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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What is My Legacy?

Recently I have been feeling like - if there existed a bobble head of me, I would feel as if I had made it in this world. I mean, why should pseudo famous baseball players be the only ones to get a bobble head. Why not me? Aren't we all equal in God's eyes?

Perhaps the best I can hope for is a bobble head tomb stone.

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On Sadness

I notice that as I get older, I get sadder. Not sure why this happened, but I am reasonably certain that it happens to everyone as they age. The reason is that sorrow and regret are the result of living your life. You can't be sorrowful or regretful for something that never happened.

Thinking back as far as I can, trying to remember the very first thing that made me sad. It was on Friday November 22 in 1963. The reason that I can recount the day so well is that I looked it up on Wikipedia, so it must be true. That was the day of the state funeral of Jack Kennedy. I very clearly remember standing in front of a black and white television, watching the caisson go rolling along. It may be that I could sense the sadness of a young JFK Junior saluting as the casket went by. I also remember Black Jack, the riderless horse that walked behind the caisson.

The sadness in a person slowly builds over time, as they witness such sorrowful events in increasing frequency. My belief is that these events erode away at your happiness over time. Each sorrowful event dissolves a few more happy molecules from your being. This all would not be so bad, were it a completely natural process, wherein we just witnessed sorrowful events in our daily lives. Now with CNN, Facebook, Twitter, and the ever increasing spew of a vomiting world, we can relish the sorrowful events of just about every living being.

Regret, on the other hand is more personal. We can only regret the things that we have or have not done. For some reason, I do not have a lot of regret. It may be that I am more of a pragmatist and realize that I cannot change the things I have or have not done. Regret seems to be less important to the world, in terms of making us sadder. This theory is reinforced by the fact that the news spends very little time in the regret phase of making our lives miserable. They seem to spend a lot more time in showing us things that make us just feel sad or pissed off.

Thankfully, there is a tonic for this terminal condition: Forgetfulness. Forgetfulness is our souls way of making us less sad. The fewer things we have to be regretful or sorrowful about, the less sad we will be. I am reasonably certain that there were sorrowful events before that fateful day in November of 1963, but I cannot recall a single one.

So what does this all say about the human condition? What does sadness have to do with the future of mankind? The ever increasing flow and availability of sorrowful spew can only add to the sadness of an already sad world. My conclusion is that our world shall not die in an apocalyptic meltdown of each and every element known to science. We will just blip out in a poof of sadness.

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Happiness is only Skin Deep

How many things can a person juggle in their lives at the same time? Most of us have kids, a house, a significant other, one or more cars, one or more hobbies, a job, and a bunch of payments that support all of this. My thoughts have recently been trained on the fact that I have too much shit to worry about.

On a recent vacation, I was even worried about the consequences of getting eaten by a shark or dying in a fiery crash aboard a jumbo jet.  Who would be around to ensure that the shyster lawyers would not gobble up all of my possessions before making sure that my kids could pay for college and get three squares a day? How would I make sure that the contractors and employees in my company would get paid? The reality is, I'd be dead and wouldn't really give a rat's pitooty. Parenthetical question - What is a rat's pitooty anyways?

I know what you are thinking; if you are worried about having too much to worry about, you should get some help from a professional. I think that eventually, we all get to the point in life where we realize that all of the things that cause us to be anxious are just chains holding us back from true happiness.

I'll end with a song:

Raindrops keep fallin' on my head
But that doesn't mean my eyes will soon be turnin' red
Cryin's not for me
'Cause I'm never gonna stop the rain by complainin'
Because I'm free
Nothin's worryin' me

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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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Forward into the Past

Why do we spend so much time worrying about mistakes we have made or things that are yet to be? It seems to me that the stuff in the past is pretty much unchangeable, unless someone invents a time machine that would allow us to go back and change it. The things that are yet to be, can be thought of as those same things that we traveled back in time for - if you get my meaning.

Let us try a thought experiment. Let's imagine that you besmirched the reputation of a close friend, totally pissed them off, resulting in a destroyed relationship that could never be mended. You have unbelievable regret for this action and wish for all the world that you could travel back in time and change your actions. But you can't because there is no Mister Peabody to set the Way Back Machine to 2012.

Now let's place ourselves in the current time frame and imagine that at some time in the future we will besmirch our close friends reputation. Let's also visualize the consequences of such an action. I think you would come to the conclusion that it would be a huge mistake. In essence you have traveled back in time, because you have looked at the future and "it don't look so good".

I do believe that most of civilization could benefit from such a thought experiment, considering the state that the world is currently in.

