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!

Wild Beasties Two

When you live in a rural area, you have to accept the fact that certain kinds of critters were here before you got here. So I guess it’s natural for them to assume certain rights of domain and territorial prerogatives. It doesn’t concern them that a bunch of homes have been put in and basically interrupted their normal habitat, and the strange two-legged animals think they are the only ones that matter and that they’re in charge. “Not so,” says Mother Nature. In some regards, they see this human habitat as a possible new food supply, and maybe not even excluding consumption of the two-legged animals.

We have a lot of deer that still find their way into our little neighborhood, and I’ll come back to that in a little while. Deer’s natural predator is not just man. Not too many years back, after a good rain I was out cleaning the storm drain that goes nowhere when I noticed a number of rather large paw prints. I backtracked to where they came from and found the remnants of a freshly killed animal. It was in such a state, I couldn’t be sure if it was a dog or a cat or one of the wild beasties. Anyway, whatever got this animal did some rather intricate surgical work.

My next-door neighbor saw me in back, came out to check out what I was doing. This is the same guy that probably reported me to the fire district, but that’s a different story. I showed him the paw prints and told him that that it was a pretty good size mountain lion. We natives call them Pumas. He looked at me and said, “No, that’s a dog print.” We went across the street and could see where this “dog” had climbed over a 6 foot fence, assuming because of the blood spots, with part of its dinner still in its mouth. This guy still wasn’t buying it.

We went back and looked at the prints again and I commented that I couldn’t think of any canine that would have a foot like that. He still insisted that it was a dog. My suggestion to him was “Well, if you see it, don’t try to pet it, because it’s a mountain lion disguised as a dog!” It turns out that a number of domestic animals had been killed in our little area and a warning was issued to the residents to keep their eye out for a mountain lion disguised as a large poodle. I jest! The disguise was really not a poodle, but a St. Bernard.

One of the other examples of wild inhabitants would be the raccoons, which were extremely clever and persistent. It doesn’t seem to matter to a hungry raccoon that there is a relatively sophisticated locking mechanism on a garbage can. They could figure out how to open it faster than JJ could figure out how to close it. Many a morning I would go out to get the paper and be greeted by garbage scattered from one end of the driveway to the other. In one instance, they chewed off the locking mechanism on the garbage can. I got a new one with a twist top that was advertised to be foolproof, but it didn’t say to whom, because I don’t think it slowed the raccoons down one second. Maybe the “fool” part was meant for the guy that bought it.

One evening after it was dark, I was reading and heard a bunch of racket. I turned on the outside lights and discovered a raccoon stuck in one of the containers. I kicked it over to let this little devil out, naturally scattering garbage all over the driveway. Damn raccoon didn’t even say thanks – it just slowly walked away. I cleaned up the garbage and decided it was time to go to bed. I think the little sucker just hid until I was gone and then went back, because the next morning, sure enough there was garbage scattered all over “hell and gone.” I figured if this ever happened again I would just leave it in the garbage can, presuming it would be a wake-up call for the garbage pickup people, or as they preferred to be called “sanitation engineers.”

I thought I had successfully defeated this problem by building a wood fence that retained the cans. The problem with that was that if I forgot to pull the cans out on Monday, the garbage man would leave everything as is, meaning I was still the proud owner of 30 gallons of garbage. I guess opening a little gate was not in their job description. The final solution was called “the bungee cord,” and it worked as long as the troops would remember to attach it. Raccoons have their place in this world; I’m not real sure where it is, but I know it’s not in my garbage cans nor swimming around in my pool in the middle of the night.

We have always had our fair share of deer visiting both the front and the backyard when we leave the gates open. Most of the time the invasion is in the spring. The Does would show up with their young ones. We must have entered into the fifth-generation of these visitors. Quite frankly, they’re so pretty I don’t see how anybody can shoot them. Part of the problem is they will eat anything except the weeds and these Does raise hell with roses and other succulents. The other aspect of this is “where Bambi goes, nothing grows.” So we end up with brown spots all over the yard. But it’s okay! The grass grows back fast, but it’s the potted plants that really take hell.

Every so often we would unknowingly close up all the gates and have deer trapped in the backyard. This gets unpleasant in a hurry. They start running around the backyard, taking out anything in their way and trying all of the access points that are now closed. The mature deer have no trouble jumping over my six-foot grape stake fence, however the young ones can’t do that, and usually in a flight of panic, go crashing through the stakes. This can get expensive in a hurry, predicated on the price of grape stakes these days, if you can even find them.

