ran back to my house.

I’m assuming that at some point in time Roger the basketball star figured out that Mae and I were not genuine reporters for the school paper, but nothing was ever said about it. He eventually graduated and went off to college and moved on with his life. I looked him up when I decided to write this story and it looks like he’s done pretty well in his life and career. I also looked Mae up on the internet and she is currently living in a different town in my home state. I hope they are both doing well and I wonder if either of them ever thinks about our magical imaginary interview for the elementary school newspaper.