My Chico, sure as heck, isn’t doing any oil burner laps

Why do 1,000 people get up early on a rain-driven Sunday morning and drive to Milton to run in a race called the Dogfish Dash? Is it because they trained for it? Perhaps it is a substitute for church or a physical endeavor offered up to the lord? These are people mostly of pain and passion – six miles followed by six beers? I don’t know why these endurance events attract so many people with $20, but wait, that’s $20,000, better than the first collection at the local church.

DOS CHICOS - A couple of weeks ago I was explaining someplace out in Cool Spring when Cape Vice Principal Mike Dmiterchik asked, “You’re talking about out there by Chico’s house?”

I was impressed and responded, “You know Chico? Go on with your culturally diverse self.”

Turns out that my Chico is black and his is white and mine is a Beckett while his is a Barranco. Mike’s Chico once ran five miles around his own oil burner during a snowstorm, while my Chico doesn’t have a basement, but if he did he sure as heck isn’t doing oil burner laps. Both Chicos call me Coach. Next week I’ll explain how three Peanuts and two Poochies make a full house.

JAX TO THE MAX - I have always found football practices to be tediously deadly routine to boring and contact without the adrenaline of game night to be painful. I never liked having my bell rung or neck wrenched. The last three years covering Cape I have always enjoyed talking to manager Jacqlyn Baughman who would fill me in on who wasn’t there in addition to not hesitating to give me a run down of Cape opponents. She is a valuable member of that team, and I hope she finds a football team to work with when she goes to college. Jax has also run the 400 and 800 for the girls track team the last three years.

NAPA JOHN - I bought a battery at Napa last Monday morning, and counter man John, always so polite and efficient, was content to send me on way, transaction completed, but I forced him to recognize that I was his track coach his senior year in 1976 when we won a state championship. You know it is never good when a person with whom you share significant history doesn’t recognize you. It is either because you have deteriorated to the point of not approximating any vivid resemblance to your celebrated past or the other person hopes you don’t recognize him and start in on your tired old stories and jokes.

“I just wasn’t expecting you to come through the door.” That’s all John said.

John McNair was a sub 50 in the 400 meters and sub 2 minutes in the 800. Some of his teammates included Bill Dunning, Hiram Carter, Vaughn Trammel, Gilbert Maull. Dennis Robinson, Garrison Duncan, Lance White, Tyrone Gibbs, Kirwin Street, Ron Jefferson, Wayne Warren, Chico Beckett, Quinton Phillips, Eddie Parker, Angelo Shugart, John Doney, Guy Wilkinson and Randy Johnson. All these guys are hovering around 50 years of age.

SCHOOLS AND SHOPPING CENTERS - I went to Bishop Egan Catholic High School directly across the parkway from the Levittown Shopping Center. I never once in four years thought about the shopping center, never thought I should go there and hang out or wondered if proximity to a shopping center was a detriment to education.

I taught at Cape for 30 years, a mere mile from the Atlantic Ocean, but the ocean had zero impact on life inside the classroom, and I always marveled that most students never went to the ocean or played in it and had no idea how far across it was to the other side.

The impact of man-made structures and surrounding geographical features on the learning environment inside school buildings is negligible and close to immeasurable. The push to keep the Little Big House for kids failed as did referendums for a second turf field and technology upgrades. The power elite mostly didn’t come out and support kids when “we” needed them, and now the issue is all about saving and preserving the character of the community?

SNIPPETS - The Delaware Tech Hawks men’s soccer team, Terry Campus, improved to 8-3 on the season with a 3-2 overtime win at Salem Community College. Former Cape player Carlos Marin-Landa had an assist on the winning goal. Tony Mendez, former Cape player, is a freshman midfielder on the team, and Evan Lee from Sussex Tech is on the defense. The Hawks are coached by Ryan Dixon, a former Dover High School boy’s varsity soccer player from 1995 to 1999, a two-time first team All-State player.

Cape Henlopen will host the Henlopen Conference wrestling championships this February.

The mechanical eating of the old high school cannot be heard inside the new school, especially while you’re chewing your lunch.