JJ and Culinary Catastrophes

These little stories have been encouraged by a very literate poet and friend, who should’ve known better!

My first exposure to fixing food for myself was something of a minor disaster, but had little influence overall because I was too young to recognize certain incidental differentials in ingredients, like the variance between salt and sugar. I was maybe three or four years old and usually got up before everybody else. For some reason, I decided to make my own breakfast which consisted of the “Breakfast of Champions,” a sliced banana, milk and sugar. I got through the first part without any difficulties. I even knew how to peel a banana and cut it without doing any serious damage to my fingers.

Problems began to emerge when I noticed that the sugar bowl was empty. I remember looking in the cupboard and seeing this jar of white stuff that of course had to be sugar. So, being the efficient diminutive devil that I was, even at that age, I filled sugar bowl and spread a generous amount over the bananas and cereal. After the first bite I realized something was wrong, I wasn’t sure what, but thought perhaps the banana was over the hill, or the milk was bad or whatever. It turned out that what I assumed was sugar was in reality – salt.

I threw the whole mess out and decided to go out and play until mom got up and made me some breakfast. I would tell her that something seemed to be wrong with the bananas or the milk, but was personally convinced there could never be anything wrong with the “Breakfast of Champions.” A little later, I heard her pleasant voice calling me in a very unusual harsh fashion. She was a hard case in the morning. I could tell by the tone that likely some earlier usual misdemeanor on my part had been discovered. She was standing on the steps with her cup of coffee asking “why in the hell had I put salt in the sugar bowl.” That had to be a wake-up call! I had no idea of what she was talking about because I really didn’t comprehend the difference. To me they were both white little granules, and under those circumstances had to be sugar.

This turned out to be my first lesson in the proper use of ingredients. I was prohibited from making my own breakfast from that point on, and felt that my youthful independence had just been totally circumvented. I was tempted to load my tricycle and Red Flyer Wagon with all my personal belongings and head for greener pastures. At that point, I figured I’d have to be 20 years old before I could make my own damn “Breakfast of Champions.” Salt should have been colored either green or blue, so as not to be confused with sugar.

The next lesson that had to do with cooking ingredients and can best be described as a concern of indiscriminate use of Black pepper, as opposed to White pepper or in fact, Red pepper, which at that point in my life I did not know existed. I digress! I don’t remember having any aversions to pepper when I was young. It just seemed like a normal part of the foods that we were eating. At some point I overheard a conversation where the statement was made “picking fly specks out of pepper.” I found this somewhat intriguing, because I had no clue what a fly speck was. I knew what a fly was, but what the hell was speck?

So naturally, I asked my rather salt-adverse, omnipotent mother and she explained that “it was the little spots left by flies when they went to the bathroom.” She showed me some examples and my immediate response was why couldn’t they use the bathroom or go outside, instead of all these places that they left these little black deposits. She also explained that it was a sarcastic description of some people that didn’t have anything better to do, which of course made absolutely no sense to me. From that time forward, and to this day, I continually look at food that has pepper in it and wonder “which is a pepper” and “which is a fly speck.” If any of you erstwhile readers know the difference, please contact me.

After a few years, my cooking proficiencies included peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, but I was restricted from use of the toaster or any other devices short of a dull knife. My favorite was an onion sandwich which consisted of Mayo, mustard, sliced onion with salt and pepper, which I diligently inspected for “specks.” I noticed more than once after having eaten my onion sandwich that I was ostracized by my playmates, and when mom came home she told me to go brush my teeth, which I would respond with “Why? I did that yesterday.” Brushing my teeth fell under the same category as taking a bath. My considered opinion was “why?” I was just going to go out and get dirty all over again.

On one particular afternoon, mom was away shopping and I went to do the good old standby “P.B. and J.” only to discover we had no milk. I was smart enough to know you don’t want to do peanut butter without milk. I looked in the cupboard and found a package of dried chicken noodle soup that all you had to do was add water and bring to a boil. I had seen mom do this and came to the conclusion that this was a no-brainer. I could read, but only to a point, and wasn’t sure what the directions were really suggesting. Besides, I’ve never been big on reading directions. I dumped a bunch of water in the pan, added ingredients from the package and managed to light the stove without blowing up the house, which was of course a no-no. Things went along smoothly, the water started to bubble, I stirred it a bunch, and turned off the stove.

I got a bowl and shoveled out this chicken noodle stuff. I took a taste and came to the conclusion that this was too watery. Our next-door neighbor shared “gate keeper” duties when one of the two moms was away. I went over to their house and showed her the stuff and she told me I used too much water, and to mix a little flour in it and it would be fine. She didn’t bother to help me because I think she was still unhappy about the fact that I had a few months earlier painted her daughter green. That was another misdemeanor that I don’t care to discuss. So, I went back, found what I thought was flour, which was unfortunately baking powder, dumped in a bunch of this into the pot with the water smelling of dead chicken and reheated it.

The chemical reaction was absolutely amazing. These lazy little noodles began to swell and became about four times their previous size. The water thickened up all right, into what could best be described as a glutinous mass clinging to the side of this pan. I took one taste and decided I would skip lunch. I put this ever-growing pot of soup in the kitchen sink. Needless to say, all hell broke loose when mom got home. Once more, I got my tricycle and wagon ready in case I decided it was time to go seek my fortune. My attitude, which was perfectly reasonable, was that if I had to do the dishes, I ought to at least be able to have kitchen privileges.

