Best Foot Forward

By Scott Ludwig

Jake Kerslake, a wisp of a boy at five-foot-two and 94 pounds at the age of 14 was never particularly good at any sport requiring hand-eye coordination. But there was one thing he was good at: Running.

Once the good people of Blue Harbor--and Jefferson Saine Douglas in particular--learned of Jakes secret his life would change forever.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Sep 16, 2016
• ISBN: 9781532007217

Scott Ludwig

Scott Ludwig became a grandfather at the tender age of 54. Six years later he has a new ‘best friend in the whole wide world:’ Someone to run and laugh with and finds the audible passing of gas every bit as hysterical as him. Scott lives, runs, writes and is a grandfather in the beautiful countryside of Senoia, Georgia. The perfect setting for life...as a G-Pa.

Book preview

ONE – THE PITTS

S ooner or later it was bound to happen.

But what else would Jake Kerslake—whose notoriety around Blue Harbor Junior High was divided between his tendency to stammer over words beginning with the sound of a hard ‘K’ and his thin legs more appropriate for a praying mantis than a fourteen-year old boy—expect? After all, when you’re only five-foot-two and 94 pounds in ninth grade, you’re not simply another student. You’re much more than that. You’re a target.

Jake was running as fast as he could with a 12-pound backpack slung across his shoulder to avoid what had become a daily ritual after the final bell at 3:30. For most of the students it signaled the end of another school day. For kids like Jake it signaled the beginning of the daily edition of ‘The Pitts,’ featuring the designated target of the day. The rumor around school had been that today was going to be Jake’s day, and he wanted no part of it.

Here’s how ‘The Pitts’ worked. The Blue Harbor ‘Brat Pack,’ comprised mostly of the muscular behemoths who were too uncoordinated to make the JV football team would wait in the school parking lot at the end of the day for their target—in this case Jake—to make an appearance. The Brat Pack, with 200-pound, 16-year old Tim Pittsinger (his advanced age due to having repeated both the third and fourth grades) calling the shots, would encircle their prey and take turns shoving him from one Brat Packer to another, sometimes for as long as 15 minutes. Several weeks earlier the target was tiny Kenny Dailey, who succumbed to the rigors of ‘The Pitts’ in a matter of only two or three minutes. Kenny took the easy way out; he fainted, allegedly due to dizziness but more likely due to the sheer fear of being pushed around like a rag doll by a half-dozen boys, all of them at least twice his size.

But today was going to be different because Jake had no intention of being the Brat Pack’s ‘monkey in the middle.’ Jake decided that once the school bell sounded signaling the end of the day, he was going to run.

And run he did. Jake not only outran the entire Brat Pack but several members of Blue Harbor’s cross-country team who were running on the sidewalk on the opposite side of the street as well. Jake was running so fast—his arms pumping furiously and his face turning a shade of red that was actually closer to burgundy—that he caught the attention of cross-country coach Bill Rose who was peddling furiously behind his team on his Pee Wee Herman bicycle; yes, the one the entire student body of Blue Harbor ridiculed him for riding but no one dared to say a word