One morning a few years ago, I had to go out to what I call the Back 40, where the vegetable garden is, and there was this eight point buck eating apples off my tree. He turned and saw me, and lowered his head. I turned, and lowered mine as I was running for the safety of the house. He was a big brute, for coastal deer. I could see the headlines, “Local man gored 53 times while attempting to capture Bambi’s father, barehanded. The assailant was last seen eating apples and smiling.” I told Blue-eyes what had happened and her comment was, “You mean to tell me you’re afraid of a little tiny deer?” My retort was, as Little Beaver would say, “You bet-chem, Red Ryder!” (If you don’t know who Little Beaver was, or for that matter Red Ryder, you clearly never owned a Red Ryder Lever Action BB gun. Look it up on the web, it’s too difficult to explain. And if you are at a loss about Bambi, you’re in real trouble.)

Another type of wild beastie that we’ve seen on occasion includes some rather large bobcats. They hang around out back, and their primary interest seems to be the squirrels. One weekend I was standing on the patio looking out toward the stall, and all of a sudden this bobcat leaped from somewhere and landed a good 8 feet up a birch tree where a squirrel had been sitting. I couldn’t believe my eyes. The squirrel was toast! The bobcat slowly came out of the tree, walked onto the lawn, and sat there for a few minutes making sure lunch wasn’t going to go anywhere. Based on that event, I always look around when I go back by the birch trees. I didn’t bother to tell my flaky neighbor, because he probably would’ve said, “It’s a dog!” I can see the headlines now, “JJ’s (who as we reported was recently gored) flaky neighbor, loses three fingers while attempting to pet a bobcat. His only explanation to the press after this incident was, “I thought it was a dog!”

We used to have a few skunks when we first moved in, but they seem to have diminished. I saw one a few months back on the back lawn during the day, kind of wandering in an erratic fashion. I was a little concerned because what miniscule understanding I have about skunks is they can be prone to being rabid. I watched it for a while and it seemed disoriented. I always thought skunks were more nocturnal, so I decided to call the animal control people in our county government. Once I got through the multilingual recording, with 14 options and talked to a live person, I was told that the earliest they could get out there would be in two days. I really felt comfortable with the fact that our local government would be on the scene to support the situation, if indeed “Pepe La Pew” was rabid. Part of my concern was that my neighbor would adopt it, convinced it was a dog.

Moral of the story – Animal rights are one thing, but I think more of them need to be house trained.

JJ and The Wild Indian Uprising

This story is not about Native Americans, so if that’s what you expect you might as well not read it. What it is about is an erstwhile Little League baseball team named the Indians, and their trials and tribulations. If you read one of the previous Little League stories, you’ll know the league was blessed by my reappearance in a managerial role, much to the chagrin of the league President. Drinking a “cold one” after a game was not considered by him as something of a role model. What he didn’t realize was that I was only drinking it as a courtesy to the “offeree” ” He forced me to take it! I really don’t much like beer. And besides that, I wasn’t anywhere near the dugout, nor do I look anything like Walter Matthau. More like Yul Brynner!

Our season was divided into two halves, and to be champions you had to either win both halves or survive the onslaught of one playoff game, winner take all. There are only five teams in the majors, which is the 10 to 12 year old grouping. The Indians finished the first half at the bottom of the pile. We only had a couple of blowout games, but were close – one or two runs in most of our losses. But close only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades. The daunting Red Sox had won the first half.

The kids’ attitude was still quite positive, and they were having fun whooping and hollering in the dugout like a bunch of wild Indians, which in fact they were. I wasn’t called Coach. I was Chief. Our team was the tribe, but at the strong suggestion of Blue-eyes, I drew the line on the squaw definitions. When we got together for practices or games, the normal greetings were the raising of the right hand and the guttural “How.” The dugout was the “wigwam.” Drinks like Gatorade were defined as “firewater.” The team was having fun, even if it wasn’t winning, and my attitude was “that was what it’s all about.” Don’t get this wrong! When they were in the game they were very serious and didn’t like to lose.

