A LONG-OVERDUE 'THANK YOU' TO GRAHAM, THE WONDERFULLY ATHLETIC AND GENTLEMANLY CLASSMATE OF MINE AT HILLSIDE ELEMENTARY SCHOOL IN BERKELEY, CALIFORNIA, DURING MY 1964-65 SCHOOL YEAR

I finally figured out recently to whom I should give primary credit for the only first-place finish at an athletics contest that I myself have ever achieved.

After I won first place in "hot peppers"-style (high-speed) jump-roping as a student at Eanes Elementary School of Eanes Independent School District in Westlake Hills, Texas, in the mid- or late 1960s, I should have written and mailed a thank-you card to my former classmate Graham in Berkeley, California.

It felt truly wonderful for me to have garnered a first-place prize in "hot peppers"-style jump-roping among all of the male and female classmates of mine at Eanes Elementary in Central Texas.

And it was the sandy-haired and muscular Anglo male Californian classmate Graham who in the 1960s introduced me to the joy of jump-roping. 

Graham did that with a cheerful and friendly and enthusiastic zeal during recess and before school, and possibly after school as well, on the campus of our Hillside Elementary School, a public school in Berkeley, California, where Graham and I were each enrolled in second-grade.

I was known then as "Kevin McMillan," since my parents had chosen to identify me using my middle name during my early childhood. I later chose to instead emphasize my first name, "John," a name that Graham would not have ever known me by.

I made that switch in fourth grade, at Eanes Elementary School in Central Texas, when Mrs. Cash was my primary teacher and she conveyed a high estimation of me as a student and human being.

I made that change from "Kevin" to "John" because I concluded that identifying myself as "John" would be more helpful to me in my pursuit of an eventual career in the very serious, very important field of government. I probably also was aware in the 1960s that we had had a very popular and articulate recent president by the first name of "John" (President Kennedy, a Harvard University alumnus whose own middle name was "Fitzgerald", a fascinating fact about him that I was also impressed by in the 1960s.)

I will always be very grateful to Hillside Elementary School classmate Graham for having invited me to participate actively in the jump-roping events taking place in front of our public-school campus during my and his second-grade year in the mid-1960s.

Two Hillside Elementary students would collaborate in holding a giant jump rope from each end of that jump rope, while other Hillside students, myself among them, would be invited to "jump in" for a matter of seconds of responding directly to the "beat" or "rhythm" that the two jump-rope twirlers gave them.

Graham's friendly inclusiveness toward me during recess made a world of difference to me in my second-grade year in Berkeley. I was a newcomer in California that school year. My father, Dr. Calvin McMillan---who also jump-roped for exercise on occasion in front of our family's rental home in Berkeley---was a visiting professor that school year in the Botany Department at the University of California in Berkeley. (Father had obtained an approved leave of absence from his regular employer, the University of Texas at Austin, for that multi-month time period in 1964-65.)

Looking back, I wish that I had memorized Graham's last name, as I did for my also-very-nice and also-impressive second-grade Hillside classmate Monica Thorsness, who invited me into her parents' Berkeley home that school year to view her lovely redwood storage box and who herself had immaculately neat and elegant penmanship, I always noticed. 

The only other friendly classmate of mine at Hillside whose last name has remained in my memory today was Harriet Wong. I will always appreciate Harriet's having invited me to visit her inside her parents' home in Berkeley in 1964 or 1965. The China Doll collection that Harriet Wong pursued for a hobby inside her parents' home was a splendid tribute to the stylish ladies of both mainland China and Taiwan, I may have thought to myself at the time.

If I had also memorized Graham's last name, and possibly his middle name as well, that information would have made it easier for me to send Graham a thank-you card and keep up with him in a friendly manner after my family and I moved back to the Austin area.

I also wish that during my second-grade year at Hillside Elementary I had invited Graham to visit me at my parents' hillside rental home along Eucalyptus Drive in Berkeley.

As a host to Graham inside my parents' rental home, I could have explained to him that my parents were renting that home that school year from a very talented professional artist in Berkeley named Lavinia----and what a great honor it was for me to be living in the home of that very creative female artist whose paintings were quite distinctive.

During Graham's visit to my parents' rental home in Berkeley in the mid-1960s---a visit that never took place, unfortunately---I might have confided to that 8-year-old male classmate that I myself greatly enjoyed the taste of Graham crackers, and what a pleasant first name he had partly for that reason, I might have said as a nice compliment for Graham.

If Graham from my second-grade year at Hillside Elementary School ever happens to read this blog I wrote in praise of himself, I hope he will benefit from this enthusiastic thank-you that he richly deserves from me.

I even feel that in the 1970s, when I began playing tennis in earnest during my junior-high school years in the Austin area of Texas, the friendly invitation from Graham during my second-grade year in California to "see yourself as an athlete", had a very big role in my finding the energy and enthusiasm to pursue that new lifelong sport for me as well.

So thank you, Graham, and I hope that you and your family and friends are thriving these days! I also hope that your athletic zeal remains as great and inspirational to everyone around you these days as it has been for me!