We Butted Heads

He Danced?

“You two butted heads.”

It’s not what you think.

Our church built a gym in about 1972. Not long after, Randy and I began playing R.A. Basketball—think church league little dribblers. We both enjoyed playing and played hard. On one occasion, we were both headed toward a loose ball. We were loaded up and taken to the ER the next thing we knew. Both of us had sizeable knots on our foreheads. Fortunately, we did not have concussions.

We had butted heads.

Two hard heads.

Thanks to my Mom for the reminder. I had forgotten.

A group gathered Thursday afternoon to remember Randy. We opened with a welcome and then asked for stories and memories. Chas began. He told the group that in his mid-20s, Randy took dance lessons.

“He bought the fluffy white shirt, dance slacks, and shoes.”

You could have bowled those in attendance over with a feather after that. Dumbounded we were. Too many of Randy’s peers, me included, understand two-left feet. I am still baffled. Patty and I took salsa classes some years ago. They didn’t take.

He danced!

I mentioned Randy’s OCD here. Robert and John told versions of a story illustrating that it was not just a teenage phase. They were helping Keith build a hunting cabin. They used horizontal boards as exterior support for siding. It wasn’t until the boards stopped reaching from corner to corner that they realized the structure was not square. As they talked about Randy’s response, someone in the room used the vernacular for OCD - anal - to name the condition.

Friends Randy made after his move from OKC drove the distance to share in the memorial. They described shared meals, what it meant to have neighbors, and friendship.

Randy’s adopted family shared all the ways Randy had been present, encouraging, and available, and given to occasional bouts of withdrawal. They loved him, and he loved them.

After some time passed, one of his cousins spoke. She thanked those who came to tell their stories. We all knew that Randy had been estranged from most of his family. Not many knew or could explain one or all the reasons. But the stories had helped with the thought that Randy died lonely, unhappy, and without friends. It was helpful for his relatives to know that was not the case.

We moved from sharing stories to hanging out. Robert asked a group of us who graduated from Northwet Classen how Randy, who graduated from PC North, came to be part of the group. He had heard Chas tell how he had met Randy.

Chas and I met at Lincoln Fifth Year Center. After a 1972 court order, these schools became an early part of Oklahoma City Public Schools' desegregation project. We hit it off. We played basketball together, and it wasn’t long before Chas began attending our church. It was there he met Randy. Robert wanted to know how far back it went.

After my Mom reminded me of the butting heads incident, she told me what I could not remember. Randy’s parents lived near us, maybe even in an apartment building across the street from the church. We lived a half-block from our church. Randy’s brother, Rodney, was born while they lived in the area. That meant that Randy and I were in the nursery together at church and had known one another for 60 years.

What I guessed in his ER room two weeks ago was confirmed. We became friends in the church nursery.

Once again, I am glad Larry called. The last gesture I could offer my oldest friend, despite a long intermission due to our different life trajectories, was to tell his adopted family that we could use the church I now serve as a place to share my friend's life.

Though it may have been a while since we were in church together, I believe that Jesus’s Yes to Randy, which Randy expressed in trust and was baptized all those years ago, means we were in church together again yesterday. Even more than reuniting with his family, they are reconciled in Christ Jesus.

We are friends, still.