Big Joe Torre lines out

Baseball!!  The greatest of all sports.  As a young lad, I remember rising up at the dawns early light, mounting my trusty banana bike, and spending most of the morning gathering the gang for a baseball game over at the Crescendoe Road sand lot across from my house.

I do want to clarify that the following series of events occurred back in the day when all of the baseball bats were wood, all the baseballs were covered with shit, all of the baseball gloves were hand me downs, and all of the bases amounted to a dirt spot with a nebulous perimeter.

I don't remember any involvement with organized baseball, little league, t-ball, baseball helmets, or mooshy baseballs that wouldn't dent your dome.  I do remember getting boinked with a baseball at least eleventy four times while I learned to catch it with a crappy hand me down leather mitt.  No one was eased into baseball with smiling coaches and plastic tees, it was a basic survival skill that we all learned.

One incident that stands out in my memory involved a near death experience.  I was pitching a game at the sandlot and Big Joe Torre was at the plate.  Now the word "Big" hardly describes Joe, as he was about the size of a small car. As the first pitch left my hand and headed towards the bat of Big Joe, I realized that I might be a leeeetle too close to big Joe.  This proved to be the fact as he connected and sent the ball back at my head at just below warp factor 3.  Now this is the most amazing thing, the big guy upstairs intervened and somehow placed my glove directly in the space between Big Joe's speeding ball and my head.  I caught the ball and was greeted by a roar of approval from my team mates.

I still have flashbacks to the moment, and realize that, but for the grace of God, I might not be typing these pithy comments and all would be lost.  I might have been stuck in a nursing home with a drool bucket, humming the theme to Captain Kangaroo.

All content copyright of Christopher Hammond

Bully This, Mofo

Just recently, I read with great glee about the demise of one of our old neighborhood bullies. I resisted the urge to photobomb his funeral, as well as the urge to go and take a huge dump on his grave. The obituary sang the praises of this douche wad from my youth as well as enumerating the many relatives, multiple marriages, and multitudinous grand children that would survive as his legacy. In any event, I must now recount a sordid series of events that helped to define who I am today as a result of the combative relationship that our entire neighborhood had with the dreaded Nellis Boys Gang.

I am sure that you had bullies in your neighborhood when you were growing up. Neighborhood bullies tended to hang out together. These swarms of bully type characters were the precursors to the Crypts and the Bloods. In my neighborhood, it was the Nellis boys and the Hennessy brothers. The Nellis boys were the more worser of the two gangs, although I seem to remember that they would sometimes work together with the Hennessy brothers to torment us or to torture and sacrifice baby animals. What made the Nellis boys so demonic, was that they were identical twins with IQ's equal to that of an educated pineapple. The names of these devil boys you ask? Ray and Roy. That kinda says it all doesn't it? Ray and Roy Nellis also had a semi-imbecilic younger brother named John, whom they would often utilize as kind of an assistant imbecile.

The completion of this little gang of nitwits was accomplished through the aid of one Timothy Frenyea, who acted as "The Muscle" to the gang. Timothy Frenyea was a large oafish sort of fellow that wore glasses that had to be an inch thick. I assume that he needed these thick glasses so that he could exact physical harm upon the kids in our neighborhood with the precision of a medieval torturer.

So one day our happy neighborhood gang was playing baseball at Crescendoe field. Crescendoe field was the sand lot baseball field we had at the end of my street. It was bordered by Crescendoe Road, stinky old Cayadutta creek, and an extremely spooky cemetery that was perched up on a hill across and above the creek. Suddenly, our idyllic play was interrupted by the war cry of the aforementioned Nellis gang.

I won't go into all of the details, but the disturbance that ensued resulted in screaming, crying, rock throwing, and several burdock hats. A burdock hat was when you were held down and crowned with a wad of prickers from a burdock bush.

I think the whole thing was broken up when my drunken old man staggered out of the house and started chucking rocks at the Nellis boys. Man, nothing was scarier than when the old man tied one on and came out swinging. While I don't remember this stopping the Nellis boys from tormenting us, I do remember them scattering like cockroaches when a flashbulb goes off. Also, I don't remember them breaking up another baseball game.

In later years, I would hear that Roy and Ray were arrested for selling drugs. It may have been that the old man scared them so badly that they decided to change careers. It may be that it was less threatening to sell crack than to get their asses kicked by a drunken old fart.

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Ground Control to Major Spudnick

There was this fellow in our neighborhood named Tony Zostant. He was a curly headed, slender fellow with a hippie-ish demeanor.  Amongst his many talents was the ability to ride a wheelie on a ten speed bicycle forever. I once saw him go the entire length of Grand Street riding a wheelie whilst giving the crowd of google eyed neighborhood kids the finger. With all that said, his greatest talent was not flashing obscene gestures whilst performing his pseudo circus act. His great greatest talent was the consequence of his greatest invention - "The Spudnick".

A spudnick is a hollowed out baked potato stuffed with several ounces of assorted fluids extracted from the kitchen of Monsieur Zostant and held together with a handful of toothpicks. The fluids used to populate the center of the spudnick typically include (but are not limited to) ketchup, mayonnaise, sour cream, and a couple of loogies. Now what is so great about that - you innocently ask? The spudnick by and of itself is not that spectacular. The patent (if there were such a thing for  a spudnick) would need to be broken into both a "Design" and a "Utility" as outlined on the USPTO web site. The design, I have already described, so I think we are covered there.  The utility was as a weapon of terror and befuddlement. Once he had manufactured a few spudnicks, he would head outside to execute his plan of terror and befuddlement. He did this by standing in his backyard and throwing the spudnick straight into the air over the top of his house and into an oncoming stream of kids headed home from school. I am sure you can imagine the look of surprise when one of these beauties landed near or on some poor bastard on his way home from school.