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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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Free At Last!

Whilst I have always loved blogging about my youth, or yoot in the New York City vernacular, I have decided to change my format a bit and intersperse other thoughts into the stream. This week, my thoughts and actions are all about freeing myself from the binds that tie, i.e. Facebook.

It all started so innocently. Having heard about Facebook and the wonders of connecting with your friends, I thought to myself - what the heck, I'll join and connect with all of my old high school chums, drinkin' buddies, and former co-workers. So about three years ago, I join and immediately start connecting with friends.

A firehose of information greeted my greedy eyes, as I saw all of the things that had happened, were happening, and would eventually happen in everyone's life.  Pictures of kids, dogs, cats, babies, houses, kitchens, toilets, bicycles, motorcycles, and virtually everything that each person came into contact with streamed across my screen.  I could comment and chat with each person and see the bright side of their lives. What a great and wondrous thing this Mark Zuckerberg feller had created!

Then it happened. Idle hands are the devil's playthings, indeed. About a year ago I started noticing more noise than signal in the flow. People must have run out of dog pictures and original thoughts. Political bickering, religious zealotry, right wing/left wing bashing, and just plain old animosity between people that had formerly been friends. It seems to me that Facebook had largely become a platform to rail against whatever needed railing against.

Now it may be that the "railers" as we will call them, just have more to say. They appear to have no throttle, because, these folks just blast out stuff to Facebook in a continuous stream and sort of dominate the conversation. It would not be bad if they had something nice to say or were leading an intelligent discussion. Unfortunately that is generally not the case.

The other source of noise that seems to be exponentially on the increase is the posting of other internet content. It's on the internet, so it must be true! Funny you tube videos are all fine, but when you start posting stuff that is hateful towards others and just factually inaccurate, well that just violates my inner sense of right and wrong. I know, I know, I should just skip over it and realize that "Stupid is as stupid does", but sometimes I can't stops myself.

There was an "incident". There was a fellow that I knew in high school that posted some "facts" about our current president. Let us just say that they were less than truthful. So I commented on these facts and pointed this person to the US government statistics web site on said facts. The response? "Your arguments are laughable". I responded and said they are not my arguments, they are the data from  a reputable source. The response back was to be removed that person's friend list. This disturbed me as I had thought that this guy was an old high school chum, whom I could have an intelligent discussion with. I understand that people do not like to be proven wrong. Most reasonable people can have their minds changed when presented with the facts.

The final realization that led me to deactivating my Facebook account today, was that I was spending way too much time reading through this stream of crap. I was also getting riled or offended by some of the trolling that would go on in the streams. It is difficult for me to not glance at these posts and at least give them some microsecond of consideration before discarding.

When I finally deactivated the account, a great sense of "release from bondage" came over me. I no longer need to inject my thoughts into a sea of noise, and can instead inject my thoughts into my own private cesspool, this blog.

Thanks for listening. Now back to our regularly scheduled program.

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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!!

All content copyright of Christopher Hammond

I Can Do That Blindfolded

OK, it is time to fess up.  I realize it has been approximately forty five years from that fateful day, but I feel a great need to get it all off of my chest.  Officer, I don't know why I did it! I just had this crazy mad need for famosity and prizes.

It all started when one of the Pavlus boys were to have their birthday party.  I think it might have been Mark's 7th or Gary's 6th, I dunno.  It was all organized by their mother.  Missus Pavlus was a 7 foot tall statuesque woman and the most intimidating parent on the block.  At least that is the way I remember her.  About three years later, she would also prove to have Hulk-like strength, when she picked me up by the knap of my neck, whilst I was engaged in fisticuffs with one the Pavlus boys. That is another tale that I shall reveal in a future episode, as it was to change the course of all humanity.

So all of the neighborhood boys were in attendance at the aforementioned birthday party.   We all brought our gifts, although we generally had no idea as to the contents of the gift boxes.  This was due to the fact that all of the gifts were purchased by our parents from the Family Bargain Center, and gift wrapped in some sort of secret ceremony, attended only by parents.

As far as the kids were concerned, we really did not give a small crap what sort of present was in the gift box.  What we really cared about were the prizes we could win and the cake we could eat.  The single game that I remember was Pin the Tail on the Donkey.  The reason I remember this game is that I won the prize as I pinned it dead center on the donkey's ass.  I do not remember the prize, but I do remember the fame and glory that I received by accomplishing this magnificent achievement.  I seem to remember getting carried around on the shoulders of all of the kids with loud HUZZAH's being shouted.  There may have also been a ticker tape parade.

