Anything But ‘Sue’ – Or Florene
In 1956 I was a freshman attending La Grange High School. Being raised on a farm and doing all sorts of physical labor, including helping dad move houses, I was muscled up pretty good and in great physical shape. So much so that one day I was approached by the football coach and asked how come I wasn’t signed up to play football. Well I tried to explain the best I could why I couldn’t play football for him. First of all, my dad – being of the “old school” – didn’t care for the sport. He said it only caused young kids to get hurt unnecessarily and later in life the injuries would haunt them and possibly hinder them from working to their full potential. Another reason was that there absolutely was no way I could stay after school and practice every day. There was no way for me to travel back and forth to town and besides I usually had a days’ worth of chores to do after school. Dad also said that instead of “working out” in the school gym he could find enough for me to “work out” at home on the farm.
Well it just so happened that I had this very same coach for my Algebra teacher. After our meeting and conversation in the hallway, he left me in a huff and hardly spoke to me at all. However, every morning in Algebra class as he called out the roll call whenever he came to my name he would call out loud and clear: “Florene Kana.” Well my name was kinda different than most but Florian was a name given to me at the request of my Grandfather Jan Kana. He emigrated here from Czechoslovakia. Since his father’s name was Florian back in the “Old Country” he wanted me to be called that in honor of his dad. I mentioned this to the coach that same morning and he nodded his head and went on with the rest of the roll call. The following morning, when my name came up in the roll call, I heard “Florene” again. This time he really emphasized the last syllable of Florene to really make it sound like a girl’s name. I guess he was trying to make me look like a sissy or a girl for not playing football!
Well, I didn’t answer his call that day so he marked me down as “absent.” When I got my report card later on I brought it to his attention that I had a perfect attendance up to this point. He told me that I didn’t acknowledge when he called my name. I told him the reason I didn’t acknowledge was that he called for Florene and since there was no Florene in the room, “she” didn’t answer.
Well after righting “his mistake” he still continued to call me Florene every day. I finally said “to heck with it” and tolerated it for the rest of the school year. The only problem resulting from all of this is that to this day some sixty plus years later, my school classmate and buddy, Marvin Kaase, still calls out to me in a crowd: “Hey Florene, how are you?” He still has to just “rub it in.” One day at the bowling alley, my bowling partner and high school mate, Louis Konvicka, happened to remember and also called me Florene. All I could do was to smile and shake my head. After 60 years, they still remember.
NOTE: As a senior, we all received invitations to numerous colleges from all over the state. Florene came into the picture again! My address got mixed up with all of the girls in my class. Someone misspelled my name from Florian to FLORENE. I received an invitation to visit an “all girls college!” I didn’t think much about it but I did bring the letter to my male classmates. I was the only male graduate to be invited to an “An all girls college!”