I do not ever remember Tony being lynched or tarred and feathered by an angry mob of neighborhood kids, probably due to his skill as a Schwinn wheel man. Also, I have no memory of Tony beyond this story and maybe a couple of sandlot football games. It may be that the DOD recognized his talent at an early age and called him in to work on the Star Wars program under Reagan.

What a world ... what a world

I remember ... yes I remember. We were told to hide under our desks, or if things really went down the crapper, head into the hallway and cover our head with our hands. We were told that this would protect us in the event of a nuclear attack. None of us had a clue as to what a nuclear attack was, but we did like the fact that we got out of listening to the blah-blah-blah of Mistress Carpenter if but for a brief time. Strangely, there was no fear involved on our part. We all had a much greater fear of getting our ass kicked by a neighborhood bully than being vaporized by a nuclear explosion. According to Russell "Ace" Hoffman, the effects associated with the detonation of a nuclear weapon are outlined below.

Outside the circle where people will be instantly vaporized from the initial gamma radiation blast, the light from the explosion (which is many times hotter than the sun) is so bright that it will immediately and permanently blind every living thing, including farm animals (including cows, sacred or otherwise), pets, birds while in flight and not to mention peasants, Maharajah's, and Government officials -- and soldiers, of course. Whether their eyes are opened or closed. This will happen for perhaps 10 miles around in every direction (for a 1 megaton bomb) -- further for those who happen to be looking towards the blast at the moment of detonation. Even from fifty miles away, a 1 megaton blast will be many times brighter than the noonday sun. Those looking directly at the blast will have a large spot permanently burned into their retinas, where the light receptor cells will have been destroyed. The huge bright cloud being nearly instantly formed in front of them (made in part from those closer to the blast, who have already "become death"), will be the last clear image these people will see.

For some strange reason, the worries about the imminent demise of all humanity seems to have abated, even though there are about eleventy million more nuclear bombs in the world than when I was a youngster. We are now more worried about a certain group of desert hillbillies and their internet associates. Our fear is that they will band together and drop us all in a hail of gun fire and improvised explosive devices. In fact, I just read today that some goofy company is selling personal bullet proof shields for our kids, so that they can be protected in the event of a school shooting. Sound unbelievable? Check it out dude:

Body Guard Blanket

My conclusion? Fear is so fundamental to the human psyche. The many devils of our world use it to drive our behavior. We continue be guided about like cattle in response the exaggeration of the fearful consequences of the actions of others. Repeat after me

I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain. - Frank Herbert

5 Places to Go Before You Die

I have recently noticed that there are about eleventy million articles on the web that have definitive lists of "N something somethings" that WILL "change your life in some obscure way". For example, just this morning, ran across

• 19 Of The Biggest Turn-Offs In Guys’ Apartments


• 18 Easy And Inexpensive Desserts You Can Make With Puff Pastry


• The 20 Highest-Paying Jobs That Don’t Require A College Degree

Who reads this crap? Is any of it even true? I have no idea, but feel like I must jump on the band wagon and give my definitive list of "5 Places to Go Before You Die", enumerated in an order that will just pop into my head as I type

Singapore

I went there once on a business trip.  The whackiest place on earth in my opinion.  In fact, while I was there, some kids in a theater had roughed up an older couple for complaining about their cell phone call.  The kids were subsequently whacked on the ass with a 4 foot bamboo pole by a hulking brute. I later found out that caning was common in Singapore. I elucidate the practice of caning in this description, derived from a pseudo reliable source

Caning is in practice always ordered in addition to a jail sentence and never as a punishment by itself. It is administered in an enclosed area in the prison, out of view of the public and other inmates. Those present are limited to the offender, prison wardens, medical officers, the caning officer and sometimes high-ranking prison officials to witness the punishment.

An inmate sentenced to caning is not told when he will be caned, being notified only on the day his sentence is to be carried out. He is ordered to strip naked; the prison doctor then examines him to check whether he is medically fit for caning, by measuring his blood pressure and other physical conditions. If the doctor gives the green light, the inmate then receives his caning, but if he is certified unfit for punishment, he is sent back to the court for his prison term to be increased instead. A prison officer confirms with him the number of strokes he is to receive.

The inmate is then led to the A-shaped frame (called a "caning trestle") and his wrists and ankles secured tightly to the frame by strong leather straps in such a way that he assumes a bent-over position on the frame at an angle of close to 90° at the hip. Protective padding is placed on his lower back to protect the vulnerable kidney and lower spine area from any strokes that land off-target. The punishment is administered on the offender's bare buttocks. The caning officer takes up position beside the frame and delivers the number of strokes specified in the sentence, at intervals of 10 to 15 seconds. He is required to put his full force into each stroke. The strokes are administered all in one caning session, unless the medical officer certifies that the inmate cannot receive any more strokes because of his condition, in which case the rest of the strokes are converted to additional prison time.

 Churrascaria Plataforma

This is a Brazillian restaurant in NYC wherein you can eat so much meat that you will attract wolves on your way back to the cabin. Upon being seated you are given a card which has a green dot on one side and a red dot on the other.  The green dot means that you are eating from the salad bar and the red dot means bring on the large slabs of bloody roasted meats. You can eat as much as you want and stay as long as your colon will tolerate. Once you switch to the red dot, the meat servers come to your table continuously with large spits of beef, pork, lamb, and chicken. They won't stop coming until you flip your card over.

Stratosphere Restaurant Las Vegas

The Stratoshere Restaurant is located 998 feet above the LasVegas strip. What makes this joint worth checking out is the fact that it continuously rotates as you dine, giving you a panoramic view of the Las Vegas skyline. On top of all that, there is a bungee jump concession on the roof. So every 10 minutes or so, you'll see some whacko go sailing by your window.