If that was all there was to it, I probably would not be telling this tale.  Instead, I must confess that, as the blindfold was being placed over my eyes, it did not completely occlude my vision. By angling my head just a bit, I could clearly see the donkey's ass. I did not raise my hand and say "Excuse me Missus Pavlus, I can see the donkey's ass, so please tighten that blindfold up and see if you can cut off the circulation to my scalp".  Instead I staggered forward and nailed the ass of the ass.

So why confess this now you ask.  Why should I give a crap about who knows what with regard to my state of grace? I have no idea, it just came into my memory and I felt a need to reveal it.  I feel better!! Confession is good for the soul.  Who knows, one of those other kids might have been eaten up with jealousy for the last four decades. Whoever you are, because I don't remember who was in attendance, I beg your forgiveness.

All content copyright of Christopher Hammond

The Best Pizza

The only pizza place in town was a little take out joint called Gloria's Pizza. The pizza that was produced here was to be the standard by which all other pizzas would be judged. It was the benchmark, baseline, and foundation against which all future pizza makers would be compared. My memory is not perfect, but I can assure you that no pizza since that time has ever been able to reproduce the magic that was the Gloria's Mushroom Pizza.

I don't know who Gloria was, as we never saw a woman there. The only way you were going to get a Gloria's pizza, was to order it by phone, drive to the tiny hole in the wall that was located on the north end of town, pay for it with cash (no credit or checks accepted), and cart it home. Professional pizza delivery doods had not been invented yet. Had I known what was to come, I would have patented the pizza delivery dood and sold licenses for use of the technology.

The only guy that I ever saw at Gloria's, was a gruff, Orc-ish looking man with a tomato nose. When I say "tomato nose" I am not talking about a dainty little cherry tomato. The honker on this guy was the size of a tennis ball, pock marked, and fire engine red. Later in life, he would move into an apartment across the street from my grand parents. It was at that time that I would learn that his last name was Ruggerio and that he spent the vast majority of his life sitting on the front stoop of his apartment sipping cheap booze, when he was not serving up the Picasso of Pizzas to the poor and downtrodden of my home town.

Since Mister Ruggerio was the only guy that I ever saw there, I always wondered if he was secretly Gloria, and that in fact he was the maestro of mushrooms. There were probably Keebler Elves in the back room that were really doing the work. It's hard to believe that one man could produce enough pizza for an entire town.  Especially if he spent 50% of his waking hours sauced on Old Mister Fred's Vodka.

The other product that Gloria's produced was homemade Italian bread. That bread was similarly a feast to the culinary senses. When I turned 12, I was allowed to be a paper boy and deliver the Leader Herald to the ignorant masses. My paper bundle got dropped off at Gloria's, which was across from DeMarco's market. I'd wait with all of the other 12 year olds for the delivery of the bundles. So, whilst waiting for the papers to get dropped off, we would spend some of our hard earned cash to get a loaf of bread from Gloria's and a can of Coke from DeMarco's.  We didn't eat no stinking bread crust, and would instead scoop out the warm doughy center and wash it down with mouthfuls of Coke - mmmmmmmmmm!!! Pretty sure that I shortened my life by a few years.

Gloria's pizza was so delicious and sought after, that you did not want to waste one bite. My mom would bring it home for dinner and we would all descend on it like piranha. There was almost always a few left over slices, as the old man didn't touch the stuff. I can recall no better breakfast treat than cold pizza. My mother did not refrigerate anything that we got as take out, so the pizza was always left out over night on the counter like a petri dish in a high school science experiment. No one died and I currently live a pretty healthy life, which I attribute to these pizza vaccinations.

All content copyright of Christopher Hammond

Go Fly a Kite, Would Ya?

I don't see anyone flying them anymore, kites that is. The most probable reason is that we are all obsessed with sitting around on our fat arses, living vicarious lives on sundry electronic gadgets. You may doubt my concluions, so let us assess the data.

From 1940 to about 1980 there were around ten or so reality shows. Candid Camera, You Bet Your Life, The Gong Show, and The Dating Game were a few. We didn't really live a fantasy life through these shows, although the Gong Show came close. In about 2000, we suddenly had a plethora of shows that would allow us to fantasize about living an Edmund Hillary-like existence (Survivor, The Great Race, Survivor Man) or living in a house with a team of narcissistic imbeciles (Big Brother, Jersey Shore, The Bachelor).