The next problem didn’t occur at home, otherwise I wouldn’t be here to talk about it. I had joined the Boy Scouts, and went on a scout jamboree or whatever, somewhere in a nearby wooded area. There were a number of different tasks we had to do to earn merit badges. One of the possible awards was for cooking. The scoutmaster asked us if anyone knew how to make pancakes. Nobody responded and I thought about this and decided, after having watched mom make this stuff, it was pretty easy to do. So I got handed the pancake flour, some milk and mixed this up in one of our Boy Scout mess kits. We had a little campfire going and I proceeded to warm up the pan, and then dumped what I thought was the proper amount to make one pancake. I put in a little too much, but decided it was okay because I would be able to flip it over. I forgot one important thing. I didn’t grease the pan.

The other problem was the fire was too hot and the pancake batter was too thick. The end result was a disaster for my Scouting career. The whole mess stuck to the pan like it had been welded in place and the Scoutmaster decided that I was a first-class idiot, which is not quite the word he used. Needless to say, I didn’t get my merit badge and soon decided that I would rather be in the Girl Scouts, because when they went camping it was on the outskirts of the Mojave Desert in a place called Las Vegas.

Things got a little better as I got older and married – with responsibilities to assist in the preparation of meals and stuff like that, which still included doing the damn dishes. I no longer had my tricycle and wagon, but did have a Nash Rambler, which was close to the same thing. I was reading the paper one day and came across this article that described a cooking technique, and specifically a dish called “Manifold Chicken.” This whole concept struck me as rather unique. Basically, you wrapped a whole chicken in foil a couple of times and stuck it near the manifold in your car. Then, if and when you went for a drive, whenever you got to where you were going, you had chicken ready for your dinner. Neat idea!

So the next time we decided to go up to our cabin in the canyon I went down to the store, got a chicken, put a bunch of salt and pepper on it, still thinking about fly specks, wrapped it up a bunch of times in foil and stuck it next to the manifold in my not-so-trusty Nash. I told Blue-eyes about this and she went absolutely berserk. I think her comment was something to the effect “You don’t really think we’re gonna eat that thing, do you?” I explained that it was perfectly sanitary and that it seems like a really good idea. She just shook her head and said “My mother told me you were weird.”

Off we went. It was about an hour’s drive up to the cabin, and during this process I forgot about my new culinary experiment. We were almost there when one of the curtain climbers said, “Dad, I smell something burning.” I couldn’t really detect anything, but decided I’d better pull over and see if something was wrong. I stopped the wagon, and smoke came pouring out of the engine cavity. I had forgotten about my manifold chicken and quickly opened up the hood because I figured I was burning up the engine. My little experiment was on fire. Smoke was pouring out and really smelled bad. I found a little stick, punched it into the side of this smoldering mass and tossed it by the side of the road. Blue-eyes turned to the kids and said, ”Go wash your hands, it’s time for dinner.”

My next little experiment was again with chicken. I should’ve known better because I really had not had a lot of luck with our feathered friends. This idea was suggested to me by a fellow I worked with and was called “beer can chicken.” The concept was really simple, you take a whole chicken, open up a can of beer, stick the beer can into the cavity ( I cleaned that up to maintain my PG–13 rating), and put it on the barbecue, standing up. No way to go wrong with this one!

So one Sunday I tried it, adjusted the barbecue temperature which is easy because it’s gas, not briquettes, and went about some chores in the backyard. About an hour later Blue-eyes came and got me and said she heard a loud noise by the barbecue. I went to investigate, opened up the barbecue and discovered chicken parts laying all over hell and gone. The whole thing had exploded. The only assumption I could make was I had shoved the can too far up the bird’s cavity and trapped all the gases that would develop from what little alcohol there was in the beer. This poor chicken didn’t know what hit it.

After I cleaned up the mess, Blue-eyes came out and asked me if I could be trusted to do some hot dogs. I think that the Anti-cruelty to Poultry Association or perhaps the Chicken Pluckers Union, had decided to target JJ for gross negligence of dead chickens. (For you less astute readers, a plucker was someone that pulled the feathers off of dead chickens. I often thought of this as a possible career.)

The final little dilemma is more current – still involves chicken, but has nothing to do with cooking. Every so often, our local grocery store puts large packages of chicken legs on sale. To me that’s great, because I’ve always been a leg man. I’ll let you draw your own conclusions about that statement. I digress! Anyway, these packages have to be divided up before freezing, because you don’t want to freeze 20 chicken legs when you’re only going to eat two or three at a time. So naturally, these have to be wrapped separately, put into a Ziploc bag and done in such fashion as to avoid what Blue-eyes calls “freezer burn.” There’s something diametrically opposed within that last phrase, “freezer burn,” but I think I’ll avoid that issue.

So to accomplish this, we have a product that’s called Saran plastic wrap, or something like that, which clings to itself and forms some kind of a seal. The only problem is trying to get this stuff to hold still long enough to wrap a couple of chicken legs, which like to move around on their own anyway. You pull this stuff out off of a roller and it has a little cutter that sometimes slices off enough wrap to get the job done. The problem is by the time you reach for the chicken leg, the wrap has decided it liked your fingers better and is now securely fastened to one of your hands or is now clinging to itself at the other end with no possibility of getting it flattened out again. So I pull this plastic monster off my fingers, crumple it up and throw away.

This damn stuff has got a mind of its own. I use the cutter and it starts to curl up trying to grab my hand again. I use my other hand to keep that from happening and it grabs that one too. I can’t reach for the chicken leg with this going on unless I was to use my teeth. For every two legs I get wrapped, I have two or three crunched up balls of plastic wrap. My biggest fear is that somehow I will get both hands entangled in this stuff and will be found dead from starvation, because I couldn’t get loose. I think the manufacturer knows this, and it’s a plot by some foreign government to reduce the male population of our country.