 Oxford University in the UK

I've only been there once, but did have an ongoing project with some folks in the information research department. I note that the building were old and looked like poop, the students dressed quite smartly, and (just like every other college in the world), they all drank until they fell headfirst into the canal. I particularly remember one evening heading back to my hotel room, seeing about 30 students on bicycles all dressed in long flowing black robes.  All were completely smashed and singing some bawdy English ballad at the tops of their lungs.

Spraker's Falls

Now most of you have never even heard of Spraker's Falls, but I can guarantee that once you been there you won't wanna leave.  At least that is the way I remember it in my beer addled memory of my youth. I haven't been back there in 30+ years, but feel that it is an essential part of any young person's upbringing.



So at this point, I am good to go.  I can die happily, knowing that I have been every place that I need to have gone. My bucket list is empty, and I have passed on the sum total of my wisdom to the next generation.

This is Chris Hammond .... Good Day?



All content copyright of Christopher Hammond

Say Hey!

Baseball was my thrill, my obsession, and my only darling. During the ever brief school summer vacation, I would spend every waking hour obsessing about baseball, circling the neighborhood, and pulling together a quorum of boys for a game at Crescendoe Field.  Our game was slow pitch hardball. This was mainly due to the fact that we had no equipment other than bats and gloves, as well as a low tolerance for pain.

Crescendoe field was a beautiful grass covered expanse, located across the street from my house.  The neighborhood gang of boys would spend hours there flying kites, hitting golf balls, flying model planes, launching rockets, and most importantly, playing baseball. Many great poets have written of this fabled place, which unfortunately no longer exists. In the interest of providing some review materials for the test that will be coming later, here are a few stories that took place in and around that field, to tuck away in your notebook

• Bully this Mofo


• Go Fly a Kite


• Big Joe Torres Lines Out


• The Shed Incident

That great green field is now the location for the town truck garage, an ugly cinder block building that is at least two football fields long. Looking at an aerial view in Google Maps today, I almost cried.

What is it about fields that make us nostalgic? I was recently reading an article about Willie Mays, making me think of the field I had played on. Willie is long gone, so we can only be nostalgic about him. The stories always seem bigger than the man, although in the case of Willie, I am not sure that is true. One story caught my eye. It was the story of his first hit. He had gone hitless in his first 12 at bats in the majors. Apparently 13 was his lucky number, as he hit a homer off of Warren Spahn of the Red Sox, a future Hall-of-Famer.  Spahn would later go on to say

"He was something like zero for twenty-one the first time I saw him. His first major league hit was a home run off me and I'll never forgive myself. We might have gotten rid of Willie (Mays) forever if I'd only struck him out."

Part of that statement might have been the prejudice of the day, but there is some truth in it for all of us. No life is a straight line through from cradle to grave. There are incidents along the way that mutate us into the wonderful human beings that we eventually become.  Each of those moments causes us to twist and wiggle our way through the rats maze that is life. As the saying goes "Pain is inevitable. suffering is optional."

All content copyright of Christopher Hammond

This Little Piggy went to Market

Truth be told, I am not a crook. My brief encounter with crookedness occurred when I was about eight years old. Thankfully, the benevolent powers that be did not send me off to reform school for my heinous crime.

On the corner of Crescendoe Road and Perry Street, there was a marvelous little mom-and-pop butcher shop called Lawrence's Market.  It was called Lawrence's Market, due to the simple fact that Larry Hladick was the dude that owned and ran this fine establishment. I don't remember there being an actual grocery store near my house at the time, as we bought all of our groceries from this little stone building. Back in those days, milk was delivered by a milk man in a milk truck, and all meat was cut by a butcher and packaged on the spot. Butchering was the primary skill of Monsieur Hladik and his happy band of meat cutters.  There was another jolly butcher there named Jim Beatty, whom my family were friends with for a time.  Jim had two sons named Mike and Tom who were older than my brother and I.  Later in life, Tom would be branded with the name Moe, which would stick with him until the day that he died. Moe Beatty's story is a long and sordid tale that I shall expound upon in  a future episode.

Lawrence's Market had a huge meat counter, behind which the butcher boys would hack up sundry pieces of animal flesh for the consumption of the general public. Their home made sausages and salads were music to the palate. I particularly remember the fresh kielbasa, as that was one of our family favorites. The market also had a large candy counter that was partially obscured by the 50,000 ton cash register sitting on the end of the counter.  Both of these facts are the key to my crime, which I shall now confess to.

One day, while all of the butchers were performing surgical procedures on a side of beef, I surreptitiously stole an extra large Boyer Mallo Cup from the candy counter and stuck it under my shirt. The whole event was blocked from sight by the monstrous cash register.  I was never caught for this crime, however, I always felt like Larry knew. It may be just my guilty conscience,  but my relationship with Larry was never the same after that. An analysis of the facts leads me to believe that this singular event was the "end of innocence" for me.  It was one of those pivotal moments, after which, things were all different.

So that's it. My crime spree ended as quickly as it began, put on ice due to a guilty conscience.

Driving by recently, I noted that Lawrence's Market is now a sub shop or a deli. My guilty conscience reminds me that my one crime of passion probably put them out of business.

As for Larry and Jim, I am reasonably certain that they have gone off to the happy hunting ground, where they are slicing off two pound rib eye steaks for the folks making it through the pearly gates.

All content copyright of Christopher Hammond

The Boy with All the Marbles

Marbles, marbles, marbles. It was an obsession, it was a passion, it was a form of insanity. I have no idea how or why I became obsessed with the possession and gambling of marbles, but it was to mark a phase of my young life that will never be forgotten.

Somehow at about the age of 7 or 8, I discovered the marvelous shiny orbs. The various breeds of marbles were Cat's Eyes, Plainsies, Bumble Bees, Beach balls, and Devil's Eyes. To become a true marble aficionado, you had to learn the terminology.  I won't go into all the details, as they have faded with my aging memory, but I will enumerate the more flamboyant terms in the marbler's vocabulary: Knuckle Down, Quitsies, Dropsies, Shooter,  Bombies, and Elephant Stomps. All of these "legal" tactics were used in the acquisition of still more shiny orbs, as marbles is, at it's very basest level, a game of gambling.

