You Are No Frank Howard!

Dear Boo and Bubble,

From my observation, it looks like your dad is doing a very good job turning you into football fans.  Call me your crazy MeeMaw, but I think that’s great.  One of my favorite things to do, in the entire world of things to do, is sit in your den with your dad and watch “smashmouth” football on TV.

Granted, we’ve come a long way since 1869 when the first “American football” game was played between Rutgers and Princeton…..a long way since Walter Camp drew up some rules in 1880 that established the snap, eleven-player teams and the concept of downs….a long way since leather helmets…a long way since 1905 when 19 fatalities during the play of the game caused President Theodore Roosevelt to threaten a ban the sport and the NCAA was formed by 62 schools to address rule changes….a long way since John Heisman introduced the forward pass in 1906….a long way since William “Pudge” Heffelfinger was paid $500 to play for the Allegheny Athletic Association – the first professional ever.

And, yes, we’ve come a long way since the mid-1930’s when your great granddaddy Schaefer attended Furman University where one of the most intense rivalries in football (and all other sports as well) was with another upstate South Carolina college – Clemson.  You might gasp at the concept today because the Tigers of Clemson, with an enrollment of 16,562 students, constantly appear in the upper echelons of NCAA rankings for Division I schools.  The mighty Paladins of Furman, claiming slightly more than 2600 undergraduates, compete in the less prestigious Division I-AA.  But back then, the proverbial playing field between Clemson and Furman was level and the rivalry real, filled with a contention that Granddaddy absorbed into every bone in his body.  He did not then, nor ever, have any use for Clemson.

In 1934, Frank Howard became the football coach at Clemson.   He led the Tigers for 30 years.  Over that time, he took Clemson to 10 bowl games, had an undefeated season in 1949, and amassed the 15th most wins of any college football coach.  For those who revered the Tigers, he became a legendary figure with his bald pate, Fedora hat, and stocky build easily recognizable roaming the sidelines.  Not so much so, however, for those who had little love for Clemson, including Granddaddy.  Frank Howard was anathema to them. 

Years later, in the mid-60’s, long after Furman and Clemson had taken their Robert Frost-like divergent athletic paths to separate competitive NCAA divisions, Granddaddy Schaefer maintained a successful law practice in Greenville.  He also taught Business Law at Furman as an adjunct professor.  By then, Granddaddy had also become rather portly and lost most of his hair to baldness.

One morning, after his class, he stopped by the Faculty Lounge to grab a cup of coffee and check his mail. No one was in the lounge except a janitor sweeping the floor and gathering trash.  As Granddaddy poured the coffee and strolled over to the rows of faculty mailboxes, he noticed that the janitor was staring at him.  He opened up his box and pulled out its contents.  The janitor continued to star. 

Granddaddy sorted the mail and decided to be frugal and throw it away in the trash bag currently being held by the janitor.  As he approached, the janitor’s eyes grew wider, a look of amazement across his face.  With a little trepidation, he opened his mouth to speak.

“Ain’t you the head of them Clemens Tigers?” the janitor asked in great wonderment.

Totally taken aback, and probably deeply offended, Granddaddy retorted an emphatic “NO!”

He left the campus and drove straight home to 3 Lakecrest where, bounding through the back door, he announced to Mamaw Mary with great conviction –

“I have GOT to go on a diet, Mary.  Somebody just thought I was Frank Howard!”

Did You Know There's a Chicken in Your Kitchen?

Dear Boo and Bubble,

When your great uncle Gene was in middle school, his science class incubated a fertilized chicken egg and monitored its progress until a baby chick hatched.  The teacher pretty quickly realized that she had no personal use for a chicken and asked if any of the students might want to take it home.  Knowing that 3 Lakecrest sometimes resembled Noah’s Ark, Uncle Gene raised his hand. 

“I’ll take it,” he said.

The teacher put the chick in a box with some straw and when Mamaw Mary picked Gene up after school, he excitedly showed her the new addition to the family.

When they arrived home, Mamaw went up in the attic and retrieved an old aquarium.  She lined the bottom of it with torn newspapers, put in a bowl of water, then the chick, and covered the top with a baker’s rack that didn’t quite fit but, with a little duct tape, it stayed on.

The only satisfactory place to put the aquarium in the kitchen was right in the middle of the table, which was where we spent most of our time as the kitchen doubled for a den.  To her credit but not her desire, Mamaw decided against that and placed the aquarium on the buffet in the dining room.  She was concerned that the chick would get lonely, but it had to do.

