Freddogg Off The Chain

I was driving east on Route 9 heading towards Lewes around 5 p.m.a week ago when I spotted a big old dark skinned black man construction worker walking west and carrying a thermos. I stopped at the light power dived my window and yelled, “Yo Pluck! Then I diagrammed a triangle with two hands and closed by saying “Last call long jump!”
Pluck about 45 years old still had the aerodynamic head with piercing eyeballs sitting atop a 6’4” body of about 290 pounds. He gave a hint a recognition the way a dog does when you asked it “you wanna go for a ride?”
Back in 1983 I had recruited this senior athlete to a very good Cape track team in the middle of the season because we needed depth. And of course his first meet he long jumped 21 feet talking off two feet behind the board but I made the mistake of running him second in the 4 by 200 meter relay emphasizing “take a safe pass inside the triangles.”
We ran the race and were disqualified by an earnest and honest judge with sons on the team.
“I couldn’t help it coach,”he said. “Orlando was way out of the zone.”
“By Orlando I assume you mean Pluck?”
Pluck who was a gentle soul, thank the lord, came over to me looking contrite and confused. I put my hand on his shoulder seizing the “teachable moment.”
Pluck what happened? I told you to take a safe pass inside the triangles.”
Pluck had a revelation moment, drew a triangle in midair saying “Hey coach, are they them things shaped like this?”
“That would be them Pluck. That would be them.”
Pluck did crazy stuff like three scratches at the Dover relays thereby eliminating his partner but the most bizarre was when I was waiting for the West Rehoboth three- hub non-tagged express on a Saturday morning so the team bus could disembark for the Conference Championships and when they got out there was no Pluck.
I asked Sweet Baby James who was not the brother’s keeper,” James tell me a story. Where is Pluck?”
“Coach he was out there waiting for this here ride with the rest of us when some white dude rolled up and asked ‘did any of us want to work? Pluck just got in the car.’”
Twenty five years later I find him walking down the road carrying a thermos. That is one long work day.

Triangle Man Triangle Man Out There Doing The Best he Can.