We all had a "bag of marbles" that we carried to school, in order that we could play before the first bell rang and at recess. Each day, the future leaders of America would meet in the yard to play, no girls allowed, of course. We'd draw a largish circle in the packed dirt of the playground and drop a predetermined quantity from our bag into the circle. The goal was to knock a few marbles out with your shooter, which you would then keep (Keepsies). We always played for Keepsies, which inevitably ended up in some crying or brawling, as no one wanted their most prized marbles taken. One tactic, which I used to great effect, was the Elephant Stomp. This move, when called, allowed you to stomp your marble level with the ground, making it very hard to hit. Placing of marbles in the circle was done with a well kept secret within the mind of each player. There is nothing more devious than the mind of an 8 year old boy, I can assure you of that.

As an adult now, looking back at my halcyon days of marbular mastery, I realize that much of our societal woes can be traced back to this ancient game. Marbles have been around since the dawn of time. The terminology has been infused into our culture and the culture of many societies. What country, politician, army, dictator, or CEO hasn't "played for keeps" so that they can get "all the marbles".  And worse yet, if they don't get "all the marbles" they may "lose their marbles" and pull an "Elephant Stomp" on the rest of the world.

I didn't think that anyone played marbles anymore. I was wrong. There are national marbles tournaments throughout the world, and in fact there is even a world marbles tournament and a governing body called the World Marbles Federation.

I can draw but one conclusion, that these sinister marbles organizations are the training ground for the power brokers of our world.

All content copyright of Christopher Hammond

Spike!!

My family owned various dogs, cats, hamsters, and guinea pigs over the years. There were two cats, Cinnamon and Blackie, Christie the short haired pointer, and Scamp the mutt. The most memorable of animals to me was a neighborhood mongrel dog named Spike.

Spike was a largish, black and brown, thick furred dog of questionable breeding.  The reason that Spike was so memorable was that I was the only person that this dog seemed attracted to. The neighbor kept this poor mutt chained to a post in the middle of the yard with nary a drop of water to drink. Riding up and down the street on my Schwinn banana bike, I'd observe the poor bastard circling his post and looking forlornly at me. On several occasions, Spike freed himself from the shackles that bind, to wander the neighborhood in search of food and friendship.

My most concrete and vivid memory of Spike occurred one day while sitting on the banks of the smelly old Cayudutta creek, throwing rocks into the muck. Spike approached me from behind and stuck his nose under my arm, and then his whole head. I think it was the first time in my life that I felt like someone really really needed me. It was as if Spike was saying "I have no friends but you, help me to escape the dungeon that is my life".

Now I am not saying that I was unloved and shunned by all humanity, destined to walk the earth alone. What I am saying is that as a young boy, relationships were rough and tumble with my friends, and moderately tender with my parents. After all, nobody really loves you but your mother, and she could be jivin' too.

Towards the end of that summer, I stopped seeing Spike chained to the post in the yard. My preference is to think that he somehow escaped his prison and went to the happy land where dogs frolic and play.  Spike came into my life right around 1969, so it may be that he stowed away in the back of a VW Microbus and ran off to Woodstock with a cute poodle.

All content copyright of Christopher Hammond

Caulk Eyes

Back in the late 80's, right after I got married, I bought a really cheap fixer upper of a house. Now when I say fixer upper, I really mean fixer upper.  The house needed every molecule replaced, as virtually everything either leaked, crumbled, or squeaked. The biggest faults of this monstrosity were plumbing, wiring, and the complete lack of non-toxic paint on all surfaces.  The theory was that if we could just get the place properly electrified, plumbed and painted, we could rest peacefully within.  In an effort to get the job done as expeditiously as possible, I enlisted the skills of my half crazed brother-in-law.

My nutty brother in law, whom we shall call Daybee Fraybee, is a six foot three inch tall accident prone string bean with buck teeth.  He was and is a never ending stream of entertainment, able to replicate the sound of about any motorized vehicle with uncanny accuracy. It was these unique skills, along with the fact that he worked for food and had no fear of heights, that made him indispensable in my quest to resurrect the collapsing monstrosity that was to be our new happy home. Our initial tasks were to fix the plumbing and to prepare the house for a fresh coat of paint. Daybee Fraybee agreed to climb up to the roof, scrape the paint off of the second story, and caulk all of the nail holes. I headed inside to disconnect the water and start work on the plumbing.  Daybee Fraybee climbed the ladder onto the roof and begins the task of scraping the paint and filling the nail holes with the GE Silicone Caulk (TM) from the caulk gun.

Now to those that are unfamiliar with how a caulk gun works, I must digress and explain the nuances thereof.  A caulk gun is essentially a pump that pushes a thick gluey silicone based substance out of a little hole in the end of a tube under pressure.  Silicone caulk will stick to about anything and is very difficult to remove.

I was inside the house working on the plumbing, when I heard a blood curdling scream from outside the house.  Running out to the porch and looking up to the roof, I saw Daybee Fraybee staggering around on the roof with his hands over his eyes.

Apparently, the caulk gun was clogged.  In an effort to unclog the gun, he pointed it at his nose and pumped it up to about 200 PSI.  When it did not unclog, he gave the tube a slight squeeze, resulting in a pound of GE Silicone Caulk being fuel injected into his eye lids. I clambered up the ladder and half carried him down to the ground amidst screams and curses.

Unfortunately, the water was disconnected on the first floor, due to my plumbing adventures, so I needed to get Daybee Fraybee up the stairs as quickly as possible to flush his eyes out with water. Grabbing his hand, I rushed for the stairway, and proceeded to ram his head into the door jam, knocking him temporarily unconscious.  Daybee eventually came to his senses and we made our way to the second floor.  Flushing his eyes with water was fruitless, as nothing could get the silicone from under his eyelids.  His eyes were in there somewhere, hidden beneath a quarter inch of caulk.