Since the rules would not allow bunting, I taught the troops or “clan,” as they preferred to be called, how to chop down on the ball, which had the same effect as a bunt. Tough play for an infielder, but very effective and totally legal. It would draw their infield in and then the troops could swing away. We had a signal for this. It was the “tomahawk chop.” Real subtle, right? Nobody’s gonna guess what that means! The chop began to pay off. We didn’t overdo it and used it mainly to move up runners, but the side benefits were probable throwing errors to first base. With a runner on third, it was like a squeeze play. Once the other team started throwing the ball around, we could go back to our strategy of “antelope” baseball.

Most of the other teams had adults acting as base coaches, but I decided to let the kids do it, especially my two-inning players. It worked out fine, because most of the time the kids running bases didn’t pay any attention to the base coach anyway. The tribe decided that they had have signs like they had seen on the TV games, which of course they dubbed ”Indian signs.” I mean after all, no self-respecting Indian would go anywhere without their signs.

So they would stand at the entrance to the “wigwam” and go through all these gyrations. There were a couple of problems with this. First, you couldn’t steal a base, so I was never sure what they were suggesting to the guy coaching first base. The other was that most of the signs they created were rather obscene. I had no idea what they meant, didn’t care and frankly, really didn’t want to know. Unfortunately, the signs could be seen by the opposition’s spectators and of course, someone reported it. I got yet another phone call from the league President telling me to cease and desist.

The Indians were prevailing. We were well into the second half and had only lost one game, and that was to the Red “Sods.” Our pitching had improved greatly and there were far fewer walks. We had lost two 12-year-olds, and I had to draft from the minors. It turned out the additions we got were very good pitchers and frankly, better all-round players than what I had lost. We only had two 12-year-olds left on the team, and one of them was a two-inning player, which was totally disproportionate to our competition, especially the Red Sox, who had eight 12-year-olds. The chop was an effective tool and was being imitated by some of the other teams, but their execution was not as good as ours. Part of the reason for this was that we focused on the lead runner, which for some reason the other teams neglected to do.

One interesting event that occurred is what I like to call the “double-double” play! Now you know that’s impossible in baseball, but it happened. We were leading in one game by about four or five runs when our starting pitching imploded and we could not get anybody out. The bases were loaded and the batter popped up right in front of the catcher. He caught the ball, threw to first base and the first baseman stepped on the bag because the runner had taken off and was now standing on second with another runner trying to get back to second and was tagged before he could get back. The runner at third was halfway between home and third base and had to tag up and he was tagged out. By this time we had kids running from one base to another, coaches out waving their arms and absolute chaos. At that point I thought the next thing that can happen is they’ll tag out the guy standing in the on deck circle. That’ll make it five outs!

The umpire was a young kid, and with all of this happening so fast, could not be expected to have seen, let alone interpret what the hell had just happened. Both teams were on the field and he was caught right in the middle. By this time it had dawned on me that we had just done the impossible, and made four outs in one inning. Naturally, it didn’t stand. We were given credit for a double play, and a runner was allowed to stay at third base. I pointed out that that meant one of their “runners had just disappeared off the face of the earth.” To no avail! Syllogistic logic has no place in baseball. We got the final out, and that was that. I did not argue about it because the kid umpire was clearly out of his depth. One of my gang wanted to know if we got credit for that fourth out in the next inning. Seemed like a good idea to me.

Another incident occurred, but fortunately did not involve in the Indians. Thank God! I just didn’t need another phone call from the President. In this instance, it was a case of “loaded bats” in a game that the Red Sox had lost. After the game, the Red Sox manager was picking up the gear, which was always the case, being the first item on our job description, and he picked up a bat which belonged to the opposition. As he was walking to the dugout, he saw what appeared to be black tape around the head of the bat, but was in fact a very thin lead weight used principally on golf clubs. He refused to surrender the bat to the other manager and went looking for league official.

The Red Sox manager insisted that the game be decreed a forfeit. He called me and wanted me to support his position, and I told him “no,” and that I personally doubt if the weighted bat had anything to do with their loss. My thoughts were that this was much ado about nothing. The way these kids swing, a little bit of weight wasn’t going to do a damn thing to improve their hitting. If anything, it was probably a disadvantage. The team that had beaten them had replaced the Indians at the bottom of the barrel. Next thing that happened – some of the parents got involved and actually got a lawyer to write a letter to the President of our league, which was a good thing because it would probably keep him busy, and keep him off my sad little butt.

