It wasn’t until after several decades of living that I realized it wasn’t what you did that made a man, it’s how you did it, because, if you were to list off what I’ve done any child would look at it and say that person was a failure. Now, I wasn’t raised to look at failure in a negative perspective, sure success was always nicer, but success only came to those who had failed several times, and great success usually came to the least likely of people.

My first experience at failure came quite early in life. It started on a Monday, back in 1970, the first day of sixth grade. I was always a little behind in school, never in the top of the class, but I had an average GPA and that kept my mama happy. She never was upset with the C’s I generally brought home, and when I had an occasion to bring an A back with me on my report card we’d celebrate by going to the bowling alley and seeing a movie. Mama was proud to have me in school just the same, regardless of grades, because she hadn’t gotten to finish her schooling. Back in her day they had home-schooling and when she turned my age her parents sent her to her grandmother’s to work as a housekeeper. I guess her family didn’t realize how smart she really was because if there was ever a person I’d learned from it would be my mama.

So at the start of sixth grade I wasn’t intimidated by the other kids. They certainly tried their damnedest to make me nervous, but I ignored them. Like I said, failure and success go hand-in-hand, so if they were having great success now I had no doubt their failure would be soon to come.

When our finale grade cards came back mine requested a meeting with the principal, and the usual stamp that symbolized ‘passing’ wasn’t in the bottom corner of my card. As I collected my things from inside my desk and stuffed them into my backpack I realized that the failure I had so often been told about had finally caught up with me. My teacher took me to the office where my mama was sitting on a bench in the waiting room, and there was a different look upon her face than I had ever seen before. Her eyes were watery and her fingers clenched together like she was praying to the lord in the middle of the school. Next to her sat a couple with their child, who I immediately recognized as Nelson Carter. Nelson had always teased me about the things I spoke when I raised my hand in class, apparently he was a lot smarter than I thought he was, because I distinctly remember looking over his shoulder once and seeing that his grades were a lot lower than mine. The look that his parents had in their eyes was almost identical to my mama’s.

Mama and I walked into the principal’s office and sat down in the uncomfortable wooden chairs that made you sit up as straight as a military officer. The principal shuffled and stacked a few papers on his desk that I recognized as some of my tests and reports.

“Ms. Thompson is it?” he asked without looking away from the papers he had so neatly stacked on his desk.

“Yes I am, and this is-”

“Caleb, right?” He glanced at me and I nodded, then he returned his eyes to the papers in front of him. Mama twisted her mouth to the side in annoyance, not that the principal would’ve noticed anyway.

“Caleb has had-” she started.

“It seems Mr. Thompson has failed to meet the required academic scores on his final tests to graduate to the 7^th grade,” he said very matter-of-factly. “Further more, his overall grades for the year averaged between C and D. Therefore, he is going to need to repeat the sixth grade. Is there anything you would like to state at this time?” For the first time he looked up and met my mother’s annoyed stare. His thick glasses slipped down on his nose and he pushed them up with the tip of his forefinger.

“But he hasn’t missed a single day of school this entire year, and every project has been completed on-”

“Ms. Thompson, attendance is just another number we put on their grade cards. It’s his finale grades that count.” He stacked the papers once again and slipped them back into a folder on the left side of his desk.

Mama stood up quickly like she had just realized she’d been sitting on an ant bed, grabbed my hand furiously and said, “Well, what’s a grade but another stupid letter of the alphabet?”

She didn’t wait for him to answer, she walked out of his office, out of the school, held her head high, and we hopped the bus to the nearest ice cream shop before heading to the bowling alley.

Mama and I never spoke about that incident, or me failing, again. She believed along with failure being a necessary part of life, that it should not be dwelled upon for long either. Although, I do remember a slight frown on her face as she threw an unmailed letter to St. Joseph’s Academy for Boys into the barbeque that night, to which she merely remarked, “It’ll give the pork a nice, smoky flavor.”