Moral of the story – Don’t buy a Nash Rambler; — drink the beer because it’s not good for the chicken; — don’t believe it’s a better world because of plastics; — not everyone appreciates onion sandwiches; — and if you can’t stand the heat stay out of the kitchen.

As just a side note, Mr. Romney’s father ran Nash prior to his running an unsuccessful campaign for President. Nash (of course) like many things, no longer exists.

Indians on the Warpath – Revisited

The Indians had clinched the first half, three games in front of the second-place team. The Red Sox were at the bottom, having only won a single game. JJ had turned down multiple contract offers from Cleveland. I jest! The unauthorized use of the protective cup for the purpose of drinking Gatorade or any other substance was deemed inappropriate and frowned upon by our illustrious league Board of Directors. Once the word got out about the Red Sox little prank, the other teams decided that this was singularly the most appropriate use of this particular type of device, and unfortunately the concept spread to the minor league as well. Everybody was drinking something from their protective cups.

The fable of the Dodgers using the jockstrap as a slingshot, or worse, was revived and reenacted a number of times creating another dilemma for the President. The ”Wild Bunch” was notified that there will be no more dried peas allowed in any of the dugouts. This last decision irritated me because it was going to reduce the yield of fresh peas next spring. Clearly, the Board of Directors had no sense of humor! There was no mention of expectoration, but I think there were hopes that the Indians would come down with multiple cases of the “dry mouth syndrome.” And finally, my worst nightmare, Miss Congeniality was now a member of the Board. The Gods are frowning on me!

The Wild Bunch, the tribe, otherwise known as the Indians, were now known as those “rather rowdy kids” that just kept winning. We lost one 11-year-old to a broken arm and had to draft a 10-year-old because it was mandated. He was a good, hard-working kid, but his skill set was extremely limited, and he was relegated to becoming a two inning player. The problem was that his father had been a college and minor-league baseball player in his youth and his vicarious expectations for its son’s performance exceeded his kid’s level of interest, at this particular time. Early on, I got a lot of advice and I invited him to become an assistant coach. Naturally, he was too busy. Coincidentally, we both worked for the same company, but did not know each other. I did some checking and came to the conclusion that it wasn’t clear what he was too busy doing.

“Prima” was coming through like gangbusters and I had him batting in the fifth spot. In the first four games he hit five home runs, four of which went over the right-field fence. Granted, it was a short fence, but still pretty impressive stuff. After that, the other teams really wouldn’t pitch to him if there were runners on base. He was starting to get frustrated and I told him that if the ball was close, go ahead and take a shot at it, and I didn’t really care if he struck out swinging. He did, and he hit some balls that were beyond me how he could’ve reached them, let alone hit it, but he did. He and JJ were probably the best hitters in the league.

It turned out “Prima” and Scooter had become best friends and lived relatively close to each other. He was teaching Scooter how to ride his motorcycle and I don’t mean motor bike, either. It was a small one, but no question was a real motorcycle. I would suspect that Scooters mom, Miss Congeniality, was totally oblivious to this activity, but of course she was probably too busy developing new schemes to harass me. Don’t call me paranoid just because the whole world is after me.

The Indians had a few close games, but for the most part were winning by five and six runs. I was starting to play my two-inning players – more, if in fact we were up more than five runs. On a couple of occasions we started throwing the ball all over the place and came close to losing, but the team came through. The league had a rule I really hated, which was simply that if a team was up by more than 10 runs at the end of the fourth inning, then the game would be called. We had a couple of games like that. Maybe it was the humane thing to do, but I didn’t think that was fair to the other team. I had seen some awfully strange things happen when these kids got to playing the other game called “let’s boot the ball around, all over the field.” I was a firm believer in “It ain’t over, till it’s over.”

The Indians didn’t lose a game in the entire second half. The last game was against the Red Sox, who were still at the bottom of the pile and had lost all but two games. Miss Congeniality was nowhere in sight. She was probably at home tending to her cauldron. “Help me! Help me! I’m melting! Oh my, I’m melting!” I started all my second-tier players and let “Prima” pitch the first three innings, which he had been pestering me to do for most of the season. He walked seven guys, hit two and I went out to him, and got the ball, sending him out to center-field. He was laughing and his comment was “I guess I need to work on my pitching.” My comment was, “Don’t give up your day job!” He could hit, but he sure couldn’t pitch.

The Indians won it all, of course, and there was joy in Mudville that night. The next weekend was trophy presentations time, and the naming of the 15 league All-Stars, who would represent our franchise in the regional tournament. Nine Indians made the All-Stars and by tradition, the winning manager had to coach the team. Great! I was beginning to wonder what the inter-league rules were about “a cold one before the game, during the game and after the game.” I was less than sanguine about this dubious distinction of going to get humiliated by some of these other regional teams. Like I said in my other story, from what I had seen the previous year, it seemed to me these other teams were playing a different game. Scooter was the only Red Sox player to make the All-Stars. I didn’t see Miss Congeniality, his mom, at the presentations and had to assume that she had fallen into her cauldron. Maybe her husband pushed her!

We had one week to get this team prepared, and I got the help of two of the other managers in our league. We practiced for two hours for four days, and had pretty well solidified starters versus the marginal players. Scooter was a starter because he had really perfected the “chop,” and was without a doubt the fastest runner on the team. His fielding was erratic so we stuck him in right field. We had five competent pitchers and a fairly solid infield. We still had trouble with the double play. I wasn’t optimistic about our proficiencies, but felt we would put up a good showing.