As it turned out, the manager of the other team didn’t know anything about the lead weight, and this major felony had been perpetrated by one of the players. If the Red Sox’s parents had their way, the kid would’ve been sent to San Quentin. For the most part, Little League kids are great, but some of the parents can be a royal pain in the “tush.” I don’t know for sure, but I suspect Ms. Congeniality had something to do with this endeavor. If you don’t know who she is, then you’re not reading my other baseball stories, which indicates you have superior intelligence and more important things to do. But I digress!

The season was winding down and we were in a dead heat with the Red Sox. We had one more game to play, and if we won it, we would force a playoff for the second half – and if we won that, then we would have to play another “winner take all” playoff game. The Indians did not play at all that well in this last game. I think the war chants got their blood up and it was just way too much adrenaline. We were in the last of the seventh inning, two outs, bases loaded, with one of my “prima donnas” at bat. As he went out to hit, I heard one of his teammates tell him that this pitcher was going to put it over the plate. He went out there, and sure enough got two quick called strikes and then stood there as the third called strike hit the catcher right in middle of the plate. He was very irate and said some things to the umpire, and on his way back to the dugout told me that those were three (expletive deleted) bad calls. I didn’t say anything to him because I know he felt bad, but my thought was, “If you’re going to be a prima donna, you’d better perform. Otherwise, turn in your tutu or jockstrap – whichever is most fitting.”

There was a pizza party after this loss, and the parents had gotten together and presented me with a little engraved pewter cup that was meant to act as a disguise for the “cold one” after future games. I thought that was very nice, but what they didn’t realize was this cup had a glass bottom and when I tried to use it, it leaked like a sieve. I still have it, but use it principally to hold my crayons.

Moral of the story – The old baseball saying of “wait’ll next year” is just so much horse pucky.

JJ versus the National Fire Hazard Dilemma

When Blue-eyes and I first moved in to the new house, we were faced with multiple landscaping dilemmas. Neither one of us knew much about horticulture and little about landscaping architecture. For the most part, I left the selection up to her, principally because she had a friend that was a part-time professional landscaper. All in all, things worked out real well, with the exception of a few minor issues. Over time we discovered we could not grow azaleas or rhododendrons. We did all sorts of things to improve the soil, but it just seemed as though the great plant-God in the sky had deemed our land not suitable for the continued growth of these plants. Frankly, the best we got from them was about two years and maybe one blossoming cycle. We murdered more azaleas and rodies than I care to count because we just kept trying, but to no avail.

One of the more enlightened suggestions made by her semi-professional landscaping buddy was to put in what she termed as “fast growth eucalyptus bushes” that were supposed to achieve 15 feet in approximately a year and then stop at that height. To bore you with some of the details, we had an area that basically would be partially underwater during the wintertime. This area was what we called Bear Creek, and we used to ask each other after a good rain “Is Bear Creek rising?” (This was really no joke, as I will explain in a future story about a storm sewer that goes nowhere, funded by mandatory property liens and easements.)

Based on the information that we got, it sounded like these “bushes” would be a suitable barrier between the two properties. They could live in a rather inhospitable environment, meaning a whole bunch of damn water in the winter. Euke’s are a hearty breed.

Well, Blue-eyes’ buddy was partially right, and what started as a 2 foot bush at the end of two years was approximately 12 to 15 feet high. Great! That did the job. One minor problem! They didn’t stop growing. Fast forward 10 or 15 years and we now had six 50 to 60 foot gigantic eucalyptus trees in our backyard. Under the circumstances, it was okay. They’re actually a very pretty tree and one of the benefits was they were the home for a multitude of our avian brothers. They were relatively clean trees, with minor issues of dead leaves and branches, but for the most part, maintenance free. Or so I thought!

One of the standing jokes between Blue-eyes and me was the definition of a bush. Whenever I mentioned this to her I was usually greeted with “half the peace symbol,” which was very uncharacteristic – meaning that I’d hit a nerve. Sometimes this was soon followed by “Do you want to sleep on the couch – again?”

