he closed his eyes and began to drift off to sleep he remembered a ride home with his Dad a year earlier after the Chatham game. They talked about overcoming adversity. It seemed just like yesterday. Bruce played for Chatham as a freshman and ironically after moving a year later played for Madison against Chatham as a sophomore.
He remembered everything about the conversation on the drive home. The weather was dreary, wet and cold and by the end of the game it was raining so hard you couldn’t see out of the car window. Madison lost at the last minute and Bruce took a lot of verbal abuse from his former Chatham teammates and friends. He remembered some of their mean and cutting comments: “Why are you playing for Madison? You’re a traitor, Bruce.”
Bruce wasn’t the only one who heard the taunts. His father heard them too. Looking back Bruce saw how upset his father was as he watched the game. He saw Bruce hit and pushed after the play whistle sounded. He heard their mean and nasty remarks and saw the dirty looks aimed at Bruce, spitting on him as he walked by. All of the abuse was specifically aimed at his son, Bruce, whom they considered the enemy. The officials didn’t do anything about it. “No wonder he didn’t like me playing football,” he thought.
On the drive home after the game he remembered that his father had tried to make small talk with him but he was so caught up in his own world he only responded with one-word answers. After a while his Dad gave up and grew silent, no longer looking over at Bruce at all. The silence was almost painful. All you could hear was the back-and-forth swishing of the windshield wipers—back and forth, back and forth. The sound was hypnotic and mesmerizing.
Then Bruce remembered his Dad suddenly pulled off the road and stopped. “What’s going on?” he asked.
Ready for a confrontation his Dad said, “Hey, Bruce, do you want to know what the measure of a real man is?”
Bruce said, “Yeah.”
His Dad went on: “Anyone can look good when times are good but the measure of a real man is how well he behaves when faced with real adversity. That’s when your true nature comes out and you know what you’re made of.”
At sixteen Bruce didn’t fully understand or appreciate his father’s wisdom; however, it stuck with him for the rest of his life. He was so self-absorbed he suddenly realized what a jerk he was and said, “Thanks, Dad, thank you. I’ll remember that.”
The tone and mood in the car immediately shifted and lightened up.
Bruce wondered if this was why his Dad didn’t want him to play football this year. He thought, “Maybe it’s because he saw how badly I suffered from my former teammates and friends.”
He thought more about it and continued to think about what kind of lemonade he could make. He remembered the silent vow he made to his grandfather, the vow he made during Khrushchev’s UN visit. After all, the seeds were planted years before by his Grandpa Joseph and now they were ready to grow. He wondered, “Is this accident really a blessing in disguise? Without football and my girlfriend I won’t be distracted.”
During the remainder of his hospital stay he obsessed about his new mission. All he thought about was finding a way to stop Nikita Khrushchev. “Man, how am I, a sixteen-year-old kid, going to beat the Soviets at their own game?”
His mission became clearer every day. After three days he left the hospital. “Man, I still don’t have a clue about how to get it done.”
“First things first,” he thought. “I have to face my father when I get home. I’m not looking forward to that confrontation.”
Bruce only saw roadblocks and obstacles ahead. He couldn’t see an end in sight or any way around all those obstacles. “I’ve got to be tough. This isn’t a pie-in-the-sky dream. I know this mission is achievable. It has to happen. It is necessary. No one can stop me, not even my angry father.”
Bruce felt he had to make choices that were right for him, so, with a new determination and focus, when he returned to school he set out to learn everything he could about his adversary, the Soviets and their space and science programs. The school library became his sanctuary and his new best friend. It didn’t take him too long to realize that his high school library had limited resources.
He remembered that Drew University was about four miles from his school. It was a beautiful, small Ivy League-like school that appeared to be a small version of Harvard. It had a fairyland quality about it and gas lamps lit the walkways on the campus. A plan began to form and Bruce thought, “I’m big and I can pass for a college junior. I bet I can get into Drew’s library. I know it’s bigger and has more information.”
He decided after school to try and get into Drew University’s library. It was cold this time of year and drifting snow was covering the streets and sidewalks as he headed there. He thought about his plan all of the way: “I’m not afraid to talk to people. I know the safest way to blend in is to be friendly. Girls seem to be easier to make friends with than guys.”
He walked across the small campus and found the library. He saw an attractive young woman in front of the library. She looked as if she worked there. Bruce thought, “I’ll talk to her. I need to make her my friend. She can help me get into the library with no problem.”
He walked up to her and started to talk to her. He asked lots of questions. He improvised, adapted and stayed focused during his conversation. He overcame all of her objections as they talked. Finally, he convinced her that he needed a study carrel. She was reluctant at first because these were reserved for upper classmen. Bruce persisted and they became friends. She assigned him a study carrel too. “Now I can use the library whenever I want and do more extensive research. I also have the privacy here so no one questions why I’m here.”
Bruce became so busy with his new interest and project that many of his old friends from the football team felt as though he had abandoned them. He wasn’t considered by some to be one of the “cool jocks” anymore. This was uncharted territory as far as he was concerned. He didn’t know where he fit in either. His teammates thought he acted weird. “Why aren’t you at practice anymore? Do you think you’re better than us?” he overheard them ask as they walked down the high school corridors.
“I don’t fit in and I feel like a fish out of water. I’m not on the team anymore. Where do I fit?” Bruce wondered.
He had some choices to make. He felt shunned by his friends and thought, “If I’ve lost some of my teammates’ respect, how do I get it back? Do I want it back?”
He didn’t have the answers. He was cast adrift and felt alone in a sea of hundreds of kids. Half of the team didn’t feel he belonged and he felt as though the nerds and intellects were afraid of him. Bruce was a smart guy but up until this point he never really applied himself. He did what was needed to get by. “Now what?” he asked himself.
After giving it some thought he decided to show up at a science club meeting. The “nerds” thought he was there to spy on them or play tricks on them. This was the history they had had with “jocks” in their school. Bruce wasn’t a nerd and didn’t fit in anywhere; no one trusted him. He realized he was no longer part of a group and his friends and classmates were confused. So was he.
Bruce persevered and decided he had to prove he was smart too. He studied hard and found that chemistry was easy. As he brought his chemistry grades up to straight A’s he entered a national chemistry competition and won!
He realized that he could do anything he set his mind to do. He began taking some of the “nerds” under his wing and