One of these kids, who was a marginal player and soon to be relegated as a two-inning player, was a Russian émigré. One of the many rules that exist in Little League is a requirement for a valid copy of the player’s birth certificate. All the kids brought copies, with the exception of Vladimir. His family gave him a copy of his Russian passport. I thought this was fine and submitted it with all the other paperwork to the regional league officials. They rejected the passport, and sent a note saying I had to have copy of the birth certificate. I explained this to the kid and told him to get his parents to give me a copy of his birth certificate, and to me it didn’t matter if it was in Russian or not because as far as I was concerned, that was a league problem, not mine.

The next practice Vladimir’s father showed up. He’s about 5-foot-nine and looks like a small bear. He came up to me waving copies of the passport and clearly was a little agitated. I tried to explain to him the rules, but he wasn’t buying it. He basically told me that I had to accept this and I told him it was not my decision. At that point, he tore the papers up into little pieces and threw them in my face with some comments in Russian that I was sure had something to do with my mother being unmarried and somewhat solicitous. I went ballistic! Fortuitously, two of the other coaches were right there and got in between me and this Russian maniac.

He left – we never got a birth certificate and under the circumstances we could not allow Vladimir to play. I felt bad for the kid, but at the same time was somewhat incensed at this altercation. Fortunately, my co-coaches interceded before I attempted to deck this guy on the spot. He was probably a former Greco-Roman wrestling champion and would’ve broken my back in short order. I could see the headlines now, ”Little League coach assaults Russian Consulate member, creating an international incident! The Russian Foreign Office has expressed its concern and has demanded an explanation and an apology from our Secretary of State.” My assessment of the situation was, the Cold War is not quite over.

As I’ve said before, the kids are great, but sometimes the parents really leave a lot to be desired, which is the same as politely saying some really suck. Sorry about that! Oh well, there goes my PG-13 rating, violence and vulgar words causing my downfall. Would you believe that I later got letter from a local attorney, who I knew, citing the potential actions that this guy was contemplating.

The lawyer involved belonged to the same tennis club that I did, and we would occasionally play against each other. I looked at the schedule one day and saw that we were going to be competing in a doubles tournament. I took his letter and wrote the following comment “expletive deleted you. Nasty letter to follow.” I slipped it in an envelope and handed it to him after we had cleaned their clock. I had real trouble believing he didn’t tell his client to take a hike, but I rather imagine his fee was close to couple grand. Considering that, I came to the conclusion that I got the better of the Russian bear. I don’t think I want to go to Russia though, because I’m sure I’m on the KGB hit list.

So putting that incident out of my mind and concentrating on the upcoming potential debacle, we continued practicing. There were no dry peas, no spitting contests and a solid degree of intensity on the part of our players. Our first game was on a Friday and wonder of wonders, we prevailed by three runs. At that point, I began looking around for three wise men coming from the East, and wondering what was next. We played that Saturday, and once again won by three runs. I was elated, however was quite sure that Gabriel was right around the corner ready to blow his horn.

With these two wins, we now moved to a four team playoff the following weekend in the elimination playoffs. We lost the first two games and were history. The good news is that was farther than any other previous team from our franchise had ever succeeded to. The kids all got a little trophy and a medal indicating how far they had gone. They all began a bunch of war whoops and chants that rather perplexed the league officials. They began their traditional after-game war dance. We were asked to leave. A Wild Bunch to the bitter end.

This was my final game for the boys and Little League. I was leaving the company that I had been with for the past five years to go become a bigger fish in a smaller pond. And based on my new responsibilities, I knew full well that my Little League management days were over. The effervescent Indians went on to win the whole shebang the following year, and actually I assumed it was because of my tenacious training regime and expertise.

Unfortunately, I did not hear from the Cleveland Indians ownership again. Later I’ll write a story about what happened to some of these kids in their later lives. It’s rather fascinating! As kind of a closing note, sometime after my active role, I heard from a friend that Miss Congeniality had run off with the Greek sailor and was now packing sardines in the Azores. I jest!

So this ended my Little League coaching career, or so I thought. Blue-eyes and another ex-college softball jock, if that’s appropriate, decided that the girls in our little town were being shortchanged and decided to form a girls Little League Senior Softball franchise. They did, and I was drafted to be one of the coaches, but by rule was not allowed to sit in the dugout for fear of possible contamination of these innocent 13- to 16-year-old young ladies. Right! This was a total female show, controlled by them and played by them and I considered it completely chauvinistic. But that’s a different story to be addressed at a later date.

Moral of the story – In situations like “Prima,” sometimes the obvious “ain’t” so obvious! 

Indians on the Little League Warpath

We last left the Indians going for the ”gold” and getting dumped on their collective butts. A new season had now begun and JJ came back as manager, much to the chagrin and frustration of the league president and, I’m sure, and Miss Congeniality of 1911 or whatever year it was. If you don’t know about her, she’s discussed in a couple my other stories, principally dealing with the Dodgers and the fun and games in the minor leagues, which had nothing to do with either baseball or the kids. I’m not going to rehash the inner workings of the league, because I already explained that in the story called “Wild Indian Uprising.”

The team returned pretty much intact because we had only had a couple of 12-year-olds that were no longer eligible. Last season, the Indians had four players named to the All Stars and they got to go play in the inter-league tournament. True to form, they lost the first two games and were eliminated. I went to one of the tournament games and came away with the conviction that the opposition was playing a different game than we were. It was time to write to my congressperson (politically sensitive) about parity of the Little League teams in his/her congressional district. Maybe I could somehow induce Miss Congeniality take this project on. The assumption there was that she could write. That’s cruel and unbecoming of me, but I am going to leave it in here anyway.