As all of us gathered that evening for supper, the conversation centered around our new pet.  None of us knew much about chickens, although Granddaddy Schaefer acted like he did by asking whether it was a rooster or a hen and was it a Dominique or Bantam?  Since we didn’t know the answer to any of these questions, we settled on a simple solution in naming our feathered friend.  It would be – Chicken.

Chicken lived in that aquarium until he (the development of a red comb had revealed that he was indeed a rooster) filled out ever square inch of space.  Looking a lot like Quasimodo, Chicken stayed hunched over all day and night with one eye pressing up against the glass.  Mamaw finally figured out a solution.  She put our two fire screens together (one from the living room and one from the kitchen) and made a sort of pen for Chicken in the kitchen on the floor between the TV and the end of the table.  As we ate breakfast, Chicken scratched and jerked around in a circle right below The Today Show.  Come evening, Chicken continued his chicken-like behavior while we watched Bonanza or Ed Sullivan or Perry Como.

Your great uncle Bryant became concerned that Chicken never seemed to utter a sound.  He determined that, more than likely, this was due to the fact that Chicken had never been around other chickens and didn’t know how to talk.  Bryant took Chicken out of the pen, put him on a shoulder and began to “Bukkk, bukkkk, buh-bukkk” to Chicken in the hopes that the exercise would unleash some nascent communication skills.

Finally, Granddaddy Schaefer put his foot down.

“Mary,” he said, “We have GOT to get Chicken out of the house.  This is ridiculous.”

“Well, where do you suggest we put Chicken?” she answered.  “We don’t have anywhere in the yard that’s fenced.  Chicken won’t last a minute outside with all the dogs and cats around here.” 

“Bryant and I will put up a fence this weekend.  It shouldn’t take too long.”

On that Saturday morning, Granddaddy and Uncle Bryant marked off a section of the yard using the back porch (which was five or six steps up off the ground) as one of the sides.  With a posthole digger, they put in posts out from the porch, over a couple of feet and back to the porch, creating a rectangle.  They then stapled chicken wire around the rectangle.  Surveying his handiwork, Granddaddy announced that it was now time for Chicken to vacate the house.

Uncle Bryant went inside, retrieved Chicken and brought him out to the new pen.  We all watched in great anticipation.  Chicken stood, perched on one leg, absolutely frozen for the longest time.  He had never felt Mother Earth underneath his feet before.  Finally, he stretched his free foot gingerly forward and took a hesitant scratch.  Again….and again.  Then he actually took a step…and another.  Within thirty minutes or so, with a profound curiosity, he had covered the whole patch of newly-found freedom.

That night was Chicken’s first outside.  We all went to bed, feeling pretty good about the situation.

The next morning, precisely at sunrise, there came the most bloodcurdling sound.

“AAAAGGHHH……AAAAGGHHH….AAAAGGHHH.”

It sounded like a dying cow with laryngitis.

“AAAAGGHHH…..AAAAGGHHH….AAAAGGHHH.”

It woke everybody up at 3 Lakecrest and I’m sure the entire neighborhood as well.  We all raced down the hall into the kitchen.  Granddaddy Schaefer opened the door and there sat Chicken on the rail of the back porch proudly, if inelegantly, answering nature’s timeless genetic call for a rooster to crow when the sun comes up.

As honorable as this attempt to fulfill his destiny might have been, it proved to be Chicken’s undoing.  Granddaddy Schaefer felt that neither he nor anybody else should have to wake up to that horrific sound every morning.  With great dispatch, Granddaddy located somebody who could take Chicken off our hands. 

On occasion, I use an alarm clock to wake up.  Without fail, it reminds me of Chicken and I’ve often wondered about him….if he learned to crow and buh-buck properly once he integrated into the real chicken world.  It’s one of those things I guess I’ll never know. 

Damn Cat

Dear Boo and Bubble,

A few years after we moved to 3 Lakecrest, we inherited a cat named Jinx, a solid black tom with piercing green eyes and a penchant for the dramatic presentation of dead prey on the stoop at the back door just about every morning.  Jinx originally belonged to Rick Booream, who, in high school, moved in next to us at University Ridge Apartments (my very first home) along with his single mom Dorothy and older sister Gail.

Rick was a true genius with an IQ so high he often intimidated his teachers and other adults.  But, to the children of University Ridge he served as somewhat of a Pied Piper with his vivid imagination and ability to compose and tell stories.  We would sit on the front steps of his apartment by the hour listening to him read from “Gail and the Ghost,” a comics series that he wrote and illustrated. 

