The three of us simultaneously said, “But—”

“Sure. I’ve been dying to get out of this old, stuffy

office and back out there with my students.”

“But, Mr. Little, you’re much too busy with running

the school to be an adviser for a club.” Jonathan tried his

Mickey Mantle’s Last Home Run | 97

best blacknosing, but I could see that this time it was not

going to work.

“Nonsense, Jonathan,” Mr. Little said. “I’ve got a little

secret to tell you. Those secretaries out there actually run

this school. I just sit in here and sign papers. It will be

great to get out there again and work hand in hand with

my students. Hey, I used to be a biology teacher. It will

be great to get back to my favorite subject.”

For the first time ever, Jonathan could not think of

anything to say. We all just sat there in bewilderment.

“I think we’ll have our first meeting next week,” Mr.

Little said. “Do you young fellows agree to that?”

We were all too stunned to say anything. Phil kind of

nodded, so Mr. Little said, “Good. Good.” He clapped his

hands together and said, “Well, it’s done. You boys had

better get back up to class. Don’t forget—next Tuesday

at three fifteen.”

We all got up to leave, but just before we left, Mr.

Little said, “One more thing, boys. What’s this about

‘Sock it to me, baby’?”

Jonathan might have been shocked by that question,

but he made a quick recovery. “Sir, it means something

like ‘Well done’ or ‘Thanks for telling me that.’ It’s black

slang. Something black people used to say down on the

plantation during slave times. It’s part of black heritage.”

“I see,” Mr. Little said, and as we walked out of the

room, Mr. Little followed us. He was still sort of excited

by the whole stupid thing, and he said, “Well, fellows,

sock it to me, baby!”

98 | The Revolt of the Golgi Bodies

Jonathan turned around and said, “Yeah. Right.

Right on. You got it.”

We all hurried out past the secretaries, who were

looking back at Mr. Little in disbelief.

There was one thing that no high school kids

liked: the officially sanctioned clubs. When it came to

extracurricular activities, you were either on one of the

sports teams or in one of the school’s lame bands. If you

were a girl, you were a cheerleader or a twirler or in the

color guard or the band, and that was it. There was other

stuff for the seniors, like the yearbook staff, and there were

always the class officers, who just ran for office and then

planned a dance or something. Finally, there were all the

lame officially sanctioned clubs disliked by everybody.

My brother once told me as a word of advice that I

should join as many of the lame clubs as possible because

activities looked good on applications for college. He said

that colleges looked for stuff like that. It made them think

you weren’t some kind of deadbeat throughout your years

in high school. He told me that he was in Spanish club

for four years and they had exactly one meeting each year.

That was it. They were supposed to speak only Spanish

during the meetings, so whenever there was a meeting,

nobody could understand what was going on. When they

wanted to say something, if they couldn’t think of how

to say it in Spanish, they couldn’t say it. Consequently,

nobody ever had any good ideas in the Spanish club. If

someone did have a good idea and figured out how to

say it in Spanish, nobody else could understand him or

her. The Spanish club adviser, Senor Alvarado, made sure

Mickey Mantle’s Last Home Run | 99

nobody spoke any English. My brother said the only good

thing that ever happened in Spanish club was that they

once had a taco party. They were supposed to make their

own tacos, but the kid who was supposed to bring the

cornmeal for the tacos got confused and brought a dozen

cans of Green Giant Niblets corn instead. Mr. Alvarado

said there was no way they had enough time to grind out

the Green Giant Niblets corn into cornmeal, so he went

out and bought a dozen bags of tacos from the Jack in the

Box fast food restaurant.

I wondered what the colleges would think when I put

on my application that I was a member of the cell. Phil

said they might think it was surreptitious—whatever the

heck that meant. I wondered if I should put down that I

was in the nucleolus. Would they be impressed?