We had nine returning players, all of which were approaching the 11 to 12 year old magic number, although most of them are still only 11. The rules were rather simple and basically said you can’t play in the league if you’re over 12. God – think about that for a minute, washed up at the age of 13! Our nemesis, the Red Sox, had been decimated. They only had four returning players, simply because last season they had loaded their team roster with 12-year-olds through some draft hoi-polloi. (This sneaky ringer business is covered in the other story I mentioned.) Okay! So big deal, they won the gold. The Indians were in a position that would allow the team to have at least nine players coming back over a two-season period – good, bad or indifferent.

So we had the draft, and once again JJ Junior came through with some scouting reports, and we picked up one more 11-year-old and a bunch of 10-year-olds who at least understood where first base was. My good buddy Scooter was still with the Red Sox, however he kept in contact with a number of our old Dodger teammates that were still around. To show you what kind guy Scooter was, he used to show up at our practices to be with his buddies more than my prima donna did. Scooter was a keeper!

The Red Sox had a new manager and I knew him – good guy, and really interested in the kids. He came up to me one day at practice and told me that Scooter wanted to be traded to the Indians. I doubt very seriously if Scooter’s mom knew about this, because she would have had a serious ventricular episode. I thought about the proposal for maybe 10 micro-seconds and told him I did not think the league rules would allow that. In reality, my thoughts were about spending the next two and a half months with Miss Congeniality pointing out my inbred aboriginal faults at every opportunity. Besides that, I think Blue-eyes would’ve gone ballistic. Being a true “Indian Mom,” she was waiting to ambush Miss. Congeniality and was probably ready take her scalp with a dull paring knife.

My rules about practice were still the same. “You want to play more than two innings, show up to practice.” Mr. Prima Donna was back and I was shocked at how much he had grown. He still had trouble making it to practice, but at least he understood that I wasn’t going to put him on the starting roster, even though he was probably the best overall athlete on the team. He started bringing his own bats and I told him it was okay in practice, but he probably couldn’t use them in a game. The bats had to be sanctioned by the Great Little League Gods in Williamsport or something to that effect. His dad called me that night, a little red-assed, and said he thought that was a silly rule. I told him I agreed! His final comment was something about corruption in the Little League National management. Man, you gotta love parents! I should’ve told him that his kid really didn’t need a bat because he has an awful lot of trouble just swinging at a ball, but I didn’t.

I taught some of the better hitters how to pull an outside pitch and pop it into right field which is where most of the two inning players would end up and were usually not paying a lot of attention to what was going on. This worked out a lot better than I anticipated and the rest of the team began to try to emulate this batting style. The kids thought this was great stuff, they still had the “chop” and now could hit the ball to the opposite field. We only had one left-hander and he was a good hitter, that fact had gotten around, so the other teams would swap positions, the right fielder to left and left would go to right. My little lefty was really unhappy about this; he took it somewhat personal, thought there ought to be a rule and in the final analysis tried switch hitting, which was a total disaster. He was not able to master hitting anything outside, because a majority of the pitches were in on him, being thrown by a right handed pitcher.

The little Indians still had their totally incompetent athletic moments, but they weren’t as plentiful as the other teams, and we were leading the first-half by three or four games. We were clearly the best team in the league at that particular time, and were well on our way to winning the first half. The gang was having a lot of fun and the frustrations of the previous year were behind us. Mr. Prima Donna actually began to show up for practices and I paid a lot of attention to getting him into a mode of swinging at the ball. Blue-eyes actually came up with the solution. She told me after one game that he was closing his eye at the plate. What?!I couldn’t see this because his back was to me, so during one game I walked out of the dugout and stood by the backstop and sure as hell, he was closing his eyes. I suspected that he was afraid of the getting hit. I didn’t say anything to him about it, but the next practice I concentrated on teaching him how to get out of the batter’s box. Bingo! The kid started swinging, started to get hits and loved every minute of it. He came to all the practices after that. During the rest of the games, he got plunked once or twice and would just look over at me, smile and run down to first base. I felt guilty that I had not picked up on this problem.

The tribe attempted to renew their less than acceptable signals to the first base coach. I was able to curtail that activity by providing some socially appropriate signals that did not include “crotch grabbing,” the “Italian salute,” or “half-mooning,” and was able to avoid any further conversations with the league president. They had noticed on television that the “pros” were constantly spitting. The concept of role models and emulation presented itself in the form of a constant shower of spit. I was concerned that the dugout, “wigwam,” would soon turn into a slippery sea of saliva. I lowered the boom and told them no more “expectoration” in the dugout. You don’t want to know what they thought that meant!

Much to my dismay, one of the creative moms made a sign that said, “No expectoration (Spitting) in the Wigwam.” It had a little cartoon of a kid in a baseball uniform, with a feather in his cap, spitting on his shoes. Clever! I found out a little later that they were walking up to the plate, spitting in front of the plate and turning to the catcher and saying “I just expectorated!” This unfortunately proves the point that a little bit of knowledge is a dangerous thing.

That didn’t completely eliminate their desire to emulate the pros, so when they weren’t on the field they were standing next to the cyclone fence having a contest about who could spit farthest. They called it the “expectoration exhibition” and actually kept score. I have no idea what the prize for first place was. One of my geniuses brought a bag full of dried peas and the occupant of the batter’s box soon became the primary target, being plummeted by semi-soggy peas. You’d be surprised how far a dry pea can go when launched by an expert 11-year-old. I didn’t do anything about this activity for the simple reason that I figured next spring, before the season started, I could come over and harvest 42 bushels of peas.