The details of how Jinx came to be ours elude me in their specifics.  All I remember is that after we left University Ridge for 3 Lakecrest, Mamaw Mary and Granddaddy Schaefer stayed in close touch with Rick.  When his mother died from cancer, he turned to them for guidance and support, virtually becoming a member of our family. 

Upon Rick’s graduation from high school, he enrolled in the University of Virginia, one of the finest institutions of higher learning the USA boasts.  Apparently, though, it was too fine to accept cats.  Desperate to find Jinx a home, he asked Mamaw and Granddaddy if we would take him.  Granddaddy acquiesced on the one condition that Jinx be an “outside” cat.

And so it began……every morning for the next few years started with “Damn Cat!”

You see, Granddaddy had a daily routine.  Upon waking, he would grab his bathrobe, slip on some Minnetonka suede moccasins, and pad down the hall past the kitchen through the living room to the front door.  The latest edition of The Greenville News awaited him outside somewhere in the yard, always anybody’s guess due to the inconsistent arm of the paperboy.  Granddaddy opened the door, walked down the steps and searched until he found the paper.  Upon retrieving it, he retraced his steps back into the house and to the kitchen where Mamaw Mary already had a cup of steaming coffee placed on the table for him.

That first morning with Jinx as our cat, Granddaddy came to the “open the door” part of his routine, at which point Jinx scampered into the house, and once inside, there he stayed.

“Damn Cat!”

From that point on, you could call it “Groundhog Day.”  Jinx’s one goal in life was to get into the house.  He waited patiently and at sometime around 7:30 every morning, the front door opened, he ran through it – “Damn Cat!”

I finally asked Granddaddy why he felt compelled to curse the cat.

“Well, the thing that makes me so mad is, that cat is smarter than I am.  Every morning I totally forget that he’s there and every morning he totally remembers that I’m going to open the door.  It just galls me, that’s all.  Damn Cat.”

The scene played out over and over until Granddaddy opened the door one morning and Jinx was not there.  When we learned that he had come out on the short end of a cat fight the night before, it brought a great sadness to 3 Lakecrest.  Nobody cried any harder than Granddaddy. 

Damn Cat.

Hey, Fred. Is That You?

Dear Boo and Bubble,

Neither one of you has experienced a day of life without an animal around.  First there was the fab cat duo of José and Loki.  Now you have Thor and Bitta, a cat duo for sure, but not quite so fab.  Pets certainly enhance our lives, bringing comfort to us in many ways that even humans can not.  At least your parents have limited your in-house exposure to animals capable of domestication.  Not so growing up at 3 Lakecrest.

Oh, we had the typical dog and cat combos for sure.  If you were to march through the woods below the house even today, you’d probably find the headstones of Pepper and Curly and Jinx.  But, on many occasion, 3 Lakecrest was more like a menagerie.

There was the time when your great uncle Bryant decided that he could make some money by providing guinea pigs to research labs.  He and granddaddy Schaefer constructed a cage in the basement with a wire door that swung open from right to left and three trays that pulled out on rollers for easy cleaning.  Bryant filled each tray with straw and apparatus for feeding and watering.  He then purchased three pairs of pigs – one male and one female – and put a pair in each tray.  I’m sure it took a little longer than this, but it seemed that in about a week we had 50 guinea pigs in the cage constantly squealing and rooting around at all hours of the day and night. 

The kicker was that Mamaw Mary became so attached to all the pigs that she bought each one from Bryant at the going rate.  Then she named them and proceeded to bring them upstairs to “play and get out of the cage for a while.”  Nothing like eating your pancakes in the morning before school with a guinea pig at the edge of your plate staring you down.

In addition to the dogs and cats, we also had a chicken (that story will be told later), a rabbit in a hutch outside, and an aquarium full of tropical fish.

I never will forget sometime in the late 60’s, some of my Furman friends had come from the campus over to 3 Lakecrest for dinner.  It was in the fall, but still very hot and humid in Greenville.  We all were sitting around the picnic table in the kitchen.  Since we had no air conditioning, all the windows were open as well as the back door with the screen door shut.  The screen, however, had a hole in it……… through which flew a gigantic beetle of some kind who darted around the kitchen with a great menacing buzz, dive bombing everybody.

The beetle landed on the table right in front of Luke Curtis who sat frozen as if not knowing what to do.

“Luke!  Get him,” I yelled.

To which he replied…. “I was going to, but I wanted to make sure nobody called him by name first!”