Alive and Dead in Indiana

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Where was I when I heard about it? Let’s see. He died on that Friday, but I didn’t hear until Saturday at a speech meet in Lafayette. I was in the cafetorium, drinking coffee and going over the notes I had made on a humorous interp I’d just finished judging. The results were due in a few minutes, and the cafetorium was filling up with students between rounds. I had drama to judge next and was wondering how my own kids had done in their first rounds. So, I was sitting there, flipping back and forth through the papers on my clipboard, drinking coffee, when Kevin Wilkerson came through the swinging doors. I saw him first through the windows in the doors, the windows that have the crisscrossing chicken wire sandwiched between the panes. He had this look on his face. I thought, “Oh my, I bet something’s happened in his round.” He looked like he’d done awful. But he’d probably flubbed a few words or dropped a line or two, or so I thought. I once judged a boy making his first speech who went up, forgot everything, and just stood there. Pretty soon there was a puddle on the floor and all of this in silence. The timekeeper sat there flipping over the cards. So I spoke up and repeated the last thing I could remember from his speech. Something about harvesting the sea. And he picked up right there and finished every word, wet pants and all.

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