Off to the Emergency Room we rushed in Daybee's dilapidated VW Rabbit, which only he knew how to shift. With me driving and Daybee shifting, we eventually made it to the ER.  Upon entering the reception area, I whispered to Daybee that the room was jam packed and we would probably be waiting here for hours. To which Daybee replied "Bullshit!" and rushed into the reception area shouting "My eyes!! My eyes!!".

Now I have seen many hospital shows, including "Emergency", "ER", and the like, but never have I seen such service! Doctors, nurses, orderlies, all scurrying out of their cubbies to provide instantaneous assistance to the wounded Daybee Fraybee. In the end, they were able to flush his eyes out and treat him for a slight concussion.

There was a study in 1919, in which workers at a British munitions factory were found to have different rates of accidents.  In fact a small number of workers accounted for most of the accidents.

Although Daybee Fraybee certainly was known for having lots of mishaps, I prefer to believe that it is because he is adventurous by nature.  It may also be that there is an accident prone gene mutation and that Daybee Fraybee is the equivalent of Doctor Xavier when it comes to accidents.

All content copyright of Christopher Hammond

King for a Minute

In the last few years, I have become obsessed with the game of golf. In the Winter months, I pine for the first day of no snow, when I will be able to actually see my little white orb bouncing down the fairway.  Each summer day, the thought of "How can I escape my daily grind to catch a few moments of golfing Nirvana?" is rattling around somewhere in my brain. As the season winds towards it's apex, I begin to rethink this obsession.

When I was a young boy, my brother and I would head off to the Turkey Farm Par 3 golf course for the occasional 9 holes of golf. My dad was an avid golfer, but being a veteran of "the war to end all wars", spent very little time mentoring us on the sweet science.  As a result, we were left to our own devices. The devices involved rummaging together a set of crappy old clubs from our neighbors basement and begging for a ride out to the course from one of the more amenable neighbor parents. I don't remember improving much over the brief number of times we did play golf. I do remember hitting lots of scratched up old balls into various lakes, rivers, and thickets.

Fast forward to 42 years later: I picked up golfing again about 3 years ago when I hooked up with a bunch of old geezers that ran a golf league at a local course.  After buying a new set of clubs and taking a couple of lessons, I was good to go. It was pretty rough the first year, but my skill level gradually improved. This was mainly due to playing just about every day for a year.  My handicap gradually improved to a certain level, and has essentially been locked there for about a year.  Probably the first thought that comes into your head is "Gee, if I practiced one thing for a year, I would be pretty friggin' good at it!".  Well my friend, you have never played golf. All I can say is that I now know about 100 golfers, at least half of which have been playing for 40+ years, and none of them ever get any better.  Every golfer I know has moments of greatness. We birdie a hole, have 5 pars in a row, shoot under 80, etc.  But these "King for a Day" events are fleeting and brief.  My brother used to clonk me on the head with such wise sayings as "You play golf so much, so why do you still suck?".  I decided that his mind need to be elucidated with the wisdom that I had gained in the prior year.  So a few months ago, we head down to Hilton Head for a week of continuous golf.  We played every day, and did not improve one bit.  That shut him up ... for a minute.

I said all that to say this.  Eventually we all get as good as we can get and never get any gooder. That's just the way that the world works.  It takes a major perturbation of a steady state system to push it to a new steady state. Digging through one of my old thermodynamics books, I pulled out this insightful statement.

"In systems theory, a system in a steady state has numerous properties that are unchanging in time. This means that for those properties p of the system, the partial derivative with respect to time is zero."

My conclusion is that I have reached steady state and that no matter how much I play, I will never get any better. Writing this article now has made me realize that I must accept this simple truth and enjoy the ride. One of my golfing buddies had this very wise statement, which I now need to commit to memory.

"The goal of most golf hackers is to get in a cart, race around, and get off the course as quickly as possible. They have it all wrong. The goal is to be on the course as long as possible."

Pretty smart guy, for a golfer. I'll end with a song

It's a pretty nice course on a Saturday
And the golf pro gives me a smile
'Cause he knows that it's the first tee they've been comin' to see
To forget about their life for a while

All content copyright of Christopher Hammond

Extreme Shooshing Anyone?

I have a love hate relationship with downhill skiing. In fact I have not skied in several years due to this storied relationship. There was a period in my life when I did a bunch of cross country skiing. That proved to be far less painful than downhill, as you will come to realize in the ensuing tale.

Most of the kids I grew up with did not ski at all, with the exception of the Pavlus boys. As to why the Pavlus boys skied, my best guess is that it was something that their parents loved. Since there were no dog crates for young boys, they needed to be included in all family activities. The Pavlus boys would often elaborate and embellish tales of their skiing prowess, whilst we ooed and ahhed. We were all jealous.

The other kids in the hood were far more interested in tobogganing and skating during the winter months. Probably because these activities did not have any need for parental involvement. That particular topic needs to be expanded on a bit.

Back in the good old days, no kid in my neighborhood was driven from activity to activity by their parents. If you wanted to play organized sports of any sort, it was up to you to sign up and either walk or ride your bike to every single game. Parents would occasionally show up for a game, but it was still up to you to get there. At some point this all was transmogrified into the parents being responsible for every second of a child's development, with no chance whatsoever for trial and error. I hate to blame the Pavlus parents for the woes of our society, but  I am afraid that all evidence points to them.

The trial and error process is a critical component of the Darwinian, survival of the fittest, upbringing of a child. This is really the only explanation that I can think of for the existence of Hulk Hogan and Refrigerator Perry.

