It was forest green.
This couch appeared even darker situated in the bowels of our partially completed basement. It owned the wall where it was centered for no other reason than it was the largest piece of usable furniture in the room. Nobody retreated downstairs to stretch out on its cushions, read a good book, or catch the big game. Its domestic placement seemed more like banishment than well-designed feng shui.
The piano rivaled it in size. Their gross weights likely teetered the scale within ounces of one another. The only thing larger was the homemade train table that sucked up the majority of basement floorspace. It least that created a desirable sensation through amusement and entertainment. “Big green” was more akin to a torture device.
This davenport of death frightened me as a child. First and foremost its thick, rough fabric caused my skin to itch within seconds of sitting down. It made wool army blankets feel like cashmere. Even as a husky child, I did not sink into its cushions. The sturdy construction manifested a sense of practicality rather than a feeling of comfort. It was like sitting on a steel gurney wrapped in 20 grit sandpaper.
In the same utilitarian vein, it also converted into a sofa bed.
I’m pretty sure its construction used more steel than the majority of modern day automobiles. Maybe as an adult, I could pull out the steel girders and springs that supported the flimsy two inch mattress. If you were not exhausted and ready to lay down before undertaking this task, you certainly needed the respite afterwards. Not that the bed was any more comfortable than the sofa.
More than once, I caught my finger inside one of its bending metal retractable brackets. You’d be safer to intentionally place a finger or a toe inside a snapping turtle’s mouth. Each moving part inside the hidden bed potentially acted as a small digit guillotine.
Amazingly I never noticed any blood stains on the metallic components.
Nobody maintained these parts and they looked mechanically safe. However, the screeching twangs of popping metallic springs and grinding bars, brackets, and bolts emitted a symphony of discord. It sounded kind of like how I feel when I crawl out of bed these days.
Closing the sofa bed back into a couch seriously took on a Herculean effort. As difficult as it was was to open, the closure more than tripled the levels of physiological output. It felt like trying to squeeze, press, and manipulate a kingsize bed inside a crib.
However, when it comes to longevity, this beastly contraption possessed the capacity to outlast lesser furniture construction designs. I think we could have dropped it off the roof of our house and it would have remained unscathed from the fall. Of course, getting it on the roof would have necessitated a crane. Still, it would have been worth the money to see the forces of nature thwarted by human craftsmanship and engineering.
When I knew him, Al Groh dressed in black and gold.
Not so much by choice, but by design. In the mid-1980’s, Coach Groh held the position and title of Head Football Coach, Wake Forest University. Black & Gold represented the university’s official school colors. Al Groh represented the embodiment of a first time division one collegiate head football coach.
I arrived on the Wake Forest campus in July 1985, ready to embark on my academic and athletic life. Yes, I earned a full athletic grant-in-aid scholarship to play football, but the recruitment process stressed the importance of education and how that translated to future success more so than playing a sport. Maybe I wasn’t the sharpest knife in the drawer, but that selling point struck a chord with me.
Like all head coaches I’d known, Al Groh represented a man to be feared and admired. Not even 18 years old yet, the last thing I wanted was to draw an angry eye from my head coach. Praise from him reigned down like gold nuggets, while his ire could emotionally impoverish you. They say you play for your teammates, but if the coach doesn’t like what he sees, playing is not an option.
Beyond the gridiron, Coach Groh spoke incessantly.
Not in a jovial, back-slapping kind of way. Not like he always had a funny story to share. He rambled more like a verbose hostage taker. Older players warned the freshman of his Friday night pregame speeches. Nothing in my life prepared me for these orations and the sense of internment they fostered.
Sitting through the talks evolved into a ritualistic rite of passage. At least as redshirt freshmen we received a captive audience reprieve since we did not travel with the team for away games. Besides having five years to complete our degrees, we understood this to be the greatest benefit of a redshirt season.
He literally blathered for well past an hour.
By the end, nobody still listened to the words spilling out of his mouth. The room filled with glazed over eyes and vacant stares. It’s difficult to understand how he didn’t realize he’d lost all of us after the first twenty minutes. Yet he stuck to the same monotonous, communicatively ineffective, droning mantra week after week. It actually became physically painful to listen.
By the end of the second semester each player met individually with Coach Groh in his office. I was not spiritually connected at the time, but I prayed it would not entail the same discomfort of the Fall’s Friday night talks. I took the meeting for its intended purpose – a chance for the head coach to talk some more and for me to nod my head and agree with whatever he said.
But he said something that I never saw coming.
With a wry, crooked smile he told me that academics had nothing to do with my attending Wake Forest University. He said, “Let’s be honest. Football is the only reason you’re here, not school.” Like a dumb 18 year old, I blankly nodded my head.
Technically he was correct. Without a football scholarship I never would have been academically competent or financially able to attend that institution. However, Al Groh sold me on the importance of education and how that would impact the rest of my life. The educational opportunity was just as much a factor in my choosing Wake Forest University as was its football team.
For the first time in my life, l recognized that an adult male I blindly trusted, who held me in subjugation, lied to me. He sold me a bill of goods as a teenager and now slyly acted as if we both always understood what he really meant. I’ll never forget his words or the smug, arrogant look on his face that day.
The couch’s design met a need and was likely a handsome piece back in the 1950’s. However, you’d think coziness would factor in on the design and implementation phase. I don’t think Al Groh is an evil or bad man. However, you’d think honesty and integrity would factor in when dealing with kids. Whether it’s dated couches or deceptive coaches, the whole thing just makes me, well, uncomfortable.