{"id":2354,"date":"2013-12-12T12:54:31","date_gmt":"2013-12-12T16:54:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/willistonblogs.com\/archives\/?p=2354"},"modified":"2020-10-22T22:58:52","modified_gmt":"2020-10-23T02:58:52","slug":"critical-mass","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/willistonblogs.com\/archives\/critical-mass\/","title":{"rendered":"Critical Mass"},"content":{"rendered":"

Most recently Worthy Durgin headed community foundations in Greensboro and Cary, North Carolina.\u00a0 Now retired, he is “immersed in spiritual quest and writing.”\u00a0 A couple of years back, he sent Richard Gregory several perceptive vignettes of Williston life back in the sixties.\u00a0 Dick, who has contributed several memoirs of his own, shared Worthy’s words with the Archives.\u00a0 My thanks for Worth’s permission to publish this! — RT<\/em><\/p>\n

\"Worth<\/a>
Worthy Durgin ’68<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The old gym was an outgrown, but proud building.\u00a0 The basketball court was directly above the swimming pool.\u00a0 During wrestling matches, when our senior heavyweight wrestler, who was deaf, wrestled, all the students there would jump and stomp in cadence so that he could feel<\/em> our support, since he could not hear our cheers.\u00a0 The void of the pool beneath the floor amplified the waves of exhortation.\u00a0 (The common effect of this cacaphony, coupled with the knowledge that if this strong guy could not hear the cheers, he likely could not hear a potential injury-saving whistle either, led to many an expression of relief on opposing wrestlers’ faces, once they had been pinned.)\u00a0 Often this was the deciding match in a meet.\u00a0 But we could never carry the big guy off the mat on our shoulders \u2014 he was huge, and flaunting victory was not his style.<\/p>\n

All this is prelude to an event in the winter of 1968.\u00a0 Late\u00a0one afternoon a scrawny band of ninth graders played their obligatory game with the visiting school, after the varsities and JVs had finished their swim meet and their basketball.\u00a0 On such an afternoon the Willy athletes would finish in the locker room and dump their sweaty towels and stuff in Howie’s bin.\u00a0 Then they would recount their epic struggles of the day to friends as they achingly climbed the gym stairs.\u00a0 On this singular afternoon, two seniors pulled themselves up the banisters, climbing ever closer to “Whipper’s Tomb” and toward the scattered sounds of scattered play of gangly ninth graders.<\/p>\n

In this time, there were in the land what were known has “happenings.”\u00a0 Across America people might descend on a park for a mass picnic or blow bubbles in Times Square during lunch hour.\u00a0 This winter’s day, with blackened ice packs lining the foggy drive outside the gym, a couple of upperclassmen paused for a moment before trudging through the wintery glop outside.\u00a0 They went into the gym.\u00a0 They started rooting for these kids whom they knew only from the dining hall.\u00a0 As they stood and cheered, a bit sarcastically at first, they motioned to friends who were also coming up the stairs to come on in.\u00a0 The throng of rejuvenating jocks became increasingly boisterous.\u00a0 And lo and behold, the ragamuffins on the court started responding by coming back from a big deficit in points.\u00a0 The team fed the cynics; the cynics fed the team.\u00a0 Suddenly, I came to understand the meaning of the term “critical mass.”<\/p>\n

During a timeout, the throng that now ringed about half the court broke into the only non-planned rendition of the school fight song I ever remember hearing:<\/p>\n

. . . Come on, you Wildcats, and<\/em>
\n FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT<\/em>
\n For WIL-LIS-TON! . . .<\/em><\/p>\n

As we slipped into the murky evening outside, we had smiles about having had a “happening.”\u00a0 More genuinely, we had smiles that belied our pleasure at having helped these kids have an experience they might never have again.\u00a0 But we hid many of the smiles because singing the fight song was un-cool enough, let alone enjoying it.<\/p>\n

Over the next few days, to many of us who were there, the coach said, “Thanks.”\u00a0 The kids greeted us like friends (which took some getting used to).<\/p>\n

Did they win?\u00a0 Does it matter?<\/p>\n

\"Basketball<\/a>
Basketball — not the 9th grade team! — in the Old Gym, 1968. Mike Timm ’68 (#25) and Cary Jubinville ’68. Photo by Paul Wainwright ’68.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Have you memories to share?\u00a0 Send them to archives@williston.com<\/strong><\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Most recently Worthy Durgin headed community foundations in Greensboro and Cary, North Carolina.\u00a0 Now retired, he is “immersed in spiritual quest and writing.”\u00a0 A couple of years back, he sent Richard Gregory several perceptive vignettes of Williston life back in the sixties.\u00a0 Dick, who has contributed several memoirs of his own, shared Worthy’s words with … Continue reading Critical Mass<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"_s2mail":"yes","footnotes":""},"categories":[140,336,287,13,453,12],"tags":[292,80,291,290,288,289],"class_list":["post-2354","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-alumni-alumnae","category-guest-bloggers","category-memoirs","category-sports-history","category-student-life","category-williston-academy","tag-292","tag-basketball","tag-happenings","tag-old-gym","tag-worth-durgin","tag-wrestling"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/willistonblogs.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2354"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/willistonblogs.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/willistonblogs.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/willistonblogs.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/willistonblogs.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2354"}],"version-history":[{"count":15,"href":"https:\/\/willistonblogs.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2354\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4986,"href":"https:\/\/willistonblogs.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2354\/revisions\/4986"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/willistonblogs.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2354"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/willistonblogs.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2354"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/willistonblogs.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2354"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}