I also present for your consideration, the explosion of games and gaming devices. A recent statistic that I read said that 190 million households have game consoles. With a game console, you can play baseball, football, socker, ping pong, and bowling. Bowling? What the? You mean we are so fricking lazy that we want to bowl whilst sitting upon our keesters and flipping our thumbs around? If "sports" aren't your thing, you can battle all sorts of aliens and zombies. One game that I saw involved sawing zombies in half with a chain saw. And while I hate zombies as much as the next guy, I would at least want to anesthetize the zombie before performing any experimental surgery with a chain saw. From this small data sample, I think we can safely conclude that kite flying has gone the way of the Gooney Bird and the Passenger Pigeon - QED.

Enough of that and onto what I really wanted to talk about. Our gang discovered kites one day whilst buying ice cream cones at Washburn's Soda Shop. At Washburn's you could get a sugar fix in 1001 different forms, the most toxic of which was the chocolate soda. My best guess as to what was in a chocolate soda? Two cups of sugar, 3 melted Hershey's candy bars, 8 ounces of Coca Cola, and just a spritz of seltzer water. Next to the counter at which they doled out these diabolical concoctions, was a cardboard box that contained a wondrous array of colorful stick and paper kites. The cheapest were of the quadrilateral type, which most kids bought. Those were between 10 and 25 cents. Another 10 cents for a ball of twine and you were on your way to kite nirvana. There was also the BIG MAJUMBO of kites that we all were Jonesing for, the box kite. A box kite cost 50 cents, typically beyond the means of the average kid. The reason that these were so desirable was that they would fly in almost no wind at all and stay up for hours. They also had massive lift capability, so you could attach baby animals to a shock cord and give them the ride of their life. We all wanted to be astronauts, so this was about the closest we would ever get, until we discovered Estes Rockets. Stay tuned for more on that later.

On one particular day, I had acquired a box kite. Assembling these things was no small feat. The kit was made up of about 47 sticks along with several preassembled sheets of paper and glued in string. I had spent the entire day assembling it, and set it aside for the next day's flight. The next afternoon, I reeled my creation out on the cheap cotton twine. Each reel was 200 feet, so you needed to have about 7 of them to get up into the jet stream. I had carefully calculated that if I had 1400 feet of string, and could get the kite at more than 45 degrees to the horizontal, 1000 feet was within reach. Let me just say right here, that before the first gust took it and hurled it into a nearby birch tree, I had grandiose visions of being the first kid to get his kite to 1000 feet. In retrospect, the string probably wouldn't have held up anyways, and even if it did, the FAA would be on my ass for invading their air space.

So today I am thinking of ways we could resurrect the ancient art of kite flying, by making it relevant. Perhaps a box kite that is big enough to lift a running chain saw. Maybe I can propose a Kite Death Match reality show to NBC. And then we would create a spin off video game in which you used the chain saw wielding kite to saw zombies in half. Looking for venture capitalists, real soon now.

All content copyright of Christopher Hammond

The Short and Eventful Life of Scamp

Nothing is more traumatic for a kid than losing a pet that he loved. I will herein attempt to recount just such an event in the creator's life, with a few side trails down the path of psychoanalyzing the American teenager's brain pan. This is the story of a black and brown mongrel mutt that we rescued from the gas chamber at the dog pound, by the name of Scamp. Scamp was a jovial dog that loved all little kids and freely roamed the streets on which we prowled. It may be that the ensuing tale of woe regarding Scamp's short life actually caused the initiation of leash law's in my home town.

Our neighborhood had exactly two teenager's and about eleventeen little kids, of which I was one. Karl Stefka and John Zamonik were probably around seventeen when they entered my field of vision. The reason I say this, is that I only remember a year or two of them riding bicycles and hanging around the hood. Subsequent to the events that I will describe, I seem to remember them spending inordinate amounts of time polishing the chrome air cleaner covers of their Ford Mustangs.

The event that led to the demise of Scamp was precipitated by a series of interactions between Scamp and said teens. It seems that, although he had a great love for all little kids, Scamp had a deep hatred of teenagers on bicycles. One theory is that Scamp had been previously owned by some crabby old bastard that regularly chased teenagers off his front lawn with a shout of "Jeeve's - release the hounds!!".

Scamp had an almost pathological hatred for Karl and John, probably caused by the increasing escalation of the warfare between the two sides. On any given day, one of the boys would tool down our street, triggering Scamp to go chasing after them, barking loudly. If it were just left at that, Karl and/or John would now be on the Olympic bicycling team, as trying to escape Scamp required some serious mad bicycle skills. Instead, the boys escalated by carrying rocks, sticks, baseball bats, golf clubs, and the like, in order to fend off the relentless attacks of the ever resourceful Scamp. Scamp eventually formulated a stealth attack technique, in which he would hide in wait at various locations, and then shock and awe their asses before they could whip out their weapons.