The league came back with the mandated jockstrap and cup rule. I had a little visit from the president who had heard about the Dodgers’ escapades in the minors regarding these devices, and suggested that any recurrence of this would be unacceptable and punishable by death. I told him he was going have some enforcement issues, but I would admonish the “Wild Bunch” not to re-create the sling shot episodes. True to my prediction, the league did have a problem, but with the Red Sox. I wasn’t at the game, but apparently some of the boys were using the cups to drink their Gatorade or whatever. I thought this was pretty hysterical and came to the conclusion that it was probably instigated by Scooter. Ya gotta love that kid!

At the end of the first half we had three games to go and were ahead by four. I decided to start all the underachievers and let them play at least four innings and they did fine. We only lost one of those games. We were pretty hot stuff! I had four kids that were batting well over .400 and our fielding was pretty solid. We even executed a number of double plays. I was happy, the kids were happy, the parents were happy and Miss Congeniality was really pissed, which made me even happier. I got a call from the Cleveland Indians’ owner, wanting to know if I was willing to move to Cleveland. I told him no, that I was “contractually bound for the balance of the season, but let’s talk after it’s over.” God! What an ego!

The second half will be covered in another story – later!

Moral of the story – If you open your eyes, you can sometimes see and do more wondrous things.

The Ancestral Family Bush

We all have questions about our roots and the various derivations of our family names. I say names, because there is no singular surname, otherwise we would all be sitting in some shack in the swamp playing the banjo. So having noticed a certain degree of lunacy on my side of the family, and at the insistence of our offspring, I recently embarked on a preliminary search of where I may have inherited this trait. I say “I,” because Blue-eyes, of course, is perfectly normal, with the exception of lapsing into a strange babbling tongue after drinking a couple of Cosmopolitans. This story is true. I just change the names to protect the guilty. And besides that, my real name is not Addingnuttin, just in case you haven’t figured that out. Duh!!

Blue-eyes insists that she is part of a long line of Bohemian noblemen on her father’s side. I used to tease her and suggested that the best she could come up with would’ve been a “band of wandering gypsies,” performing sleight-of-hand magic tricks, prancing trained bears, some guy playing the violin and gorgeous, seductive females wearing a bunch of tassels and little else, dancing around an open fire. I would threaten to expose her on her genealogy stuff by suggesting the next time we had friends over, I would put on some gypsy music, hand her a jug of wine, a rose to put in between her teeth and take pictures. I won’t repeat what her response was to this suggestion, in order to keep my PG-13 rating. Some years back, I told her I was going buy her an ”off the shoulder blouse and a gypsy looking full skirt,” and she promptly told me that if I did, I would have to wear it. The better part of valor made me rethink this little prank. The couch is not that comfortable.

A couple of years ago, I got on the computer and punched in her maiden name and behold, there was this town in what used to be the Kingdom of Bohemia, named after her family. Of course, Bohemia doesn’t really exist anymore. It is now part of what used to be the Czechoslovakian Republic and is now called just plain Czech Republic, which has only changed hands about 20 times in the last hundred years. Clearly the Bohemians were lovers, not fighters. As a side note, what the hell happened to the Slovakians anyway? Did they just disappear like the Mayans? God, I hate it when that happens!

On her mother‘s side, you can trace the family back a long way, as it is a unique European name. The first ones that showed up in the U.S. are in the area now known as Wisconsin, and one of them fought in the Winnebago War. Hell, I didn’t even know they made Winnebagos back then, and can’t for the life of me figure out why an RV would cause a war. I jest!

They got into the lumber business a few years before the state became part of the Union, and according to Blue-eyes, cornered the cheese box market. I jest not! I guess in Wisconsin, with all those “Cheese-heads,” that would be a big deal. They’re still in business today, believe it or not. I couldn’t find any real culprits on her side of the family, with the exception of one great uncle who took off with a barmaid and was never heard from again.

Going back to the European connection – they’re all over the place – mostly Scandinavia and France. I guess that’s where her blue eyes came from, along with the icy glare that I get when I screw up. I couldn’t find any aristocratic connections and rather suspect that since the name is scattered all over Europe, they got kicked out of a lot of countries or had to leave in a hurry. Her mother spoke a little French and a little German. I know this because she would call me things in those languages. We didn’t get along all that well, as is the case with many mother-in-laws, simply because she thought I was more than just a little “weird.” The nice part of that warm relationship was the fact that she lived better than 500 miles away.

Now my side of the family was a totally different story. The name is so common that I have two people living in my little community with the same name, much to their chagrin. I have been able to track down a few interesting things about the family which resided mostly on the East Coast, specifically New York and Boston.

I can trace one member, Thomas L., who fought in the War of 1812, but they don’t say on whose side. In that he lived on Cherry Street in old New York, I have to assume it was the U.S. He was stationed at a place called “Mcgowan’s Pass,” which is now part of Central Park. He must’ve been good, because I don’t believe the Brits ever got past Central Park. The only thing that was there at that time was a Tavern, and based on other family histories, is probably why he was successful. They probably hit the rum punch a bit! He died around 1882, according to a New York paper. And they say rum punch is bad for you?

I ran across this folder that had letters and stuff from my semi-sane, half aunt. We had corresponded on and off for a number of years, and had talked about our family tree’s various branches, if that’s the proper term for genealogy. So it turns out that my great, great, great grandfather on my father’s side was a fellow by the name of Valentine Gee, born in Canada about 1829. That makes him my great grandmother’s father, whose maiden name was Gee. Are you with me so far?