That summer I got my first job. Father William was close to Mama and also ran a farm on the east side of town where we lived. He was a kind man, always bringing Mama some of his harvest in return for our company. Over dinner one night he proposed that I come to his farm and help turn the crops and he would pay me five dollars a day. Naturally I accepted, and Mama seemed to love the idea just as much as I.

Farming was a lot harder than I thought. I had to wake up before the sun was even hinting at rising over the hills and ride my bike through the fog that always settled in the valley. The owls were still out stalking the woods on either side of the windy road, and they hooted eerily as I sped past their hunting grounds.

Father William would already be out in the corn field checking the crops, making sure they had survived the night. I often wondered if he expected them to unearth themselves over night and run away so that one morning when he woke up he’d find himself the proud owner of only a few acres of overturned soil and a very large fence to border it.

I dismounted my bike after riding down his long dirt road and pushed it along side me towards where he was standing, inspecting a particularly sorry looking ear of corn. “Good morning, son.” He pulled off a very dirt covered glove and extending a hand for me to shake. I leaned my bike against my hip, met his hand with mine and loosely shook it.

“No, no, you can’t start off the day with a hand shake like that, m’boy. Like this,” and he grasped my hand tightly. I mimicked him and gave a great effort to squeeze his hand as tightly as I could for being awake at five in the morning.

“Much better!” he exclaimed and retrieved his glove from where he had wedged in underneath his arm. “How are you this morning?” he asked as he pulled the glove over his hand again.

I rubbed the corner of my eye with the back of my hand. “I’m pretty tired, sir. It’s been a while since I’ve gotten up before the sun.” Father William laughed heartily and clapped a hand across my back. Luckily, Mama had advised me to wear my oldest pair of clothes today, so if there was now top soil between the shoulder blades of my plaid shirt it wouldn’t bother me.

He led me to a tool shed where I leaned my bike against the faded red, siding and found a pair of my own gardening gloves that were just as dirty, if not dirtier, than Father William’s.

“Those used to belong to my own son. I always thought he had large hands for his age,” he remarked as the finger tips of the gloves were clearly not filled.

“No, sir, I’m sure your son was normal. Mama always said I had the hands of an artist, not a farmer.” I clapped my hands together and a cloud of dust erupted from the impact.

“Well, after today we’ll see if your mother’s right about that. Did you eat breakfast before you left?” He walked towards a rake lying on the ground.

“Well sir, I’ve always been told honesty is the right answer, but I was also told that breakfast is the most important meal of the day, ‘specially when you’ve got a long day of work. So, I’m not sure what answer to give you….being that you’re a priest I’m inclined to tell you the truth more than lie.”

He let out another loud laugh that rumbled across the field. “Your mother was right about one thing, you are a smart boy.” I kicked at the rocks beneath my shoes. If only he knew I’d just failed the sixth grade.

“I tried to eat a bowl of cereal but I just couldn’t find it in me to eat this early in the morning.”

“Then after you turn the soil in that small garden near the cabbages I’ll have some breakfast ready. Surely you’ll be able to eat after that.” I followed him to the garden and quickly realized either Father William was nearsighted or his definition of ‘small’ was gravely different from mine. He thrust the rake into my hand and clapped another hand to my back as he walked into the house.

Suddenly I realized that this job was going to be more boring than I had imagined. The sun was slowly starting to rise at my back as I swung the iron rake into the ground with a heavy thud. The soil was rather hard to break apart, I wasn’t sure how anything would end up growing in such crisp soil, but I hardly knew anything about farming so I figured Father William knew something I didn’t.

I heard the screen door to the house squeak open and then bang shut. I turned to look at the porch and saw Father William plugging in a giant, heavy looking record player.

“What kind of music do you listen to, boy?” he shouted from the rickety old porch.

I took a moment to set the rake against my side and quickly thought of the most appropriate band an adult who happened to be a priest would listen to. “Uhm, The Four Tops?” I shouted back. They were probably the most popular band that Mama listened to.

