Once There Were Green Fields
by
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I cough a cloud of blue-gray smoke into the cold, black November night. It’s an annoying, hacking cough I’ve had for a few years, no doubt the consequence of fifty years of smoking. The night is perfect football weather. I attended the school’s Homecoming game last night, but I didn’t get to walk out on the field at halftime to be honored as a member of the ’61 Panthers, who after fifty years, are still the only team in Indiana high school history to complete an entire season without yielding a point.
I almost don’t come to my 50-year reunion. My first impulse is to crumple up the invitation and toss it in the trash can like I had done all the others. But my therapist convinces me to come. She says it will be good to confront my old ghosts. My AA sponsor advises me to stay home and leave the ghosts and the cash bar alone. Truth be told, I don’t give a shit. All I want to do is make peace with my past and see some of my old classmates before they check out. And maybe part of me wants want to get laid. Damn, it’s been a long, long time. The magic blue pills are in the inside jacket pocket, just in case. The night air is chilly and the tree line off in the distance gives me the creeps. I take a deep breath, steel my spine, and make a resolution: I’m going in.
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About the Book
It is August 1961, John Kennedy is president, and America is about to lose its innocence. On the west side of Evansville, Indiana, the Reitz High School Panthers football team practices in the heat of the day, led by their fierce coach, Earl Doggett, who chomps on antacids, never rewards for good behavior, and enforces hellish punishment for mistakes. Tony Reavis is an honor student and Eagle Scout who lives with his family in suburbia. Ray Moon lives with his divorced mother and seven siblings in a tiny shotgun shack on Pigeon Creek. Tony is college bound. Ray is destined for blue collar work. The only trait they share is a passion for pummeling whoever is unlucky enough to line up across from them on the football field. As the team works its way to becoming the only high school team in modern football history to play an entire season without allowing a point, President Kennedy is deciding the fate of Tony and Ray as he sends sixteen thousand young men to South Vietnam. Once There Were Green Fields is the tale of a history-making Indiana high school football team during the early 1960s as they battle on the field and in the jungles of Vietnam-all in the name of winning.
About the Author
Randy Pease is a journalist, educator, and musician. Recently retired from the University of Southern Indiana where he taught writing for fifteen years, Randy is now thrilled to pursue his love of writing full-time. He has recorded three CDs: Call Me Ishmael (1997), Sometimes the Moon (2002), and Prodigal Sunshine (2010).