So, I was doing the Google stuff and punched in his name, and lo and behold, found out that in the late1860’s he was part of a very sophisticated industrial bond forgery scam to the tune of $50 million. This guy didn’t mess around, because $50 million in 1870’s is the equivalent of at least $500 million by today’s standards. The way I found out was this news article printed in a New York paper, which led me to portions of the court records regarding a civil suit.

He went to jail for a very short period of time, but because of a lack of evidence, the charges on a criminal basis were dropped. It would appear as though his wife, my three-times-removed grandmother was also involved, as well as her brother, Horace Cordy, and they were all later defendants in a civil suit. They were not tried on a criminal basis because of a lack of witnesses, many of whom had returned to Britain or perhaps the Hudson River. As best as I can discover for the moment, he got off with a $5000 fine and maybe got that back later. I’ve not been able to find any other information on these two relations, and rather suspect they took their money and moved to Venezuela, where there are no extradition laws. I think I’ll write the Venezuelan Consulate. Hell, I might own half of Venezuela and not know it! On the other hand, they might not have done it and pigs can fly!

Now my question is, what the hell happened to the rest of the money, and why didn’t I see some of it? I think this will be the subject of my next book, after I finish my current book, (and do the stage play, and complete the musical score). I’m going to attempt to vindicate him, clear the family name and file a lawsuit for defamation, unless the statute of limitations has expired. I wonder if I can find any witnesses. Sounds like fundamental fun, doesn’t it? I guess the message here is, there are some things you really don’t need to know. I personally think it’s pretty hysterical – I validate two distant relatives and one of them turns out to be a big-time forger. The odds on having a prominent family tree have just gone south.

These are the only two people of which I am a direct descendent, which I can establish factually. At this point I’m not sure I have any further interest in genealogy. Besides, you get on the web and everybody and their brother is trying to sell you something, because they found the person you’re looking for, who has been dead for at least 100 years. Maybe they will make an offer to dig them up for you. “Send us your credit card number and we’ll air express the final remains of your dearly departed hundred-and-fifty-year-old great, great, great grandfather.”

Moral of the story – If you’re going to dig into your past, you may end up with shovelful of you know what!

Domesticized Wild Beasties

 

Our neighborhood like most, has their fair share of domestic animals. In our household, we always had some kind of “Pet” that was supposed to satisfy our need to be in touch with the animal world. Something that you have to keep in mind however, is that there are pets, and then there are “pets.” What that means is some of them are affectionate and appreciative, and some of them just don’t give a damn about the human race. This is unfortunately very true about cats, who are about as independent as a 16-year-old getting their first driver’s license.

About five years after we moved in, we discovered a lot of interesting nonviolent and semi-nonviolent neighborhood animals. One of the most intriguing events involved some friends who lived up on a hill behind our property. They also had four kids about the same ages as ours. They had a couple of horses, as well as a monkey. I don’t think they were trying to train a monkey to ride the horses, but it wouldn’t have surprised me. This little beast was the kind that you used to see with “organ grinders,” with their cute Bell Hop outfit and little tin cup, looking for a handout, and if they didn’t get your attention, would likely bite you on the leg.

Anyway, on one weekend we got a phone call from one of the girls, screaming at the top her lungs that their monkey had gone berserk. Neither of her parents were home, so being the good guy that I am, I went up there to assist in the capture of this wild and dangerous beast. I found my “Jungle Jim” hat and went trotting up the hill. I could hear the yelling and screeching before I got halfway there. Hell, at that point I thought this little monkey had killed at least two of the kids and had cornered the others. I then realized that I had forgotten my elephant gun!

I went in the front door and was astounded at how badly the living room had been trashed. This little monkey could not weigh much over 10 pounds, and this place looked like it had been hit by a tornado. Anything standing was knocked over, drapes were ripped off the wall, pictures were down and broken, and the kitchen was littered with debris. I finally found one of the surviving members of the family and asked where the beast was, and she pointed to a bedroom, which sounded like someone having a serious bar fight.

There the culprit was, showing one hell of a lot of teeth that could not be interpreted as a smile. It was bouncing from window to wall to bed and back again, screeching all the way. Two of the kids were attempting to throw blankets over him, but this monkey was extremely fast. After a few seconds, I came to the conclusion that the best thing to do was get out of there, close the door and let this little home wrecker calm down. I got the kids out and we shut the door with the unfortunate assumption that the monkey could not do much more damage to the room than it already had. I asked one of them how it started. He said they were watching TV and eating lunch, and all of a sudden the “monkey went bananas,” which I thought was an appropriate description.

After about 10 minutes or so, the noise and banging in the room subsided, so I opened the door a crack and saw the monkey sitting on the bed with his back turned. I quickly picked up one of the blankets off the floor and jumped on the bed, covering the monkey. Based on the amount of screeches, I think it safe to say, the monkey was more than just a little pissed. We took it to the garage where they had a cage and summarily dumped this simian in, blanket and all. I went back in the house and looked around at all of the devastation, found my “Jungle Jim” hat and went home. Never heard another thing about the monkey! I have a sneaking suspicion that it was reissued its little “bellhop” uniform, and is now standing with some organ grinder on a corner in New York City, biting unsuspecting deadbeats that don’t put something in his cute little tin cup!

The people across the street were great. She was called Babs and she called him Coot for some reason I never understood, because his name was Bob. They had three kids, and one was the same age as JJ Junior. They had a horse – mean as hell that liked to bite people – which Babs would ride once in a while, and a dog that was named Kip. He was a black lab, very smart and extremely friendly. Kip got along with Rusty, our dog, as well as Rusty my cat. Yeah, that’s right! Rusty the dog adopted JJ Junior, and Rusty the cat had adopted me. Both were strays! We had tried to find their owners, but had no luck, so I suspect they had been brought up to the hills and dumped.