One summer day I came home from work, greeted by a note in the mailbox from our local fire district. It basically said that my eucalyptus trees were considered a fire hazard by one of my “wonderful neighbors.” I found this somewhat intriguing in that there had been no discussions with us by our “wonderful neighbors,” not that we talked that often, if I could possibly avoid it. According to this citation, I had so many days to correct the problem of dead or dying limbs in my deviant “bush” Eucalyptus trees. There was a number to call regarding the problem. I spoke to what I assume was a fireman who explained that he had been on the property and had inspected the trees and concurred they were hazards.

So, I called a number of the so-called tree trimming services and had estimates running between 1720 and 2500 bucks to come out and trim the dead branches, which did not include hauling the debris away. Sticker shock! A day or so after this, I noticed some construction being done in our area, and there was what could be euphemistically called a “cherry picker” that had a sign indicating where it had been rented from. The one I saw could extend approximately 60 feet. It was a monstrous, self-driven unit with a basket control system to put you where you needed to be while 60 feet in the air. I watched a guy operating this thing for a while, and came to the conclusion that it was a no-brainer. JJ in his wisdom decided, in that he had already invested in a 14 inch man-killing chainsaw, that he would undertake this project himself. Mistake number one!

When I got home I told Blue-eyes what I had in mind. She immediately got out my life insurance policy to see if it covered my death by a tree trimming accident, or being crushed by a 60 foot hoist or possibly decapitating myself with my trusty chainsaw. We sat around that night wondering which one of our “wonderful neighbors” filed the complaint.

I ordered this humongous thing for the weekend and it cost me 250 bucks. I got home on Friday and there it sat in my driveway. I had to figure out how to get it into the back yard. It was a close call, but I did not have to take down any fences and maneuvered this beast over to Blue-eyes’ 60 foot bushes. It was early spring and we had had a little bit of rain, but not a lot, but mother nature decided to dump a bunch of water on us that night.

In that the little device was not to be picked up until mid-afternoon Monday, I held off until after lunch Saturday. I fired this devil up and hoisted my dumb butt up to the first candidate and began trimming and yelling timber as each branch fell to the ground. After about two hours, I was working on the third tree and was becoming a little more accustomed to the unnerving and rather unsteady motivations of the cherry picker. It had a tendency to do a lot of swaying as I moved from branch to branch.

While I was doing this, our “wonderful neighbors” came out with a camera and was taking pictures of stupid (meaning me), swaying back and forth 60 feet in the air. I could only assume it was for insurance purposes, in case I came crashing down onto their property. Naturally, neither one of them offered to come and help clean up debris, but I naturally would have declined their services because I was having so much fun.

Predicated on my inexperience, I cut some of the branches in such fashion as they fell on both me and the basket, which created some interesting moments while perched 60 feet in the air on a mechanical device that now seemed to have a mind of its own. I quit for the day after successfully trimming half of the trees without killing myself or dumping the beast over on its side.

I finally went into the house, did a backflip into a martini, shaken but not stirred, while Blue-eyes tended to my various cuts and abrasions, while commenting, “You’re really weird, you know that?” At least she didn’t say, “You dumb jar-head.” One of the disturbing elements was I noticed a great many birds’ nests in the debris, lying on the ground. I was certain that I had thoroughly pissed off a number of our avian nation inhabitants. I assumed that the next fun thing that would happen is I would have picketers in my front yard from the National Audubon Society.

It rained a little bit that night, but not enough for real concern, or so I thought. Mistake number two! The next morning I started the process again, but a little less aggressively. By five o’clock that night, I had finished the project and lowered the basket to its normal passive position. I then decided I would put the unit in the front driveway so that it could be picked up Monday while I was at work. What I hadn’t noticed was that I was in a soft area of the lawn and the tires had sunk approximately 6 inches. It was stuck! I attempted to move the unit by going from fast-forward to fast reverse – only to be rewarded by sinking it a little further.

I sat in the cab with my head on the steering wheel, contemplating that it was going to cost me at least $1000 to have this sucker towed out of my backyard. Then I got a bright idea! I extended the basket and boom out in the direction I wanted to go, to take a majority of the weight off the tires and low and behold, it worked! I gleefully drove this monster to the front driveway, unfortunately taking out one of my gates in my haste to get this devil off the soft soil.

Sweet smell of success. I had conquered the monster cherry picker and saved myself a couple of grand. I still had one hell of an amount of debris, but we had a chipper and could resolve that issue in a hurry, plus those larger branches were cut into firewood, which I rationalized as additional savings.