This all ended on one momentous day in which Scamp returned home, presumably after a day of chasing Karl and John. Scamp was soaking wet and completely green in color. He reeked of some toxic substance that he had been immersed in, probably formaldehyde from the local leather mill. Scamp's testicles were swollen to the size of grapefruits such that he could barely walk. We hosed Scamp off as best we could and rushed him to the vet. The vet said that there was nothing he could do for Scamp, so he had to be "put to sleep", which I assume meant that he was off to the gas chamber.

We never did prove that Karl or John were involved, but we all knew. Do they regret their actions? Did they have other options at their disposal? Do they even remember this brief involvement with the life of the creator? Probably not, but it is strange to think that the things that we do or say at some point may seem of little or no consequence to us, but have a major impact on someone else's life. In fact it may be that some simple thing that you have said or done will be remembered and passed from mouth to ear to mouth for generations. You probably all have some story in your family like that, and the person that started the gossip chain doesn't even remember that they did it. So the moral of this story is to "Be careful little mouth what you say" and "Be careful little hands what you do". And while I believe that "to err is human, to forgive divine", I hope that Karl and John are placed into a boiling vat of formaldehyde some day.

All content copyright of Christopher Hammond

The Flume and the Great Fish

"The Flume" was a set of ancient ruins located at the end of a path through a maze of tangled underbrush and trees.  The path started at the end of a dead end street on the "east side of town". I doubt that I could even find the place today, since my memory of the exact location is quite dim. In fact I am reminded of The Chronicles of Narnia, in which Lucy and the gang can never recall exactly how they got to Narnia by climbing through an old wardrobe. In any event, I shall try to recount the wonder that was the Flume.

The ruins consisted of a massive concrete and stone structure that looked like a giant cage. The top of the cage was a set of stone beams that were about 20 feet across and two feet wide.  15 feet below the beams was the bottom of the cage. It was filled with water that flowed from a creek over a concrete dam and into a large pool. In the large pool was the biggest damn carp that you ever saw.

The greatest challenge with getting to the Flume was that you had to walk through another neighborhood.  That was always a dangerous adventure, as you didn't know if the tribes in the other neighborhood were friendly, hostile, or downright demonic. In this particular case, it was somewhere between friendly and demonic. The guardians of the street were the Klingbiels and the Hornings. The two kids that I remember the most clearly were Jeff Klingbiel and Terry Horning. These boys were both a bit bipolar in that on any given occasion, you did not know if you were going to get chased down the street with a baseball bat or handed a cookie. Terry also had an older brother named Greg, who was reasonably friendly. He did not feel the need to kick the shit out of little kids, which made him A Number One in my book.  Later in life Greg would become the police chief of my home town. Who knew?

On any given summer day, there were numerous kids hanging out at The Flume.  There was always an adventure to be had, whether it was walking across the beams, making spears, catching frogs, or fishing. Walking the beams was particularly deadly, as one missed step and you were carp food. I had walked the beams a couple of times, and had seen many a kid skitter across the beams, sometimes getting extra style points for doing the hootchie kootchie dance at mid-beam. Never did I see anyone fall, a testament to the superior balance abilities of the kids from my era.

The greatest prize of all was to catch the giant carp.  We would sit for hours on top of the concrete cage, staring into the waters in search of the fish.  Every so often you would catch a glimpse of it surfacing, but no one ever caught it. You'd think with all of those lines in the water, that someone would at least get a nibble or something. Our bait of choice was bread. We had concluded that this was the best bait after doing a market survey with the minnows along the shore line. The bread had to be rolled into tight little balls so that it would stay on your hook whilst submerged. Since we never caught the fish, I must conclude that he/she was either on a gluten free diet or had Celiacs disease.

Why was it called "The Flume"? I don't even remember who told me that it was called that, but somehow, if you said the words, everybody knew exactly what you meant. I looked it up in the dictionary and the closest thing I could find was "An artificial channel conveying water, typically used for transporting logs or timber".  There was definitely water there, but no logs or timber.  I am sure at some future date, archeologists will unearth the Flume and sample the soil to discover what it might have been used for. They will probably conclude that it was used for baking bread. Makes ya wonder about other scientific discoveries don't it?

All content copyright of Christopher Hammond