BEFRIENDING OUTCASTS CAN BRING BENEFITS

BEFRIENDING OUTCASTS CAN BRING BENEFITS   Something has always made me attractive to misfits and outcasts. Way back when I was a 5th grader, I found myself the buddy of a kid none of the other kids liked very much. His name was Eugene, but everyone called him Beanie. Beanie had failed both the third and fourth grades and was therefore much bigger than any of the other fifth graders except me. I was tall for my age, but not nearly as wide and heavy as Beanie, who was a big eater. Eugene also had a talent for misbehaving in class. This would get him led screaming up to the principal's office. He screamed because our teacher, Miss Donna Leathart always led him by twisting his ear and dragging him bodily like a lamb to the slaughter. That got Beanie a lot of teasing from some of the bolder or speedier people in our class and from some of the upper class-men. His chief tormentor from our class, a fearless little guy by the name of Francis Daniels who brought the whole issue to a climax one warm March day by leading a band of tormentors who somehow got Beanie “treed” on top of the concession stand next to the baseball field. When I came upon the scene he was being pelted unmercifully with snowballs coming at him from all sides. It was a sorry spectacle a lot like the mob that surrounded the gorilla, Mighty Joe Young” in the movie by that name that was playing at Fairmount's State theater; only Mighty Joe was defending the beautiful Terry Moore (soon to be the wife of Howard Hughes), and not Fay Ray, Cong's beloved. Beanie had no beloved at all, and his humiliation didn't end until he leaped off the concession stand, ran down Francis Daniels and beat him up. It would be two days before Beanie showed up in class. That day he approached me and said, “You were the only one not throwing at me. Wanna come over and watch TV after school? I felt a little guilty fielding that question, because I was considering flinging a snowball at Beanie myself, but watch TV? The only TV I had seen in town so far was through the window of Scheel's Hardware, and that was so snowy you could barely see the curve balls break in the Twins' game. “Ya, I'd like to see it. You bet! This was in the late 40's and I didn't know anyone that had their own TV at home. I found out over at Beanie's place that he was an expert on WWII, and we watched all kinds of war movies and black and white film noir gangster flicks. It turned out that Beanie's dad was a fairly well-to-do railroad man, and was able to afford lots of stuff we couldn't. We did have several radios, but that was because my dad could build them and fix them. Later Eugene showed me many of his drawings of eagles and animals. It turns out that the kid everybody thought was a dummy was very talented; but only in the subjects he loved. Most of his classes he hated, and many of those he flunked. My point here is not to show what a nice guy I was in befriending Beanie, but that he was a sensitive and talented real person who was turned into an outcast by bullying and abuse. That stuff is still going on today in nearly every school. And countless young people with great giftings and talents are turned into loners who have been convinced they are “Born to lose.” One had to get to know them, and inevitably, once you did you'd be forced to realize that God doesn't create junk. Everyone has a place where his talents are a valuable fit. A perfect example of this are the “geeks.” They never seem to have the right clothes or looks that fit with the “in crowd.” But when one's computer crashes, who gets called? The geek. And just think for a moment of the countless movie anti-heroes who are the stuff of great movies. The “Beauty and the Beast” theme is everywhere: Cyrano with his grotesque nose and beautiful soul. All the Clint Eastwood loners like “The Outlaw Josey Wales” or the High Planes Drifter. Think of Jim of “Rebel Without a Cause” or Cal in “East of Eden” both James Dean misfits whom we'll never forget. Nor need I mention Heathcliff of “Wuthering Heights” or the hunchbacks, Quasimodo or Richard III. Certainly the quintessential outcast of all was Jesus. Here is the prophet Isaiah's amazing description of him 800 years before Calvary: “He was despised and rejected of men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief and we turned, as it were, our faces from him.” And we are told that he accepted the horrible rejection of the crucifixion so that outcasts who believed in him could be “accepted among the beloved.” So take heart all you “lonely boys, lonely and blue,” there's still hope, even for you.   Gene Pinkney - For The Daily News… 4/14/21   - html edit 8-12-2021