Much later in life I would go out for my one downhill skiing adventure. This particular event involved a bunch of drunken college buddies packed into a VW microbus. None of us had ever downhill skied, but we all enthusiastically charged the ski slopes. A few trips and flips down the bunny slope, and we were all ready for the big hill. After almost dying while climbing onto the ski lift, we made it to the top. A few nips of liquid bravery will make you do about anything.

At about the halfway point down the mountain, the ski patrol stopped by and asked if we needed to be airlifted off the mountain.

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The Stew Man

There was this kid in my neighborhood named Frankie Stewart. He lived in a big old house with his extended family. Now when I say extended, I mean really really extended. There was his short Italian grandmother, his aunt, mother, father, older sister, and two younger sisters. I think that his granny did babysit for my brother and I, briefly. I became close friends with Frankie after I made the move from elementary to junior high.

Now Frankie's family was as dysfunctional as mine. I can only assume that every kid's family was dysfunctional, since that was the experience that I had in almost every person that I became close friends with. It may be that there was some sampling error, due to some fault in my friend selection processes.

Frankie and I would regularly creep into his father's "man cave" to swipe a six pack of Genesee beer. We would then slither off to the local playground after dark to quaff a few. The fault in this process was that a 13 year old kid can only quaff about one beer before he is totalled.

I also remember sleeping over at his house a few times after a Saturday night of pounding down brewskies in the park. His granny would pop out of bed at about 5 AM and commence to slamming pots and pans in preparation for the gigantic meatball dinner that they would have every Sunday. This did not go well with a hangover. Although it did enhance my mental acuity.

I have this theory about the direction in a person's life, which I shall call "The Meteor Theory". It goes something like this. Let's say that a meteor is headed towards earth and is currently near Mars. At that point I could probably hit it with a flicked booger and it would be deflected just enough, that by the time it got near earth, it would miss us and I would have saved all of humanity with my booger.

Now let's say that that same meteor never got struck by the aforementioned booger, and is now 1000 miles from hitting the earth and sending us all back to relive an episode of "It's About Time". There is no booger big enough to deflect that meteor.

So it goes with a child's life. You set their direction early and they end up in a place that reflects that direction. This is not always the rule, as there can be mid course corrections. Such corrections are far more painful and life changing than something as simple as your old man planting his foot squarely on your ass.

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Feets Don't Fail Me Now

Recently I have been having a lot of pain in my left foot. I have not a wit of a clue why this is as I am not overweight, try to eat healthy, and regularly exercise. I do spend a lot of time on my ass during working hours, so perhaps that is a clue. Unfortunately, this has seriously impinged upon the much anticipated golfing season. Thank God it is raining today, otherwise depression would set in. A new set of golf shoes were purchased at the beginning of the season, which seemed to aggravate things.

So all of this "footsy footsy" talk, has me thinking today about feet and their role in society. I mean think about alll of the time we spend focused on our feet or ignoring the fact that, without them, we would be waddling in the muck like our primordial ancestors.

There are shoe commercials for virtuallly every form of foot wear to cover every type of human activity. Entire companies are devoted to the design and sale of shoes. We send our feet to the spa for pedicures, foot massage, reflexology, and waxing. We go to podiatrists for ingrown toenails, bunions, blisters, Morton's neuromas, plantar fasciitis, and hammer toes. There are shoes for running, walking, standing, scuba diving, and mountain climbing. Humankind has spent a lot of time worrying about, covering, and medically treating their feet. We even have the "Blade Runner" with his bionically enhanced feet.

And the metaphors man, the MET-A-PHORS!! You can walk in another man's shoes, using some fancy foot work. You can be footloose and fancy free whilst standing on your own two feet. Put your foot down and follow in your father's footsteps. Sheesh, you can even wait on someone hand and foot and live on a shoestring budget.

So now I am worried. Could it be some horrible debilitating foot disease that I have that will hobble me for the rest of my life? What if I have foot cancer? Is a Hoveround in my future??

Find out in the next episode of "The Foot from Hell".

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Gramma's Cookies

Roxana wasn't the most "Grandmotherly" in the world. Probably the result of her strict Methodist upbringing and her marriage to the quietest man that ever lived. However, she did make the best cookies in the world. My favorite cookie was a chocolate oatmeal no bake cookie. These cookies consisted of cocoa, sugar, oatmeal, and some sort of secret sauce that made them the equivalent of heroin on a plate. I have had many pale imitations of these cookies at multitudinous Christmas parties over the years, but non can compare to my memory of the ones that were so delicately placed on wax sheets by my Gramma.

The other type of cookie that I remember her making were called Chocolate Jumbos. At least that is what I remember them being called through my little kid ears. These cookies looked like a flattened chocolate donut and were covered with sugar icing. She kept them always in a clear cookie jar on the kitchen shelf. They also had a secret sauce, which I think contained a mixture of molasses and rum. I found the rum under the kitchen sink one day, so I can only assume that it was part of all secret sauces that she made. Or it may have been the inspiration for the secret sauces that she made. Either way, it made it into all of her cooking directly or indirectly.

I would find out years later that she had severe diabetes most of here adult life. She was a lover of all things sugary, and one can only assume that this was connected to her condition. In the end, she did not succumb to  diabetes and instead was the victim of "natural causes" or "old age". I think back in those days, when someone was found dead, it was always assumed to be natural causes unless there was foul play involved. In this case, the only foul play is that I have no idea how to create those magic cookies of yesteryear.

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The Rock Chucking Incident

Much like the Israelites and the Palestinians, kids have been battling each other over territory, perceived differences in beliefs, or group leadership since the beginning of time. Such was the case in my little neighborhood. Herein I would like to tell the tale a certain rock throwing incident. This incident was to have repercussions for years to come.

The mighty Cayadutta Creek was the boundary between our neighborhood and a somewhat foreign land to the east of Crescendo field, known as Briggs field. Our boys owned Crescendo field as most of us lived within 1000 feet of it. We would sometimes see kids playing over on Briggs field, but really did not know their names or from whence they came. Later we would come to know most of these kids, and there would always be a bit of animosity, due to the story that is about to unfold before you.

