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PrintFinale: The exchange student
Illustration by Mario Noche.
Watching the Columbus Blue Jackets play always makes me a little nostalgic for Brazil.
Let me explain. It involves the start of NHL hockey in our city and an exchange student living in my household.
Edinardo moved in with us in November 2000, just in time for the Jackets’ inaugural season. He came to us sort of by accident. My husband, George, had read in the Tri-Village News his woeful tale of mistakenly being placed with a family planning a move to, of all places, Peru. Last time I checked, that’s totally outside the Grandview school district. The service had found another family to host Edinardo in Kentucky, but he’d made friends at Grandview Heights High School and hoped to stay.
We’d never tackled the challenges of parenting a teen before. Since then, we’ve not only tackled those challenges, but also actually tackled teens. Knocked them right to the ground. But back in 2000, when our son, Riley, was about to turn 7, we were still optimistic about the upcoming election and the whole world seemed gentler. Plus, we had two unused bedrooms, so we took him in.
We were interviewed, of course, to ensure we were fit to assume responsibility for the boy. The woman from the agency asked about our policy toward dating. I told her my husband and I were not allowed to do so anymore (bada bing!). It was all pretty silly, but they still let us have him.
Things didn’t start well. He pretty much refused to speak more than severely fragmented English. He poured full bags of Lays Sour Cream & Onion potato chips on top of every meal I cooked. And in his room at night, when he talked for hours on the phone with his hometown friends, he sounded exactly like a roomful of 12-year-old girls—as if a Brazilian middle school cheerleading squad was stomping around and squealing up there.
He pronounced George with the most gorgeous accent, but called me Rope and referred to Riley as Big Baby, which came out sounding like Pig Baby—a nickname that stuck for a while. On the other hand, my mother-in-law inexplicably and cheerily called him Edodido.
We didn’t begin to gel until we decided at the last minute one night to give hockey a try as a newly extended family. George was going to meet us at Nationwide Arena and I planned to buy four tickets from a scalper. (In 2000, it was harder than you might realize.)
The guy we approached wanted $35 apiece.
“Dude, there’s no way. We’re just looking for cheap seats,” I explained.
“I can give them to you for 20 each,” he countered.
I can see the scene from his point of view: a wholesome enough hockey mom, an apple-cheeked 7-year-old attached to one hand and an exchange student eager for new cultural experiences behind. I countered: “That would be all the money I have. The boys are going to need a hot dog, at least, once we’re in there.”
“Fifteen bucks.”
“Sold.”
As I dug around for the $60, Edinardo decided he wanted to treat and pulled out a $100 bill.
Well, it’s not as if I wanted to strike up a long-term friendship with the scalper. Plus, it was a good opportunity to explain to Edinardo some of the nuances of American sports culture.
As it turned out, he loved the game so much he began going frequently on his own. His best day in the U.S. came during a Jackets’ home stand against the hated Detroit Red Wings.
The Jackets got behind. A particularly belligerent Red Wings fan—I like to imagine him wearing a mullet—shouted to Edinardo, “Hey, loser, why don’t you go home?”
I hate that part of the story. Edinardo, alone in a sea of drunken hockey fans, harassed and intimidated. But his tale improved.
The Blue Jackets went on to an amazing come-from-behind win. The screaming crowd was on its feet. It was the most excitement he’d been part of since coming to our country. Full of team pride, he turned around to the Red Wings fan.
“Now maybe you go home.”
God bless America.
Hope Madden is a film critic for The Other Paper and a freelance writer.