Later that week, I called the number to report that I had cleared out the branches, etc. and was ready for the mandatory inspection. The fire guy said he would come out Friday afternoon at about three o’clock, so I took off work early to meet him. They showed up in a big red fire engine, pulled into the driveway and knocked off two big branches off a birch tree. That was O.K., it needed trimming anyway! We walked into the backyard and I showed them my handiwork. At first they were a little confused, and then pointed to some eucalyptus trees in an area in the back of the property and said, “That’s great, but those are the trees that needed trimming or removal!” At that point I’m sure I had tears in my eyes and said, “Those are not my trees, they belong to my neighbor!” They left, and I went in and did a backflip into a martini.

We never did determine who complained. Nothing was ever done about the trees that were the real culprits until they fell over a few years later and took about 50 feet of my grape-stake fence, which was covered by insurance at an estimated 30 bucks per foot, paid for by my “dead eucalyptus” neighbor. I wish that insurance company had bought all of my fencing.

Moral of the Story – Jack had his bean stalk, which grew to the sky. Blue-eyes had her bushes that were ever so high.

Wild Beasties – Raccoons, Ducks, Squirrels, Potatoes, Baseball, World War I and John Wayne

 

I came up with that title figuring some of you would be screwing around surfing the web, and I figured on getting a bunch of hits just by mentioning the “Duke.” Baseball is only mentioned because it’s October and the end of the season is near. However, if professional baseball keeps going the way they have, we won’t have the World Series until the day after Christmas. I just thought I’d throw that in as an editorial comment. But I digress!

Some years back, in the middle of the night I woke up to this god-awful noise in the backyard, and a lot of splashing. If you’re not aware of it, we have this huge pool that has attracted many things that are not human – and least of all, poor swimmers. I hauled my butt out of bed, turned on the outside lights and discovered two raccoons in the pool on top of my thermal pool blanket. They couldn’t get out of the pool because they were heavier than the solar blanket. So every time they would move, they would sink. They couldn’t swim because they were on the blanket and their nasty little sharp claws were not doing it a lot of good. They were in what you could call “panic city.” There was a third one sitting next to the pool watching this action. For a second or two, I thought this insensitive beast was laughing, but I couldn’t be sure. At the very least it was grinning, if indeed a raccoon can grin.

So like a Good Samaritan that I am, I grabbed the pool cleaning net and fished the two raccoons out. They did not take off like I would’ve expected, but instead continued the fight which more than likely had caused them to take a dive in the first place. One of them went splashing back in the pool again and the others just stood there. Raccoons can see well in the dark, but don’t do real great with the lights on. Clearly, the two combatants were fighting over the third raccoon which was most likely a female. I guess raccoons have some human traits after all. Clearly, the female was at fault, as usual. Possibly, it was two females fighting over the male, which is the way that it should be in the first place. I digress!

So, I fished this love-sick diminutive bandit out of the pool again and decided it was time to chase this trio into another county. I had a large push broom sitting next to the pool, and got it with the intent of scaring these potential participants in a ménage à trois into my flaky neighbor’s yard, with the hopes that they would wake him up. Much to my surprise and immediate concern, the female got up on her hind legs, showed me a huge amount of her teeth and clearly she had decided she needed a chunk of JJ. At that point, I decided discretion was the better part of valor and did a hasty retreat into the bedroom.

By then, Blue-eyes was awake and had been watching from the door. As I scurried into the house, her comment was, “I didn’t think anything could make a Marine retreat that fast.” I think I grunted and began humming the Marine Corps’ hymn. We watched as the trio silently made their way into the darkness. A couple of nights later, there was another fight, but this time they did not end up in the pool, but did manage to knock over some patio furniture.

A few years ago in the early spring, Blue-eyes came in and exclaimed that a bunch of ducks were in the pool. I went out and sure enough, there were 15 or 16 wild ducks paddling around in our chemical-infested pool. They paid no attention to us whatsoever. I didn’t know if it was duck season or not, but I was really tempted to go get my Remington 22 and have smoked duck for dinner. But then I started to think about Donald, Daffy and Daisy and decided it really wasn’t a good idea. Besides, firing a 22 where we live would have the Sheriff, FBI, the National Guard and the Border Patrol in our front driveway in a matter of seconds. It was kind of fun to watch them paddling back and forth, then all of a sudden I realized that they were leaving a whole bunch of deposits that were completely unwanted. So I ran around waving my arms and eventually they took off.

