As part of its observance of our national bicentennial celebration, the City of Tonawanda (my hometown) organized a swim across the Niagara River. The video evidence is probably long gone, as there was no cloud back-up in 1976, but it captured the image of a thirteen year old girl on her diagonal path across the mighty river. Stroke by stroke, her beloved father coached her on, shouting encouragement from the motorboat that puttered along within feet of my sister Janet.
I’ve recently had the privilege of doing the work of a midwife, helping to birth a book of memory by Ashland area coach Forrest Pruner, a mainstay for many years at Crestview, Lexington, and even Brookside Pool. With the help of his friend Judy Ringler, Pruner tells the story of a life defined by faith, family, and his long-time vocation as a coach for track, cross country and basketball. At age eighty-eight, Pruner has decades to draw upon, and tidbits of his iconic wisdom are scattered among the stories of “Just Call Me Coach,” now available on Amazon.
While Pruner’s story is his own, it is also the story of many men of his generation: early life on the farm, military service in a time of war, a return home to the factory, college on the G.I. Bill, a home in the countryside, a family of his own, and a passion to spur young men and women on in their life pursuits. With a few changes in details, it’s my father’s story as well. In contrast to Forrest Pruner’s stint in Korea, Frank Streeter served in World War II, and he chose a union card instead of the G.I. Bill, yet the two men walked similar paths. No wonder I could hear my dad’s voice on so many of the pages of Pruner’s book. Even Coach Pruner’s chapter detailing his weekly exercise regimen (did I say he’s eighty-eight?) reminds me of my dad and his daily bike rides. One of my father’s first questions after breaking his hip at eighty-two was, “When can I ride my bike again?” Not “if,” but “when.”
Writing in his book, “The Greatest Generation,” Tom Brokaw speaks of people like my dad and Coach Pruner: “They never whined or whimpered.” At least they didn’t let others hear them if they did. Life was difficult, but they seemed able to see the challenges as possibilities rather than as a cesspool of despair.
George MacDonald Fraser describes his experience with telling his story: “Looking back over sixty-odd years, life is like a piece of string with knots in it, the knots being those moments that live in the mind forever, and the intervals being hazy, half-recalled times when I have a fair idea of what was happening, in a general way, but cannot be sure of dates or places or even the exact order in which events took place.” Coach Pruner’s ‘knots’ were tied in a creek in Korea, in the purchase of cleats for a track team recruit, and in the dreaded ‘burn-out’ days and muddy obstacle courses his athletes remember with fond groans.
Why write our own story? Some write for fame or fortune, while others hope to preserve a story for history. But for Coach Pruner, I’m guessing he understands that he has a story that needs to be told. As Thomas Cirignano explains, “Each of us is a book waiting to be written, and that book, if written, results in a person explained.”
How I wish I had paid more attention to the stories my dad told over the years. I never thought to record his voice or to put his story to paper. Now, years after his death, my siblings and I are left with only snippets of memory, the bike rides and river swims, the carpenter’s picnics and the old red truck.
One rookie memoir writer told me, “I’m worried there’s too much ‘me’ in my story.” Yet that’s what personal story is, a window into the heart of another fellow traveler whose journey intersects with ours. We are richer indeed when the curtains are pulled back through the gift of story.
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