I met Heath back in grade 4, the late spring day the whole school went to a track meet except us (see my earlier post here<\/a>). Heath was an individual; so was I. The teacher (call her Ms T) who gave us the option of staying behind was as well.<\/p>\n Yet back then, Ms T and Heath had something in common that I didn’t share: both were religious. I didn’t grow up in a religious family, but Heath most certainly did. Ms T was from a religious era, and hadn’t changed (God bless her) since 1930.<\/p>\n The fact was, that whole place was religious, more or less. The only reason I wasn’t was that I was a transplant, having arrived only a few weeks before. Even so, Heath and Ms T were uncommonly religious.<\/p>\n Heath was shy, but kind to everyone, just as a Christian is meant to be. He was a big strong kid, but never put a hand on anyone. (Physical fighting, though supposedly forbidden, was widely common in that school; never fighting at all was somewhat rare.) He wasn’t interested in the everyday things most kids were, like sports, crushes, etc.<\/p>\n Everyone ate lunch in the cafeteria. Heath and I often sat together and talked about anything. Sometimes he would bring up news about people in his family. Others, we would talk about how our schoolwork was going. Just “what happened after school yesterday or over the weekend” was also substantive to a lot of conversations.<\/p>\n In grade 5, Heath and I got chosen by the PE teacher to maintain all the balls. There were probably between 50 and 100 that took air – soccer balls, basket balls, gymnastic balls, etc. Every Tuesday and Thursday, for that whole school year, we were allowed to enter the gym starting at 8:15am and check the balls to see if any needed air. The ones that did we’d pump up with a bicycle tire pump. (I’ll continue this story in another post.)<\/p>\n Heath never came to my house, but I went to his a couple of times. He lived in a fun area, and had a motorbike. His family were never around when I visited – I don’t know if that was on purpose or coincidence. I never stayed for dinner.\n<\/p>\n I was aware of only one other friend Heath had, who was well-known in our school for being fun-loving and wild. Somewhat of a rebel, he was rather opposite of Heath. He was a couple of years older than we were, and was Heath’s neighbour. While I never saw any of Heath’s family at his place, I did see that friend. Typically he was smiling and planning some way to sneak out that night (after his parents would think he was sleeping) to hang with some older kids. He freely discussed his plans with us, perhaps confirming them to himself as Heath and I listened.\n<\/p>\n \nI never knew Heath to break any rule. Yet, he wasn’t completely forthcoming about how different his reality was from mine. Grade 5 ended and we all went our separate ways for the summer. Yet, at the start of grade 6, Heath was not at the school. Since it was the only school I knew of that he could possibly attend, I was confused.<\/p>\n I didn’t see Heath for many months, but eventually did by chance at the mall. He was with his mother shopping. I asked him where he’d been.<\/p>\n “I go to the Valley Bible College,” he replied. His mother piped in that it was a very good place to go to school.<\/p>\n Obviously, Heath’s mother didn’t approve of me, a non-religious friend – the exact type of kid she’d been trying to keep out of his life by sending him to the Bible college. Heath made it clear he didn’t want to continue our conversation, so I beat it, and never saw him again.<\/p>\n I wonder if, those times he had me come over, he always chose them so his mother would never meet me? If so, that was ironic.<\/p>\n I eventually noticed the Bible college – it was a building I’d ridden by on my bike many times, but seemed just another old farmhouse if you weren’t paying attention. It was a couple of blocks from Heath’s place – much closer than our public school, which, from his house, was a ten-minute bus ride. Occasionally I wondered if he really liked it there better than he had our school.<\/p>\n Heath was perhaps the first kid I knew who had an end game plan that he kept to himself. As I lived longer, that trend became more and more common.<\/p>\nJack of Oracle Tutoring by Jack and Diane,<\/a> Campbell River, BC.\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Self-tutoring about people and events from the past: the tutor reflects…. I met Heath back in grade 4, the late spring day the whole school went to a track meet except us (see my earlier post here). Heath was an …<\/p>\n