Sundays with Alex

You’ve heard about “Tuesdays with Morrie.”
Let me tell you about Sundays with Alex.
When I was a kid, Alex Wasmuth lived next door. In fact, he lived in the house where my family and I now reside.
Alex was at least a dozen years older than I was, and as a young man — in his late teens or early 20s — he had been hit by one of those degenerative diseases that seem to target young people.
This was in the 1950s and 1960s, and there seemed to be little or nothing that could be done to help people in Alex’s condition.
His mobility was under attack, and by the time I was in early adolescence — not a boy and not yet a man — he made his way in life with heavy braces on his legs and a pair of crutches with bands of metal that nearly encircled his forearms. He drove — a Studebaker Lark — with hand controls.
Now Alex was a football fan.
Not just any football. Though it was the heyday of Jay County favorite son Pete Brewster with the Cleveland Browns, Alex was devoted to the Panthers of Portland High School. He attended every game, and he kept meticulous records of the Mississinewa Valley Conference.
Alex also wanted, more than anything other than getting his mobility back, to be a sportswriter.
He wrote a column, first for The Graphic and later for The Commercial Review, called “With Alex in the Panther Den.”
But if mobility was a struggle, so was journalism.
Writing didn’t come easily to Alex. He loved the game. He loved the stats. He loved the players and coaches.
But the written word was not his friend.
So during football season, on sunny October Sunday afternoons, he’d bring his rough draft of the week’s column over for my dad to read, critique, edit, and tweak.
As I said, Alex lived next door.
But, as if to assert his independence, each Sunday afternoon he’d make his way with his braces and crutches to his Studebaker Lark, back out of his driveway, drive about 20 yards, stop, turn right, drive about a dozen yards, and stop.
About that time, beginning when I was about 11 or 12, I’d be told that Alex had arrived.
My job was to go out and meet him. I was to help him any way he would let me.
If he wanted me to carry his briefcase, I’d carry his briefcase. If he wanted me to stay out of the way, I’d stay out of the way and chat with him about football or the weather as he made his long and sometimes painful journey up the front walk.
At the end of the walk, he’d encounter a set of about five concrete steps up to the front porch. There was a cast-iron dachshund-shaped thing you could use to scrap mud off your shoes; it often seemed to get in the way.
Alex would then, slowly, mount the steps. One at a time.
When I first started with my Sundays with Alex, there wasn’t much for me to do.
But his condition was degenerative, and every year it seemed harder and harder to make it from the car, up the walk, and then up those cruel concrete steps.
And as it became more difficult, Alex became more angry.
He didn’t want help. But more than once I kept him from falling.
Often, in his rage at his body, he lashed out verbally. He swore. He told me to go away.
I didn’t go away, though I’d step back a step to let him know I wasn’t trying to insult him by offering assistance.
Toward the end, before Alex gave the column up, the trip up from the walk to the front porch could take 20 minutes.
Dad was inside, waiting. But he never came out. If he had, Alex’s spirits would have been crushed.
Instead, he waited until, after a long struggle, Alex made it inside where they could sit down as equals to go over his column and try to make it better for the week ahead.
I have no idea how much my father taught Alex about journalism on those Sundays, but I’ll always be thankful to both of them for the lessons I learned.[[In-content Ad]]