I joined the Lew Wallace Cross country team in the fall of 1965. I was entering my sophomore year of high school. This was my first year at Lew Wallace. I had attended Horace Mann from 7th – 9th grade. I am writing this to prove to our Saturday morning breakfast club that I did belong to the cross country team. I have been taking a lot of abuse since this came up innocently in conversation one Saturday morning. So I decided it was time to set the record straight. 
How did this all happen to come about? Now I can understand the breakfast club being skeptical of this claim. I have never been known to exercise a lot or to exert myself that much. I have trouble with mechanical things and physical labor type of stuff. I’m not very good at painting, cutting grass, moving stuff or breaking a sweat. So I can understand the skepticism, I just didn’t understand the continued disbelief. I am also working on a breakfast club blog and I think you will all understand this group much better.
My high school friend, Joe Kulavick, would walk from his house to mine and stop and get me for the trek to school in the mornings. We would stop and pick up other guys on the way until we arrived at Lew Wallace, at least 6 strong. Joe would always say to me, “Cheeks, we are going to run cross country.” I would look at him and ask if his older brother Steve had hit him in the head again. He would say no, it will be fun. I wanted to know how was it going to fun when we had to run 2 miles to get to practice, 2 and a half miles around the park and 2 miles back to school and then we had to walk home. I just couldn’t quite comprehend his thinking. Our coach was a guy by the name of Mike Jennings. People from Portage might remember him. He was tough, fair sometimes, had a certain meanness that guys from my era understand. I did not realize till later the impressions he made on me and what a great guy he was. That’s what always happens, you never realize the truth at the time. Anyway Mike and Joe have both passed but I can’t forget the stuff we went through.
Coach Jennings would also throw in some wind sprints just for good measure. We would run from Lew Wallace to Gleason Park Monday thru Friday. Wind sprints, and once around the park (about 2 ¼ miles) and run back to school. Sometimes we would try to ditch coach and make our ways down the alley. Snooky (whom I have mentioned before) lived close to the park and we would steal grapes off his vine in the backyard. One time, Joe had filled the front pouch of his sweatshirt and we were making our way back to school with our pouches filled. As we came around the corner to catch up to the rest of the group, Coach Jennings appeared from behind some bushes. He knew where we had been but played stupid. We tried to play stupid, which was easy for us, but we were trapped. Not to mention that coach was one of the fiercest swatters at the school. We were starting to sweat. Coach Jennings walked up to Joe and looked him straight in the eye, and Joe looked right at him and did not flinch. Coach Jennings told him to turn around and when Joe did Coach reached around him, locked his arms together and squeezed. I thought he was going to turn the grapes into wine. Coach did not say a word and Joe did not let on but it was ugly. Coach left us standing there; he was bellowing with laughter. From then on he always called Joe "Winey." Of course all I ever heard him yell at me was, "Cicco you run like you have a piano on your back." Needless to say, I didn’t break any records but I did share my grapes with Joe.
Until later……………………………………………Ciao.