Teaching Tool: Stranger Than Fiction

Several years ago, when I was teaching in a neighborhood here in Philadelphia that might charitably be described as a "ghetto," I gave my students a writing prompt on a brilliant spring day. I had saved the poetry unit for the spring because, well, you know.... I had momentary qualms about distributing this handout because of its arguably adult content, but then, several of my young high school students were already parents. They were to respond in a poem; what they got was this:

TRUTH STRANGER THAN FICTION

Who wrote this - Rod Serling? - John Lavery

Even at this late date, many are still alive who recall that Philadelphia native and Hall of Fame catcher Roy Campanella, of the old Brooklyn Dodgers, was horribly crippled in a car accident early in 1958. He had been hurrying home to Long Island from his liquor store in Harlem. He flipped his rented Chevy over on a patch of ice, resulting in a C5 fracture [yeah, I explained that] and spinal cord damage that left him a quadriplegic.

The date was January 26, 1958.

The Dodgers were faced with replacing a seemingly irreplaceable piece of their team. Roy Campanella was faced with far worse, some of it originating from a seemingly unlikely source.

Although wheelchair-bound, Campy was not rendered totally immobile, but physicians pointed out that many activities, and certainly, any future sex life would require "sensitivity" on the part of his partner. Roy, however, was married to Ruthe, who seemed to have little interest in such sensitivity. Rather soon she began affairs with other men, drank heavily, and occasionally abused the affable former Most Valuable Player physically.

After a while Campy could move his arms a bit from the shoulders, rather like a penguin's flippers, but this was not useful should Ruthe suddenly swing a frying pan at his head.

Court documents related to Campanella's petition for legal separation alleged, as well, that Ruthe once engaged in intercourse in a car in front of their home. The next morning, when Campy complained that their children could hear his wife's cries of pleasure, Ruthe threatened to stab him with a fork, and told him that she would give her body to whomever she chose. By 1962, Campanella was living in an apartment away from his wife, Ruthe had undergone elective sterilization in order to allow her greater sexual freedom, and Harlem was abuzz with stories of her affair with a musician.

Nonetheless, Roy and Ruthe still occasionally spoke by phone. The tables were turned during one of those conversations. All Roy heard was a gasp mid-conversation. Ruthe Campanella had suffered a fatal heart attack at the age of 40.

The date was January 26, 1963.

The two best titles from the class were "Payback's a Bitch" and "What goes around comes around in five years." About seventy percent of the work turned in was superior to what the given student usually turned in.