One day we were all hanging down near the creek, probably looking for rats to catch or for a muck pool into which we could drop some rocks. The kids I remember in our little group were Ollie, the Pavlus brothers, and my constant companion, Tom Antis. Some other kids over in Briggs field saw us, and came over for a parlay. Somehow the parlay progressed into harsh words and some rock throwing. You'll need to excuse me on the details, as it was over 40 years ago, and I remember little save for the rocks arcing over my head.

I do not remember who threw the first rock. The last rock, I am pretty sure was thrown by Ollie, as he corked one of the kids above the eye. At this point all hell broke loose, with shouts and insults being hurled in rapid succession. I think that both groups walked away from the battle, and it was not until the next day, when the police came by, that we even gave the incident a seconds thought. Apparently, the fellow who got clocked with the rock, was Billy Coulter. My sense is that the police believed Billy's story more than ours, so the blame for the whole incident was placed squarely on the shoulders of our little gang. I think that the authorities eventually chased down Ollie and he had his pee pee whacked as punishment for the dirty deed.

In later years, I would become friends with Billy. I don't remember ever discussing the rock throwing incident. Kids forgive pretty easily. Israelites and Palestinians not so much, as they have been throwing rocks at each other for at least 2000 years.

It's funny how we remember things that are emotionally charged, but little else. I sort of see my life as a sequence of emotionally charged events, since I really only seem to remember those that caused the adrenalin to flow. There almost certainly was plenty of other stuff that went on between these events, but for the life of me I cannot recall anything mundane ever happening. For example, I remember the rock throwing incident of 40 years ago, but I do not remember what I had yesterday for lunch. In fact I found this book, Memory and Emotion, which covers the topic in great detail.

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Rocket Man

I grew up in the Apollo era. That was the era in which Neil Armstrong walked on the moon. Neil traveled there on the top of an explosives laden cylinder called the Saturn V rocket. According to wikipedia, the main engine churned out the equivalent power of 85 Hoover dams, albeit for just as long as it took to get into orbit. I was completely engrossed in the whole thing, and collected newspaper articles from launch to splash down. I also remember watching the first steps onto the moon through a teensy weensy black and white TV screen. Dunno if this single event was what propelled me into an engineering career or if it was the other way around. I also don't remember any of my friends being as fascinated with the whole thing as I was.

My bedroom was adorned with various models, from the Apollo era as well as the Mercury era. There was the mighty Saturn V model which stood a full 4 feet tall, a lunar lander, and a Mercury Redstone rocket. All were painted meticulously in Testor's model paint, using the official colors from the NASA missions. One day the models disappeared, and I cannot for the life of me figure out where they went or who chucked them onto the ash heap of history. Mom was suspect number one, as she couldn't stand to have anything sitting around for too long.

What can I say about Estes Rockets? They were some of the most coveted items owned by a kid, for they held the lure of mysterious exploration of unknown realms as well as the possibility of permanent disfigurement from an industrial accident.

An Estes Rocket was a model made of balsa wood and cardboard into which you would insert a solid propellant engine. The engine was lit with a short piece of fuse and voila, you had a launch platform upon which you could do all sorts of wondrous things. Those wondrous things included launching bugs and frogs into orbit as well as near death experiences when we fired the rocket horizontally at a brick wall. You can show a kid how to do something safely, but you can't make him do it.

Depending on rocket size and engine size, the rockets could go anywhere between 100 feet in the air and "Holy Crap, where did it go?". The rockets that I remember most were the Sprint and the Big Bertha. The Sprint was a tiny little squirt that would fly really high and sort of spin back down to earth without the assistance of a parachute. Put a big enough engine in a Sprint, and I think you could actually attain low earth orbit. The Big Bertha looked like a V2 Missile and only went about 200 feet in the air. It was fun to watch, because the take off was really slow and the parachute landing was graceful and majestic. Of course there was also the case where the parachute did not deploy, resulting in everyone ducking for cover, so as not to get their dome pierced by the javelin descending from the heavens. Later  on we would experiment with multi stage rockets, designing and building our own rockets from spare parts, and using electronic ignition instead of fuses.

You don't see kids firing these things off anymore, at least I have not seen it. Theories abound, but I would like to propose a few. First and foremost would be the overbearing parent that fears a crippling injury to their beloved cherub of a child. I do not remember anybody carting me around to sports or even worrying about where I was at any particular instant in time.

My second theory is that we have handed out so many distractions to our kids that they don't have time to come up with their own distractions. Come on man!! There is no 10 year old that needs a cell phone, an XBox, a TV in their room, and a full schedule of activities and play times with other kids to fill in their mundane existence. I fully believe that if you leave a kid to their own devices they will arrive at the most creative of solutions to the problem of boredom. We don't need more STEM in schools, we need less interventionism.

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High Hanger Ball

There is this inherent gap in the summer. It is when summer comes to an end, the days get shorter, and then we hit the friggin' "Fall Back" wall of death that suddenly causes it to get dark at 5 PM. Little kids can no longer play baseball; basketball season has not started; and football season - who knows what the heck is going on there? It was at this point in one particular summer that we decided it was time to invent a ball game that was to change the character of that strange time of year for all eternity. That game was "High Hanger Ball".

Now you say "what the heck is High Hanger Ball?". The creation and evolution of the game needs to be recorded here for all humanity, for as you well know, these things tend to get lost in the mysts of historical folklore and thus are forever expounded upon and theorized about. In fact, the origins of baseball are still in question today, as no one really knows who specifically invented it. So let me just make it clear right here, that I invented High Hanger Ball and I pity the fool that contests my claim.