Well, I was not quite sure why—maybe lots of kids

knew of my brother’s advice, maybe they just wanted to

see what Mr. Little looked like, or maybe some of the kids

had heard about Mr. Little saying, “Sock it to me, baby,”

and wanted to see if he would do it again—but there was

an amazing turnout for the first meeting of the cell.

Mr. Little said that this was the founding meeting of

the cell. He had Jonathan sit at the front of the room with

me and Phil on either side. Mr. Little started the meeting

with a long speech about how momentous this meeting

was, how exciting it was to found a new club, how he’d

been at the founding of the technicians’ club back in

1952, and all kinds of stupid stuff like that. It was a boring

speech. Finally, he turned the meeting over to Jonathan,

the nucleus. Now, old Jonathan was no dummy. He knew

he had a good thing going, and he sure didn’t want to

blow it. As the nucleus of a new club, he finally had what

he called a power base. Jonathan was still pretty upset

about losing the election for class president, and after all,

Jonathan’s ambition in life was to become president of

the United States, so he figured that being the nucleus of

the cell would be as good a way as any to start his ascent

to power.

Jonathan told me later that in order to consolidate

his power base, he needed to immediately win over his

constituency. He said that Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

did it by organizing boycotts and Bobby Kennedy did

it by criticizing LBJ. Jonathan said you had to give the

people what they wanted, or else you lost their support.

He knew that almost all the people in that room were

there because they either thought the cell provided them

a way to do stupid things while suffering through biology

class or figured they might hear Mr. Little say, “Sock it

to me, baby.” Jonathan figured the chances of Mr. Little

again saying, “Sock it to me, baby,” were almost nil, and

he knew that soon the novelty of being a part of the cell

would wear off. He knew he had to get things going the

right way and then keep his constituency interested, so he

decided the best strategy would be to plan a party.

Everybody liked to have parties, and every officially

sanctioned club was allowed to have a party or an event

on school property. There was no need to waste any time.

We figured we might as well start planning right then

for a party. Now, Jonathan was not only smart but also

shrewd. He knew that if he wanted to start planning for

a party right off the bat, the suggestion would have to

come from one of the members, not Jonathan. It might

look bad otherwise, as if Jonathan, the head of this newly

sanctioned official club, was more interested in having a

party than promoting the educational benefits of having

a bunch of students running around thinking they were

parts of a cell. So Jonathan told his friend Killer, a newly

inducted Golgi body, to suggest that we celebrate the

club’s founding with a gala cell party. It sounded pretty

funny to hear Killer say the word gala, but it worked.

Good old Mr. Little thought having a gala cell party to

celebrate the founding of a brand-new officially sanctioned

club was a grand idea. He said he wished somebody had

thought of that way back in 1952 at the founding of the

technicians’ club.

As with most things, Jonathan was right, and the

idea of having a gala cell party was all anybody talked

about for the rest of the meeting—and for the next

month, for that matter. Once the word got around, our

entire grade wanted to join the cell just so they could

go to the gala cell party. Much to Jonathan’s dismay, we

had to lower our admission standards to accommodate

everyone who wanted to get in. We cut out the “Sock it

to me, baby” requirement and the Groucho Marx masks

and instead just gave each new applicant a simple test

about the structure of the cell. Some of the kids were

disappointed they didn’t have to say, “Sock it to me, baby,”

but mostly, everybody wanted to be in on the gala cell

party. Eventually, Jonathan had to call an emergency

meeting of the nucleolus to figure out how we were going

102 | The Revolt of the Golgi Bodies

to accommodate all our new members. Jonathan said

he didn’t think it was healthy to have any cell overrun

with Golgi bodies. He said it seemed like the cell wall

was crumbling and the cell was being invaded. Then Phil

said that if we didn’t do something soon, our cell would

become cancerous. Phil said that was how real live cancer

worked—a bunch of cells grew wildly out of control.

Well, if that was how cancer worked, we were having a

cancer epidemic. Jonathan said all we could do was ride

it out until after the gala cell party, at which time interest

would be bound to subside.

