Caught Red-Handed....and In Black and White

Dear Boo and Bubble,

I’ve written before about the parental phenomenon of a “sixth sense” whereby any attempt on a child’s part to engage in an activity of which parents might disapprove is somehow miraculously known to them no matter the precautions the child might take to make sure that this doesn’t happen.  (See March, 2014 – “She Can See You Even When She Can’t See You.”)  Your granddaddy Captain exhibits a great deal of this “sense” – for starters, just ask your mom and Aunt Bee about the stereo.  Sometimes, though, circumstances coalesce in such a fashion that the parent doesn’t even need to exercise the “sense.”

Skateboarding became popular when Captain was a teenager.  He actually made his own board by pulling the rollers off of a pair of skates and attaching them to a piece of wood that he shaped with sandpaper into a size sturdy enough to hold his weight.  For hours, he and his friends practiced on the streets surrounding the neighborhood – Salamanca Ave. and the sidewalks of San Jose Boulevard.  But the terrain was flat and posed no real chance of speed or challenge. The boarders fanned out and pretty soon word spread of a hill that offered a better opportunity for both.  Only problem – it was on a thoroughfare with enough traffic to be a little dangerous.

Great Grandaddy Cot found out about the hill and, with due concern, instructed Captain that he must not skateboard there.  Being a good son, Captain said “Yes, sir.”

Reports came from others about how fun the hill was……. how it really wasn’t all that risky…….c’mon, Tally, just try it once……what’s the harm……who’s going to know…..is your dad going to follow you around?

Captain succumbed to the gibes and rationalized that he could skateboard the hill just once for fun and then he’d never do it again.  He struck out with his buddies and spent an afternoon having a great time navigating his board down the slope, zigging and zagging, trying moves he’d never executed before.  Keeping track of the time, he stopped soon enough to be able to make it back home before Great Granddaddy came home from work.  By the time that happened, Captain was back in his room doing his homework, skateboard safely tucked under the bed.

The next morning, Captain came into the kitchen for breakfast.  Granddaddy Cot sat at the table, sipping coffee and reading the newspaper.

“Good morning, son,” he said.

“Good morning, dad.”

Silence.

“Son…..I thought you told me that you weren’t going to go over to the hill and skateboard.”

“Yeah….um…sure,” Captain sort of stammered a little.

“Are you certain you haven’t been over there?”  Great Granddaddy peered over the top of the newspaper.

  “Well……um…..um….why do you ask?”

With that, Great Granddaddy flipped the newspaper over so that Captain could see.  There, filling up one-half of the front page, with a big, bold headline “Kids Skate Down Thrill Hill,” was a picture of Captain on his board, arms stretched out and wind in his hair, flying down the hill.  

There was no doubt as to whose image graced the picture.  Captain was caught red-handed.

So, once again, boys – remember this.  When it comes to your parents, if you ever think you can get away with something, better think again!

Miracle in Center Field

Dear Boo and Bubble,

You may or may not know that one of baseball’s greatest ended his career this season.  Derek Jeter, shortstop for the New York Yankees, played that position for twenty years.  Not only did he excel in the sport (a five-time World Series champion, the Yankees' all-time career leader in hits (3,465), doubles (544), games played (2,747), stolen bases (358), times on base (4,716), plate appearances (12,602), at bats(11,195), sixth all-time in career hits and the all-time MLB leader in hits by a shortstop), but his exemplary actions off the field served as a positive counterweight to many of the high-profile professional athletes in the news regularly.

I read an article the other day in Sports Illustrated about him.  One quote really jumped out at me and could perhaps explain one of the reasons for his success.

“At times probably a lot of the media gets frustrated with me. But for me the only way I’m able to operate here for this long is I don’t like negativity. I don’t like to talk about it. I don’t like to answer questions about it. I always hear people say I give the same answers or I don’t you give you much. No, I just don’t give you much negativity.”

(Great Granddaddy Schaefer expressed the same disdain for negativity this way – “I hate sourpusses, the ones always rummaging around hunting something unpleasant and doomed-shaped for a topic of conversation, who see no beauty in a magnificent red sunrise, but want to talk about the unwanted rain it portends.”)

This has me reminiscing a little. In several previous posts, I’ve shared with you stories about how baseball was an integral part of our family’s culture, especially for your Great Mamaw Mary. (November, 2012, “The World Series” and August 2013, “1974-#755”)  I’ve also told you how, as a child, my greatest desire was to be included in great Uncle Bryant’s activities.  (October, 2012, “Cowboys and Indians”)  This story intertwines both.

In 1951, when I was four and Bryant six, we lived at University Ridge Apartments in Greenville.  Right next to our building was a large grass field where almost every day during the summer, the boys from the complex gathered to play a pick up game of baseball.  Bryant was no exception.  He would gather up his glove, bat and ball to head out the door and join in the fun. 

One day, I whined so about being excluded, Mamaw Mary insisted that he take me along.  He fretted at first – the games were very competitive and he hated to lose.  Finally, he acquiesced. 

“Okay, Beth,” he said.  “You can be on our team, but you must do exactly what I tell you.  Is that a deal?”

