I grew up right down the street from a playground. It was the playground of Rose Hill Elementary School in Kirkwood. There wasn’t a sport that the neighborhood boys didn’t play on that playground. There was an asphalt basketball court and a large open field.
Football, basketball, baseball, cork ball, street hockey, marbles and soccer. We played tennis without a net and hit golf balls when somebody came up with a raggedy golf club. The only thing that stopped us was rain—and it had to falling pretty hard to turn us back.
One of the neighborhood families was the Taylors. Ray Taylor was my age, and he had two older brothers, Harvey and Charles. He had a little brother who went by Junior, who also was part of the playground posse. Harvey was one of the best playground basketball players in the region. He never played for Kirkwood High School, though.
Charlie, on the other hand, did wear the red and white of Kirkwood and helped make the Pioneers football team one of the state’s best in the mid-1970s. He was also one of the state’s best high jumpers and an all-around track star. He would go on to star as a receiver and return man at Southeast Missouri State University and took his shot at the NFL with the Kansas City Chiefs. While he didn’t make the squad, he never lost his zeal for athletics and would go on to become a college and high-school coach. A member of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Charlie valued his education and directed his student athletes to do the same.
While he was working out last week, Charlie collapsed and died. Full of health and vigor, Charlie was dead at the age of 53.
Of my band of playground buddies, Charlie would become the first to leave us. His funeral was last Saturday.
Charlie’s death reminded me of my own mortality—although I came to grips with that in 1991, when my infant son suddenly died of natural causes.
More importantly, Charlie’s passing reminded me of the playground. The playground was a safe haven for anyone who wanted to play sports and have fun. No drugs, no guns, no hatred. An occasional fight that was instantly broken up as soon as a neighbor saw or heard what was going on. Boys got a chance to grown into men while drawing football plays in the dirt, like we had seen the previous Sunday during an NFL game or a Saturday college game.
Today, Rose Hill has been transformed into a senior apartment complex. Its playground is now a parking lot. A bit of irony is that my mother taught for 30 years at Westchester Elementary in Kirkwood, retired for a year, and then became the inaugural director of Rose Hill House. She worked there nine years.
That playground will always be a part of me. Just like I’m sure it was a part of Charlie during every game and practice he attended.
Commentary by Alvin Reid
