There is a certain camaraderie that develops among men and boys as
they spend endless hours together yoked in the common work of
drafting. Even the weird, the stinky, and the tattle-tale kids are
part of the in-class brotherhood that lends itself to a little more
familiarity with our drafting coach then he showed towards the lowly
first-year paper drafters. One day when we had our noses safely clear
of even the smell of the grindstone we got to talking about middle
names and we discovered that several of the boys actually went by
their middle names or had funny ones . The question naturally arose
about Coach’s middle name and he told us to guess and if any of us
could guess it we would get some sort of prize which I cannot
remember. We all gave it several shots and left school that day
defeated in the quest. I came up with a devious plan over night and
the next day in class I got out my drivers license and asked the
other guys if they were all facing front in their drivers license.
They all checked and said that they were. I asked if theirs all said
'MINOR' on the picture and to a man that was the case. With the
ground work in place I asked Coach that if on an adult drivers
license they had to face to the left so it was easy to identify
minors from adults. Forgetting his wager about his middle name he
told me his was a photo of him facing front and pulled it out to show
me. I looked carefully and said, Thank-you Wesley, that is a good
picture of you.” He realized his blunder and laughed and grabbed my
arm to give it a good-natured punch and then told the other guys that
I had won the challenge and paid whatever it was I earned. I was so
proud of my trickery that I felt like the Great Brain and
Encyclopedia Brown all mushed up together in to one awesome guy. No
one else I talked to cared one bit about my triumph and I started to
loose some of the enthusiasm I had for my remarkable wit. Not much
but some.
