highline56 Vignettes

There was an incident with Jimmy Graham that happened in our senior year:

Jimmy was supposedly one of the highest IQ guys in our class, but I switched combination locks with him for our basketball lockers. I found out his combination because he always had trouble working his lock. He would bang on it, curse and try and try to open it again and again. Finally, one day I offered to help him, which is how I got him to tell me the combination. When he was not around I switched locks, knowing both combinations. With my lock on his basketball locker, he could not get into his own locker. He would then come to me to open it. And I would use his combination if he was watching closely, then when it did not work he would crack up and while he was preoccupied, I would use the correct combination and open the lock. Then he would say, "Okay, now let me see you do it again." Then I would use his combination as he watched, but when it failed he would laugh saying "see there!" And again while he was distracted I would quickly use the right combination and get away with it. Most of the other guys knew about it but we kept the ruse going day after day--before and after basketball practice--for weeks. Until I found him one day trying to saw the lock off with a hacksaw. We laughed and laughed. Then there was the time he and Mick Stewart got drunk on still-working-wine in my basement . . . If he were only alive to defend himself . . .