“Oh don’t kid me! You no more listen to that than I skip church every Sunday!” He added another one of his laughs and continued, “How about this new band, Led Zeppelin?”

Some how the rake had slipped from where I had nestled it beneath my arm and it fell to the ground with a flat thud. “Who?” I hollered wondering if I had misheard him over the chirping birds that had just flown over head.

“Zeppelin, boy! Don’t tell me you haven’t heard of them.” He set the record needle on the vinyl and the familiar fuzz of the beginning of a record sounded from the large speakers sitting next to the player. Shocked wasn’t the right word, terrified might’ve been better. What would the church think if they knew their Father was a fan of this rock music? It was worsened by the fact that he pranced down the stairs holding the rake in his hands as if it were a guitar and sang along to the lyrics. “Come on, let’s show this sorry patch of earth who’s boss, kiddo.” He started at the end of the row beside me and slammed the rake into the dirt below.

A few hours later, and several records after the Zeppelin incident, which consisted of The Beatles, Jimi Hendrix and The Rolling Stones, I was beginning to feel blisters forming on my palms.

Father William wiped a bead of sweat from his forehead and rested against his rake letting out a sigh. “I’d say it’s well past time for a break, wouldn’t you?” He threw the rake down at his feet and dropped his gloves along side it.

I nodded my head and rescued my hands from the sweatiness that was now the inside of my gloves. I laid my rake down and followed him to the house where he walked in without taking off his shoes.

“Sir should I-”

“No, no, don’t bother with that. I haven’t swept the floor in ages, it won’t make a difference. Come in and sit in the living room.” I brushed my shoes on the welcome mat despite what he said and walked to the living room. There was a large tie-dyed tapestry of a cross hung on one wall and an ancient looking dust colored couch which might have only been that color because of the dust that had settled on it before I sat down. In the corner left of the TV, which was centered on the far wall, was a group of guitars. One acoustic with a black lacquer finish, another tan with elaborate designs on the neck, and an electric which had a sunburst design on the body and mother of pearl inlayed between the frets.

“I had no idea you played guitar, Father.” I strode over to the guitars and ran my fingers over the strings of the black acoustic. The sound emitted from it was similar to that of a badly tuned piano crossed with the sound of an animal dying. To say it was out of tune would be an under statement. I noticed the other two guitars had several missing strings. To top it all off, there was a thick layer of dust on each instrument.

“Oh no, I don’t play at all. Those are my son’s guitars,” he spoke from the kitchen with a clank of dishes. “He was quite good at it actually. Never cared much for the ruckus it caused sometimes, but once he started to learn the blues I found myself requesting songs left and right. It was more entertaining than watching TV.” He emerged from the kitchen with two plates of eggs balanced in each hand. I took one and sat on the couch beside him.

“Oh,” I shoved a forkful of egg in my mouth. Just as Father William had predicted, my hunger had grown immensely while we worked. “Well, why didn’t he take his guitars with him?”

He chuckled, a different tone to his laugh than usual, and spoke matter-of-factly, “They don’t allow baggage in heaven.”

And that was my first encounter with the war in Vietnam. I’d heard Mama discussing it with her friends but I’d never had the chance to bring it up with anyone. For the most part I thought all wars were bad, and people killing each other was even worse. I tried to bring it up with Mama as to whether she believed the war in Vietnam was wrong but she just remarked that it wasn’t a matter of if it was right or wrong, it was whether people were dying in vain. I didn’t know much about it, but I doubted that many people would agree with her on that.

After a week of helping around the Father’s farm he decided to have me employ the use of my bike and start delivering the crops to people’s houses. I knew my way around town pretty well so it was quite easy, although eventually I had to ask Father William to help me jury-rig a basket onto the back of my bike seat, rather than continue to balance a five pound basket on my handle bars while peddling.