|  Bob Batz Read Bob's bio and previous columns
June 26, 2009
A Long-Ago Graduation, and the Curious Tale of Lionel Baxter
Well, another batch of high school graduations are history in
big cities and small towns all over America.
I attended Flint Central High School. Class of ‘58.
Looking back, I guess my graduation wasn’t any different than anyone else’s.
It was sweltering hot the night of the ceremonies, but that’s nothing new
because it’s always hot on graduation night. It can be 40 below zero the day
before graduation but, by gosh, the night of graduation it’s always 98
degrees.
One of my best friends, Lionel Baxter (his mother named him
Lionel because she liked electric trains) was class valedictorian.
Another friend – Gail Grabowski – was class salutatorian.
I wasn’t class anything. My mother always said I didn’t receive any
honors when I was in high school because the whole selection system was
rigged to exclude students whose fathers worked in factories.
The truth was I wasn’t valedictorian or salutatorian because
I was carrying a low-C average. Or was it a high-D? I forget.
My friend Lionel Baxter was an awesome student. He was senior
class president and secretary of the French, Latin and German clubs.
He also had the lead role in the senior class play and was a member of every
club in the school with the exception of the Future Farmers of America.
Lionel didn’t join the FFA because he was afraid of goats.
Lionel also played tuba in the high school marching band and
was quarterback and captain of the football team. I know that sounds like an
impossible combination, but Lionel was equal to the challenge. He’d direct a
play from his quarterback position, then race into the stands to bang out a
tune or two on the tuba. Then he’d trot back onto the field for the next
play.
To my knowledge, Lionel only got his signals crossed one
time.
It was the night of the biggest game of the season against Bay City. Lionel,
clutching his tuba, sprinted onto the field at the start of the second half,
faded back and lobbed the tuba 60 yards to Wendell Costello, our talented
right end.
The play didn’t count, of course, but it was a beauty.
Lionel’s final honor as a high school student came shortly before graduation
when his classmates voted him the student most likely to be a brain surgeon
or president of the United States.
But Lionel fooled everybody and became a ballet dancer.
Contact Bob at bbatz@woh.rr.com.
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