“Yes!” I replied enthusiastically.  “Whatever you say.”

We walked over to the field.  The boys on Bryant’s team saw me tagging along and their collective expression of displeasure was apparent.

“Don’t worry, guys,” Bryant reassured them.  “I’ve got the perfect spot for Beth to play. She will definitely not get in our way.”

He turned his attention to me.

“All right, Beth, start running out to the center of the field and keep running until I tell you to stop.”

I gladly did as I was told and ran for what I thought was a considerable distance.  I turned around.

“Keep going,” Bryant instructed. 

I did.

“Keep going,” he shouted.  “Just a little further.”

By this time, I was pretty much at the end of the field almost to the parking lot for the complex.

“Okay, that’s good.  Now be ready, head’s up, in case someone hits a ball to you.”

“Okay!!!” I yelled back as loudly as I could. 

I bent my knees and covered them with my gloveless hands, squinting hard to focus on home plate and the batter up.  All of the action seemed to be in the infield, but I guarded my spot relentlessly.  When it was our turn to bat, Bryant would whistle me in.  Somehow, I was always replaced with a “designated hitter” or some other such excuse.  But, that was all lost on me.  I was part of the team. 

It came down to the bottom of the final inning.  Our team held a slim one-run lead with two outs, but there were runners on second and third.   Out in the hinterlands, I took my position, the back aching a little now, and watched our pitcher wind up for the toss.  The batter swung.

KEEE------RAAAAACK!!!

The sound rattled the earth as the ball came off the bat.  Up, up, up it went – high over the heads of anyone in the infield, over the heads of the first battery of outfielders officially on the team – out, out, towards the parking lot………and me.

I watched the ball and kept watching.  It seemed like a missile coming straight at me.  There was nothing to do but throw my hands up in self-protection, my eyes closed, my head turned away to keep from getting smacked in the face. Bryant and his teammates looked on in horror as they grasped that I was the only thing between them and defeat. 

Don’t ask me how, but that ball landed in the palms of my hands.  My fingers instinctively curled around it as if embracing a baby bird.  I opened my eyes to confirm that I had made the miraculous catch.  IT WAS REAL!

I began to run towards the infield where everybody stood in various stages of disbelief – from ecstasy to mortification.  Bryant led the way in greeting me between second and third bases.  You would have thought I was a hero or something!

When I saw the pride in my older brother’s eyes – honestly it was one of my finest moments!!

No Good Gene Lasts Forever

Dear Boo and Bubble,

You are very lucky boys to know both of your grandfathers – Captain and Pop Pop.  It was not so for me.  Both of mine were gone before I was born.  Only a few stories linger about my Grandfather Bethany.  I know that when he came courting Eva Crew, he respectfully placed his gun on the fireplace mantel in deference to her Quaker household.  At the time of his death, he was a syrup salesman in Texas and Eva assumed responsibility for his route in order to support your Mamaw Mary and great, great Aunt Dorothy.

Even less is known to me about Grandfather Kendrick.  Stories swirl around about how he might have had a bi-polar personality, having gained and lost several fortunes.  Towards the end of his life, he spent some time in the asylum on Bull Street in Columbia, SC.  In all of the lively conversations around our kitchen table, I don’t recall any references of him at all.  It was like he never existed which was so strange because he certainly contributed half of the gene pool that constructed your great grandfather Schaefer – one of the most gregarious, compassionate and amazing people I’ve ever known.

I did find a glimpse into this mystery man the other day in Granddaddy Schaefer’s editorials.  Perhaps by sharing it with you, some light will be shed on both of them.

“My father was the most organized person I have ever known. Faithfully he kept a daily diary.  In addition to the noteworthy happenings of the day, he recorded the weather, the temperature, and the price of cotton – all in a legible handwriting, carefully punctuated.

When he finished his meal his linen napkin was properly folded and placed back in its silver ring holder.  When he went to bed at night his shoes were neatly lined up under his bed, his clothes hung carefully in the closet; his 21-jewel Elgin pocket watch with fob, along with his cuff links, collar button, tie-tack, celluloid white shirt detachable collar, billfold, pocket change, all carefully positioned in the same place each night on top of his wardrobe.

He had four boys by his first wife, all of whom inherited his organizational gene.  I was the first product of his second marriage and apparently he had run out of that gene, or on its own initiative the gene balked at taking me on when it saw how inept I was to be in it field of influence.

I provided my father with an inexhaustible inventory of frustration in his effort to get me organized.  It simply was, and remains, impossible.

One night he came into my bedroom just as I jumped in bed.  He surveyed the surroundings: one sock was on the back of a chair, the other at the front of the dresser; the shoes had been flung across the room at an imaginary target; my britches lay in the center of the room right where I had stepped out of them and could have been mistaken for a cow paddy had they been in the cow lot; my shirt hung precariously on the bedside lamp.

Exasperated, father said, “Schaefer, this room is a mess.  If I had to get up in the middle of the night with all the power off, I could find all of my clothes.”

                                                                                                                        

Not meaning to be smart but simply factual, I fueled my father’s frustration by saying, “Father, I could too if I knew where they were!!”