There was an episode at an away match—in the James Gym at Mount Hermon, where Little Ray kept calling the referee “Baldy.” The ref was beyond bald. He was also guilty of not penalizing—of not even warning—the Mount Hermon wrestler for stalling. The wrestler kept crawling off the mat. He was making no effort to get off his belly and his elbows. He was losing the match, just trying not to get pinned. It was the first match of the day—in those years, the lightest weight class always wrestled first—and my mother knew our 110-pounder had the hots for her. When I’d introduced them to each other, Matthew Zimmermann couldn’t look at her—he could barely speak. My mom was flirting with him when she told him—in her wide-eyed, exclamatory way—they were in the same weight class.

There are a preternatural number of wrestlers named Matthew. As you might guess, they’re all called Matt. Not Zimmermann—we called him Zimmer or Zim. In those years, at an all-boys’ school, last names were the norm. The teachers addressed us by our last names. We called our close friends by their last names.

Zimmermann was a scrappy 110-pounder, but my mother thought he lacked the requisite killer instinct. When he was winning on points, he was content to coast—he didn’t go for the fall. When he was being beaten, he stopped trying to win—he just tried to stay off his back. Zimmer’s lack of aggression could cause my mom to yell at him. (“You can kill this guy, Zim—just kill him!” she would scream.) But she saved the worst things she was capable of saying for the referees. “You need glasses, Baldy, if you can’t see he’s stalling!” she hollered at the ref at Mount Hermon. He heard her—I’m pretty sure everyone heard her. When the wrestlers went off the mat, the ref blew his whistle. While the wrestlers were returning to their positions in the center of the mat, the ref stared at my mother. My mom stared back. The whistle was still in the bald referee’s mouth, but he hadn’t blown it, when Little Ray said, “Maybe glasses and a wig.”

It was very quiet in the old James Gym while Coach Dearborn and the beyond-bald ref were talking. When the coach went over to the bleacher seats, where my mother was sitting—in the front row, at mat-side—he invited my mom to come sit on the bench with the Exeter team. There was scattered applause from the Mount Hermon crowd when my mother joined me and my teammates on our bench—my teammates applauded, too. Coach Dearborn made my mom sit next to him. I was relieved that the snowshoer wasn’t with us at Mount Hermon. Mr. Barlow was traveling with the JV team.