We were also having problems with our arrangements

for the party. Since we now had so many members, there

was no way the school could put up enough money for

a big enough party, and since the cell was so new, we

hadn’t even started to collect dues or have a fund raiser.

Mr. Little, in his brilliant advisory capacity, came up

with the wonderful suggestion to sell tickets for the party.

He said that was the only way we’d ever be able to have

a decent party. Jonathan said he didn’t like the idea of

selling tickets, because he was afraid that selling tickets

would make the enthusiasm for the cell fizzle. Jonathan

was still concerned about consolidating his power base.

“Well then,” our fabulous adviser said, “why don’t

you charge a different amount per ticket according to the

person’s position in the cell?”

“Oh, I don’t know about that,” Jonathan said. He

looked worried. 

Well, fellows, look,” Mr. Little said. “You’ve got to

sell tickets one way or the other. However you decide is

up to you.”

Then Mr. Little said he had to go sign some papers,

and he left. Phil said, “Well, look, Jonathan. It doesn’t

seem like such a bad idea. We could charge some of the

newer members a dollar more. They want to be in so bad

they won’t mind. And they didn’t even have to do hardly

anything to get into the cell. If they don’t want to pay,

well, we still have plenty of other members.”

Then I had to open up my big mouth with my brilliant

idea. “Yeah,” I said. “Why don’t we charge two dollars to

all Golgi bodies and one dollar to everybody else? That

would be a nice, organized way to do it.”

“Yeah, real nice,” Jonathan said. “But what’ll our

Golgi bodies say? You know any Golgi bodies?”

“A few,” I said.

“Well, they might get pretty pissed off,” Jonathan

said.

Pissed off was hardly the term for it. When we put up

the signs advertising the gala cell party, which stated that

all members of the cell would be charged one dollar except

for Golgi bodies, who would be charged two dollars, we

faced more than a bunch of pissed-off kids. We faced a

revolution. Of all people to rise up the ranks to leader of

the revolution was my good buddy Frankie, who refused to

even look at me after the signs went up. Another leader of

the revolution was one of Jonathan’s best friends, Lonnie,

who was now pissed at Jonathan. Some of the kids started

to carry signs that said, “Equal Rights for Golgi Bodies,”

104 | The Revolt of the Golgi Bodies

“Golgi Bodies Shall Overcome,” and “Resist.” Worst of

all, Frankie and Lonnie banded together and started a

movement to boycott the gala cell party. Then they started

a movement to overthrow the nucleolus. In the midst of

this crisis, Jonathan’s solution was to call for an emergency

meeting of the besieged nucleolus.

We invited our adviser, Mr. Little, but he said

he couldn’t attend because he had other important

appointments. We could see that Mr. Little’s enthusiasm

for the cell had already diminished, so it was up to us

to try to figure a way out. Jonathan said he felt we were

better off without Mr. Little because it was his advice that

had gotten us into the mess in the first place. We had to

hold the meeting in secret down in Jonathan’s basement.

After much debate, we decided to raise the ticket price to

two dollars for everybody. The next day, we changed all

the signs. The revolt of the Golgi bodies seemed to calm

down, but soon enough, there was a backlash from the

other parts of the cell, who complained that the Golgi

bodies had caused a rise in ticket prices for everybody. A

group called the Coalition of Concerned Ribosomes was

formed. They felt that Golgi bodies should be charged

more since Golgi bodies were, well, Golgi bodies. Another

group called themselves the Citizens for a Safe Cell and

called for the banishment of all Golgi bodies and for

a reinforcement of the cell wall. The two groups then

joined forces and called for a boycott of the gala cell

party. Jonathan, of course, called for another emergency

 meeting of the nucleolus.

Mr. Little was away on business more and more those

days, so he wasn’t around for that meeting either. We

decided at the meeting to lower the price for all members

of the cell to a dollar. That seemed to make everybody

happy—until the night of the gala cell party.