There's something about growing up in a small town.
It's about knowing literally every person in town - and them also knowing you.
And yes, that means that as a kid when you did something wrong your mom likely knew about it before you got home.
It's a sense of community, of family, even if you were not related.
In just about every one of those towns, there are men and women who become the glue of their community.
In the tiny town where I grew up, Oxford, Pa., in the farthest reaches of southern Chester County (hey, you can spit into Maryland) that would be men like Anthony Bering.
Or, as nearly everybody in town referred to him, simply "Doc."
Doc Bering was more than just a small-town dentist, as if that was not enough.
He was a civic leader and booster who had a soft spot in his heart for kids - and athletics.
When our family dentist - another Oxford legend named Doc Watkins (no, he was not a Wild West gunslinger) - finally retired, it meant a trip to a new dentist.
Now, to be honest, we were not exactly conscientious when it came to dental health in those days. Usually, you went to the dentist when you had a tooth ache.
So it was with more than a little trepidation that I trudged up the steps to Doc Bering's second-floor office smack dab in the middle of that tiny town.
I had known Doc and his family for years. The Berings, like the Herons, were staunch Roman Catholics. And Doc's booming voice was always a signature of the hymns at Sunday Mass. We all went to school together, boarding a bus and setting off on the daily 10-mile jaunt down Baltimore Pike to Assumption BVM School in West Grove. In those days, Sacred Heart, our parish in Oxford did not have its own school. It's one of the many differences today in what seems like a much larger town than the one I grew up in.
As I settled into the chair and dug my fingers into the arms, Doc entered the room and I quickly discovered we had something else in common.
Football.
Doc Bering loved football. In particular he loved Penn State football. And he would talk about it for hours. Hey, if it meant delaying that appointment with the drill, I was all for it. I could talk football with Doc for hours.
Doc had grown up in Lebanon. He was a graduate of Lebanon Valley College and Temple University, but his heart was true blue - as in Joe Paterno's Nittany Lions.
Long before anyone else, Doc sensed that there was something missing in Oxford. Something he grew up with. Something that would provide a town with a rallying point, one more reason to bond.
Oxford, Doc decided, needed a football team.
And he made it his mission to create one.
I should know.
Fifty years ago, I was a member of the very first football team in the history of Oxford Area High School.
And it never would have happened without men like Dr. Anthony Bering.
We weren't very good. It didn't matter. We laid the foundation. Doc knew this was a process. That's why he also was key to establishing the Golden Bears junior football program, developing young players.
I have told anyone who would listen that I learned more on the football field, from that small, tight-knit group of guys, than I ever learned in any classroom.
And for that I can thank one man.
Of course, there is another reason to laud Doc today. It's his birthday. He's turning 90. And I never knew that he also had an identical twin brother.
Looks like it is going to be another gorgeous, sunny day.
With a spotless blue sky.
Penn State blue, right Doc?
Happy Birthday!
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