alafarmnews

You can’t always
judge the book
by its cover

Roland Larvess’s mother passed away just before Christmas during our third grade year and he and his three older brothers had come to live with their father a couple of miles from us.

When he lumbered into our homeroom for the first time that cold, rainy January morning, he was the oddest-looking person any of us had ever seen. He was at least as tall as any adult in

town, wore black horned rim glasses and galoshes over his shoes that looked like the rubber boots we’d use for fishing or frog gigging. Today’s kinder hearted people might use the euphemism ‘diametrically challenged’ to describe Roland’s girth. We were of a different generation, in elementary school and totally ruthless. As soon as we heard his name pronounced by our homeroom teacher, Roland Larvess became Rolling Lard***.

He was from Minnesota, Wisconsin or somewhere that they have a lot of cheese and not much sun. He said ‘yah’ a lot and ‘you guys’ instead of ‘y’all.’ This was a time when bell bottoms and big collared paisley shirts were in. This dude was wearing starched, straight legged khakis and a Howdy Doody cowboy shirt. To add to the poor boy’s lack of hipness, upon arrival, his father had seen to it that all his sons were given the haircut of his choosing; a flat top. Yea, he stood out.

Even though he was first pick when we played Red Rover (he was like running into a truck), we were cruel to him. After all, how often does a small cotton town get a giant, overweight Yankee to pick on. He initially was very confused by us constantly making sport of him but very quickly honed his wit enough to stab back in self-defense.

He became a Cub Scout the summer after his move and got a job delivering Grit paper a couple of times a month around town. He also mowed lawns for a little money and helped several retired people with their vegetable gardens for a share of the harvest.

When school started back in the fall, he tried his best to fit in with his fellow students and became the first boy in the history of the school to go to the fossilized music teacher, Mrs. Jenkins, and volunteer to be in the fourth grade musical. No coon dog chasing, smashed penny on the railroad track, rabbit grass chewing Southern boy had ever done that before. Every other boy that eventually performed in that play or any other play since the beginning of time had been threatened to within an inch of his life before eventually joining the troupe.

group of about 15 children were to line up with hands outstretched onto the person’s shoulders in front of them with heads turned facing the audience.

Everybody in the routine, especially the boys, felt silly enough as it was but then we had this pale, stoop shouldered person fully twice our size in the back of the line bent over like some trained circus animal touching the person in front of him. Somehow, the audiences being there made it dawn on Roland just how preposterous he looked and he got tickled. He was red faced and squinted his eyes trying to suppress his laughter. He couldn’t see as tears rolled down his face. Finally, he was laughing so that he sounded like a bull sea lion on a National Geographic special. The other boys in the line, at first paralyzed by the chain reaction reverberation caused by their big convulsing, snorting fellow thespian, could no longer sing for laughing. Most of the audience, the men in particular having gone through the same Mrs. Jenkins fourth grade musical, began to point and laugh. The girls began to cry and a couple walked off the stage. Mrs. Jenkins cried.

Roland’s taskmaster father, Sergeant Lard***, had been military and, from day one, had had his boys out running and doing calisthenics before any of us scratched our first itch of the day. Though Rolling didn’t stop growing tall (I swear, he was every bit of 6’ 5” before we boys’ voices ever changed), all the exercise did cause him to slim up. In a couple of years Lard*** just didn’t fit him anymore. He became Roland.

In the tenth grade, he had gotten all 24 merit badges and was an Eagle Scout. The school coach latched onto him and his 250+ pounds to play on the football team where he intimidated the opposition until he graduated from high school.

He had taken piano lessons since he was up north and now often played for church services at his church and at weddings. He could sing incredibly well, belting out the chorus to hymns with such intensity that you’d think he’d have an aneurysm. In our senior play, we learned he could dance, even if his height (6’ 8”) did make him resemble an albatross flopping about on stage. He laughed during that play too, but managed to regain his composure.

We were terribly mistaken to judge that big ole funny talking book by its cover. Roland left our little town with a full academic scholarship and went on to finish in the school of dentistry. After graduation he joined the Peace Corps for two years, serving in Africa, where he met and married a girl from Georgia. They are now missionaries in Ghana and will probably grow old there.