Most of the domestic animals ran around loose in our neighborhood. I suspect that the Town had a leash law, but that it probably only applied to the local teenage “bomb throwers.” Anyway, Kip used to hang around the house, along with a couple of other neighbors dogs, so we saw quite a bit of him. One weekend afternoon, Blue-eyes was in the process of making dinner, which was going to be, excuse the expression, rump roast. Apparently she had taken the roast out and put it on the kitchen counter, and then went off to do something else.

It was winter and a little too cold to be working outside. I was doing some stuff down in the basement and Blue-eyes called me. She asked me what I did with the roast and naturally, I had no idea what she was talking about. She told me it had been on the counter, and now it was gone. My immediate thought was she had put it back in the freezer or one of the kids was messing with her mind. We looked all over. No roast!

The kids denied any involvement whatsoever. I didn’t think the roast could just get up and walk away because it didn’t like the thought of being cooked with raw onions and garlic. Right about then, I’m starting to get this spooky feeling that the house has been invaded by a meat eating demon, which likes its meat real, real rare. I figure any minute, something is going to take a bite out of my arm or whatever. We had hamburgers for dinner, which was fine. No roast showed up, nor did any spook, that I noticed. The mystery perplexed us!

A couple of weeks later, I saw Kip by the back patio, and out of curiosity, I walked into the living room area to see what’s going on, just in time to see this dog push open the sliding glass door. He had figured out that by putting his weight against the handle, he could get it open. The case of the disappearing rump roast was closed. I went over and talked to Coot and said, “You owe me a 5 pound rump roast.” I told him what happened and he said “Yeah, Kip learned long ago how to open sliding doors.” About an hour later I was proud owner of a new rump – roast that is!

From that point forward, we made sure that sliding doors were locked to protect ourselves and dinner from this canine burglar. I was concerned that the damn dog was smart enough to pick a lock. Kip also had a newspaper fetish. I think his favorite was the sports section, because when I finally found our paper after he was done with it, that section was usually missing. This dog was a real piece of work! A few weeks later, we discovered him in the kitchen. He devoured half of a chocolate cake, and was unhappy that he couldn’t find the ice cream. The shocking thing is that the chocolate didn’t kill the dog. Most dogs have a collar around their neck, However, I suspect Kip carried a burglar’s toolkit. About a year later, Coot and Babs moved to Chicago. To this day, I’m sure that the burglary rate in their new neighborhood went up by at least 100%.

We had our share of pets over the years, or should I say they had us. Rusty the dog was a loner and had a foot fetish of the first order. My assumption was he had been kicked more than once by his previous owner. His only affection was for JJ Junior, and he pretty well snubbed the rest of us. He wasn’t real playful; he wouldn’t fetch, wouldn’t roll over, rarely spoke, and most of the time if I called him, he just ignored me. However, he was the best damn squirrel deterrent we ever had. I used to watch him take off after these little critters, but I don’t think he ever caught one – but not for the want of trying. He developed a technique of hiding under some bushes near their favorite tree and waiting until they hit the ground, and then shoot after them like a rocket. I figure it was one of his few joys in life, other than his allegiance to Junior.

He had one serious flaw, and that was his distaste for the UPS truck. He wouldn’t chase cars, but maybe figured he could knock over this truck. To his misfortune, one day he got into an altercation and the truck won. He could just be described as a really good dog.

Rusty the cat had something of the same demeanor, however, he could be much more demonstrative when he wanted something. We had no idea how old he was, but I figure at least 12 or 13. He was what I called a Tiger alley-cat, and preferred not to sleep indoors. He wasn’t particularly the house type, liked the outdoors, but clearly the family room and its fireplace was his favorite location inside, especially in the winter. I think he spent most of his nights out in the stall, protecting the horses from the rodents. We never had a mouse or rat problem when he was alive!

If he wanted something, like food, he didn’t try to communicate in any way other than to jump on you. I would be sitting in the family room reading, and all of a sudden this yellow monster would come flying through the air, and land on my lap. It didn’t matter that I may have had a cup of coffee or was trying to read the newspaper, and more than once I ended up with fluid all over my lap and the rug. He wasn’t being playful, he was making statement. If I was working outside on some project, Rusty would come along to supervise. He’d sit 10 or 15 feet away and watch what I was doing. On more than one occasion, I noticed after I completed whatever, he would go over and inspect the work.

One of his favorite tricks was to hide in the bushes or up the tree and pounce on any unsuspecting person walking by, usually scaring the hell out of them. He also pulled this trick on Rusty the dog, at which point the two would chase each other all over the back yard. I think they were probably buddies, but didn’t want to admit this because of the perceived hostilities between dogs and cats.

We had Rusty the cat for about two years. One spring day, he was lying by the family room door, where the sun was shining – his favorite spot – and I was reading. Then I noticed he had not moved in quite a while. I went over to see what was going on, and to my surprise and sadness, he was dead. No symptoms, no demonstration of a problem. He just laid down in the sun and died. I buried him in one of his favorite areas in the back 40 near the corral. Rusty the dog, wandered around the backyard for a couple of days, in my belief looking for his so-called feline adversary. Rusty was a good cat!

Over the years we had a number of other dogs, but never another cat. Those two have always stood out in my memory because of their obvious indifference to any human interface, but at the same time, clearly felt they were where they belonged.

Moral of the story – If you really want a pet, get a turtle and teach it how to bring in the paper. They live longer!