Over in Brigg's Field, there was this basketball court. In the winter, the fire department would come by and spray water in every direction to create a skating rink. But before that happened, we would jimmy open the light box and switch on these blazing overhead lights. We were then able to run around the asphalt and I could pretend to play basketball. I say pretend, as I was generally not that good at basketball, what with being kind of low to the ground and in full possession of the white man's disease. It was under these conditions that High Hanger Ball was born.

To play High Hanger Ball you need a football, an outdoor basketball court, a set of very bright street lights that illuminate the court, and a high tension wire that divides the court at about 20 feet above the center line. High Hanger Ball can only be played at night, since that is the time at which you cannot see anything above the glaring street lights. A team of two to four stands on each side of the court and throws or punts the football as high as they can above the lights. The ball inevitably comes down somewhere in the other side of the court. Of course, you can't see it until it drops below the lights, at which time it is traveling at about mach 17. Hence, catching the ball is a challenge.  A miss is a point for the other team.

Now I know what you be thinkin'. Any moron could have thought up that game. Well maybe so, but it is this moron that did think it up, so nyah nyah. Later in my adult life, I would work as a scientist and actually have a few patents. Go ahead, you can look them up. They are all in uspto.gov for your viewing pleasure and amusement. BUT, none of those inventions was as memorable to me as High Hanger Ball. It was an invention that gave primordial joy to a small group of wild indians that lived in the archipelago that was my neighborhood.

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The Biggest Frog

If you travel down the main arterial that goes through my home town, you would think that it has always been a thriving metropolis, of sorts. It looks like any other little suburb with a shopping mall and eleventy four different varieties of fast food, hair salons, clothing stores, and the like.

Long before there was a giant strip mall, KFC, Auto Zone, Right Aid, Price Chopper, Burger King, Wendy's, and Peebles Department Store, there was a field, a stream, and a storm drain.  And in that storm drain was a small eco system, inhabited by tad poles, minnows, and frogs of many sizes. The storm drain was fed by a little tributary from a couple of local creeks, including Vaughn's Creek and the mighty Cayadutta.

One of our favorite little kid activities was catching tad poles and frogs. Tad poles were a sorta kinda "proto-frog" that would occasionally be found to have a couple of legs or arms protruding from their fat little bodies. The frogs we caught would be placed in a glass jar with some holes poked in the top. Other than pulling them out for some occasional play time or dead fly lunch, these frogs were destined to suffer an agonizing death in the hot sun, when interest waned.

On any given day, we would ride our banana bikes over to the storm drain and its associated tributaries in search of Ralph, the legendary giant bull frog that inhabited the area. Apparently Ralph had been seen by a couple of the kids once or twice, so we all wanted this cherished frog for our own.  What the hell we would do with Ralph once we caught him, I dunno.

Now here is my claim, and I dare any SOB from my home town to contest it - I caught Ralph. After wandering around in the muck and mire all day in a solo frog hunt, I spotted his bulbous head protruding from the mud, grabbed him and (briefly) had him in my hands.  Oh the joy that overtook my soul! Even today I can still see his green little features and feel his squirming body in my hands. But, in an instant, he was gone as he slippethed from my grippeth. That's my story and I am sticking to it. Unfortunately  there was no one present to corroborate my story. My claims were all poo-poo'd by the kid hierarchy. There was no parade in my honor or radio interview. I was literally a legend in my own mind.

What can we learn from this sad tale? Greatness is relative. This all happened four decades ago, and at least in the mind of this enlightened observer, it was a historically significant event. In fact on my tombstone, I want it to be said that I caught Ralph. Hundreds of years from now, when archeologists uncover my grave, the fact that I caught Ralph will still be documented.

So I guess what we can learn from this is that we should do everything with the greatest focus and fastidiousness, because who knows, it may be your greatest accomplishment.

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The Barber of De Village

Now back when I was a kid, there weren't no such thing as a hair stylist. We only had barbers, educated in barber school, wielding sharp pointy scissors and straight edge razors. Years later, a strange fellow with the mysterious monicker of "Mr G" would arrive on the scene and forever change the state of manly hair snipping in my home town.

Tom the Barber was a big fella. He was the only hair cutter that we knew of in my neighborhood, hence he was to define the coiffure of each and every kid that did not suffer the indignity of having his hair cut by mamma. His little shop was located directly across from Washburn's Ice Cream Shop. So the reward for suffering through the hair cut was always offered in the form of some ice cream concoction.

If you were to imagine what a barber looked like back in the 60's, I am pretty sure that the image of such a man would exactly match Tom the Barber. He was about six feet tall, shaped like a medium sized apple, had a handle bar mustache, and had a perfect part in his gray tinged hair. His costume was a white surgical looking gown or apron, making him appear to be a very precise and professional fellow indeed. The shop had a large spinning barber pole hanging from the side. Upon entry into the shop, you were greeted with various manly hunting and hot rod magazines, along with a couple of old farts smoking cigarettes. A visit to Tom the Barber was nothing to be trifled with, as you walked in a boy and left as a man, complete with a fresh straight razor shave and a liberal splash of Bay Rum on your cheeks.

I know what your thinkin' "Why would a 10 year old kid need a shave?". I didn't, but it was part of the journey into manhood that only Tom could make happen, so he had to go through the motions. Later in life I would be forced to go through the humiliation of various and sundry stylists cutting my hair as the old barber shop was edged into the history books.

In the past few years, I have rediscovered the old barber shop as the source of hair cutting joy and manly conversation. It turns out that there is an entire subculture of old geezers that get their coifs done in barber shops, including senators and the POTUS hisself. The most wondrous part is - I just show up at pretty much any time, sit down in a waiting chair, pick up a hot rod magazine, and wait my turn. No call ahead appointments, old ladies complaining about the shade of blue that their hair has, or Cosmo magazines to deal with.

I am a new man! I have finally realized that I was making the same mistake as Samson when he let Delilah cut his hair. Look what happened to that poor bastard, SHEESH!!

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