{"id":70146,"date":"2022-05-07T02:00:25","date_gmt":"2022-05-07T02:00:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/whisnews21.com\/?p=70146"},"modified":"2022-05-08T20:31:51","modified_gmt":"2022-05-08T20:31:51","slug":"jack-blanchard-a-man-called-potso","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/whisnews21.com\/index.php\/2022\/05\/07\/jack-blanchard-a-man-called-potso\/","title":{"rendered":"Jack Blanchard: A Man Called Potso"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Thousands of intelligent good-looking readers.<\/i><\/strong><\/h2>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\n

POTSO<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Potso lived in the gray shingle house two doors up the street from me.\u00a0<\/strong>
\nHis real name was Robert Stanley.\u00a0<\/strong>
\nI don’t know how he got the nickname “Potso”.\u00a0<\/strong>
\nHe was Potso when I got there.\u00a0<\/strong>
\nHe was a couple of years younger than the rest of us kids,\u00a0<\/strong>
\nand not very good at sports,\u00a0<\/strong>
\nbut he tried.<\/strong><\/p>\n

His cheeks were red, and his nose ran a lot,<\/strong>
\nespecially in the winter.<\/strong>
\nIt’s hard to be cool when your nose is running.<\/strong><\/p>\n

I don’t know who tagged him with “Potso”,<\/strong>
\nbut I don’t think any of us meant it in a mean way.<\/strong>
\nMr. Pennell, a neighborhood dad, made a rock garden in his backyard,<\/strong>
\nand decorated it with cement imitation stones.<\/strong>
\nEach stone was engraved with the name of one of us kids.<\/strong>
\n“Potso” was there in a place of honor.<\/strong><\/p>\n

I can tell you this: If anybody picked on our “Potso”,<\/strong>
\nthey’d have to deal with us.<\/strong><\/p>\n

As a couple of years went by,<\/strong>
\nPotso began suggesting that we call him Robert.<\/strong>
\nI think it was his mother’s idea.<\/strong>
\nShe was a pretty and intelligent lady,\u00a0<\/strong>
\nbut I didn’t realize that until later.<\/strong>
\nWe tried to remember to call him Robert,<\/strong>
\nbut habits are hard to break.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Robert’s father was everybody’s handyman,<\/strong>
\ndoing simple chores up and down the street.<\/strong>
\nMy parents said he was “shell-shocked”.<\/strong>
\nHe was a sweet, childlike man, who smiled, but never talked much.<\/strong>
\nHe walked with a slightly unsure gait.<\/strong>
\nThe Stanley’s were the object of quiet sympathy.<\/strong>
\nSympathy can hurt.<\/strong><\/p>\n

One day we were all shocked to hear that Mr. Stanley had died.<\/strong>
\nKids aren’t used to death.<\/strong>
\nI don’t remember when Robert and his mother moved away.<\/strong><\/p>\n

A few years later,<\/strong>
\nI got a Christmas season job jumping on and off a delivery truck<\/strong>
\nwhile the driver sat in the warm cab,<\/strong>
\nsmoking cigars and drinking something\u00a0<\/strong>
\nfrom a bottle he carried in a paper bag.<\/strong><\/p>\n

One cold afternoon, we were delivering in a section of town<\/strong>
\nthat was a step or two classier than where I lived.<\/strong><\/p>\n

I went up the porch steps of the two-story brick house,<\/strong>
\nand rang the upstairs doorbell.<\/strong>
\nRobert Stanley answered the door.<\/strong>
\nHe looked different.<\/strong><\/p>\n

I think he was on his way out<\/strong>
\nbecause he was wearing expensive looking clothes,<\/strong>
\nwith a camel hair fingertip length topcoat.<\/strong>
\nHe still had the rosy cheeks, but his nose wasn’t running.<\/strong><\/p>\n

I was happy to see him, and started a conversation.<\/strong>
\nHis mother came down the stairs behind him<\/strong>
\nand told him he’d better hurry.<\/strong>
\nShe was polite, but I could feel she wasn’t really glad to see me.<\/strong><\/p>\n

I felt a little slighted, but after I thought it over I realized this:<\/strong>
\nThey had their new life where nobody felt sorry for them.<\/strong><\/p>\n

She didn’t want him to be Potso anymore.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Jack Blanchard<\/strong><\/h3>\n

\u00a9 2009, 2018.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Jack Blanchard & Misty Morgan\u2026\u00a0<\/strong>
\nHome Page:\u00a0http:\/\/www.jackandmisty.net<\/strong>
\nFacebook:\u00a0https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/jackandmisty<\/strong>
\nBillboard Duet of the Year, Grammy and CMA Finalists.<\/strong>
\n\u00a9 Jack Blanchard, 2018.<\/strong><\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Thousands of intelligent good-looking readers. POTSO Potso lived in the gray shingle house two doors up the street from me.\u00a0 His real name was Robert Stanley.\u00a0 I don’t know how he got the nickname “Potso”.\u00a0 He was Potso when I got there.\u00a0 He was a couple of years younger than the rest of us kids,\u00a0 and not very good at sports,\u00a0 but he tried. His cheeks were red, and his nose ran a lot, especially in the winter. It’s hard to be cool when your nose is running. I don’t<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":62260,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[245],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/whisnews21.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70146"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/whisnews21.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/whisnews21.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/whisnews21.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/whisnews21.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=70146"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/whisnews21.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70146\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":75122,"href":"https:\/\/whisnews21.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70146\/revisions\/75122"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/whisnews21.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/62260"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/whisnews21.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=70146"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/whisnews21.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=70146"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/whisnews21.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=70146"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}