During the summer of 1966, between my junior and senior year at Manchester High School, I ran several days a week to get ready for the cross-country season. Being only sixteen, I didn’t hesitate to run the Manchester Road Race course in the middle of the day when the temperatures were hottest. When practice began I was in great shape, and Coach Simes projected I would be the number four runner on the varsity. Unfortunately, I came down with shin splints and was a middle of the pack runner for the entire season. Still, when the team had their end of the season banquet at Willy’s Steakhouse, I was surprised when I heard my name called to come up to the podium and get my varsity letter. That meant going to Nassiff Arms Sporting Goods on Main Street a few days later and getting my letterman’s sweater. My mom sewed the letter on the pocket and the numbers for my graduating year, 1967, on the sleeve.
I understood there were unspoken high school rules about not wearing your sweater too often, and since I felt like I hadn’t earned my letter by contributing to the team’s victories the way Dave Stoneman had, I didn’t wear my sweater more than a handful of times during my final year of high school. But I would sometimes put it on at home, look in the full-length mirror in the upstairs hallway and feel proud of my accomplishment.
I still have my letterman’s sweater. I’m bigger in the arms and shoulders than I was then and, of course, I wouldn’t wear it now even if it still fit. It just hangs in the bedroom closet and will until the day comes when it’s time for my family to decide what to do with my worldly possessions.
So many days have passed since I was a shy, sensitive kid running for my high school cross-country team that I wonder sometimes if I’m really the same person I was then. It’s not that I have to put on my letterman’s sweater to convince myself that the David of 1966 is the same person as the David of 2021. But who is the unchanging “I” who has existed since the moment of my birth and will continue to exist until my final breath? I have gone through so many changes during the course of my life, physically, mentally and spiritually, how can I claim to be the same person I once was? I used to run the Manchester Road Race course at around a 7-minute mile pace. Two years ago I had bilateral hip surgery and will probably have to walk part of the course if I line up next November. When I read Walden in tenth grade, I was bored. When I reread it last year, I was entranced. I used to understand the Bible literally, as history and prose. Now I interpret the stories of the Bible symbolically, as mythology and poetry.
Scientists discovered in the 1950’s that the human body replaces itself with a new set of cells every seven to ten years. So in a very real sense, the person I was in high school is physically no longer alive, but that young man lives on in the deepest part of who I am. The sweater in my closet reminds me to think about him from time to time. He’s a good kid.
David James Madden