About two weeks later they reappeared, only this time there were more. I did the same routine that I had done before, barking like a dog and making loud noises and attempting to emulate a shot, assuming that would get their attention. They eventually flew off, but returned the next morning. I couldn’t figure out how to dissuade them, but Blue-eyes, in her omnipotent wisdom came up with a solution. “Go get a large picture of a 12 gauge Winchester shotgun and hang it up by the side of the house.” I didn’t do it, but I thought it was a hell of a good idea. I did get my leaf net and attempted to capture one. They were too fast. Blue-eyes rushed into the house to get a camera, because she wanted to have evidence that I had finally gone over the edge. They eventually left and we only had one other sighting, but that was only three birds.

The other day, while I was standing at the back patio door, I saw this demented squirrel absolutely intent on planting walnuts in the seat cushions of my patio chairs. I chased her away and found five walnuts stuck in the creases of the cushions. This girl didn’t go far, sat about 40 feet away on the lawn and looked at me. I threw the nuts at her hoping she would get the message. She scampered away leaving her winter’s dietary supplement laying in the middle my lawn. I suspect she figured that nobody in JJ’s family would realize that they were sitting on a bunch of walnuts. Hell, she may have been right! I’ve certainly been called “hard ass” more than once. For the educators reading this – first of all, shame on you, and second, I want to explain that this is a figurative condition and not literal.

Well, she’s back, and now unfortunately she is digging a hole into a $20 cushion and I suspect it’s to get even with me for throwing nuts at her. Notice I say “she” and “her!” Do not assume that I’m being a chauvinistic, because the females are mainly responsible for the “nut burying process.” Ask any squirrel devotees and they’ll confirm what I just suggested. You can also tell that they are females because they have to carry a GPS system to remember where they put the last nut. Oh hell, I just couldn’t resist!

I made a decision to get out my trusty Red Ryder lever action BB gun, and pop this little product from an illicit relationship in the butt. I don’t want to kill it, but only to make sure that it gets the message that it and its actions are persona non-grata. I assure you, if you’ve ever been popped in the butt with a BB, you remember it. It hurts you just enough to make you a little squirrely. I didn’t really say that, did I?

The squirrel episode reminds me of an event last week or so when I was driving downtown behind an SUV with a bumper sticker saying “I brake for Squirrels.” I thought, “Now that’s a kindhearted soul!” After following her for a few moments, I came to the conclusion that the squirrels had to be about the only thing that she could possibly brake for! She (this is an assumption on my part because it could’ve been a weird-looking dude in drag) didn’t stop for pedestrians in a crosswalk; blew through a stop sign; honked at some old guy with a cane, jaywalking; and cut off another driver on a left turn. All of this within three blocks. If you read one of my blogs you might assume this could be the same lady that kicked my left front tire while she was talking on her cell phone while parked in the middle of the street. At the very least, these two went to the same driving school. Had that been me, I would’ve had at least five tickets and be qualified for the ”three strikes and you’re out” law.

My turn to cook, so I started dinner, which is going to consist of a shrimp and lettuce salad with creamy ranch dressing, steak and potatoes served on paper plates because it’s also my turn to do the dishes. I’m a little worried about the potatoes because they have these little green things growing on them, so I figure it best to use them quickly before they develop into large flesh eating carnivorous beasts. I suspect I will have to go plant the unused spuds in my garden, as I’m sure that the gophers that have infested this area are starving to death.

What’s the derivation of the word “spud?” I think it’s from a World War I movie! “Capt. Goodheart was flying his trusty, bullet-riddled “Spud” when the German “Fokker” came out of the clouds and into his gun-sights. He pressed the trigger of his twin Balfour machine guns and saluted as the Fokker went down in flames. Actually, I don’t think it was “spud,” I think that was “Spad.” Fokker is another one of those words you have to be very careful pronouncing.

Why do they call those little spots on potatoes “eyes?” Can they really see what you’re about to do to them with the potato peeler? I use the tip of the peeler to gouge these spots out because I’m not keen on eating eyes. Most everything else is okay, but I draw the line there. I could swear I heard one of them screaming in a loud voice “Help me! Help me!” (That’s from an old movie called “The Fly,” and could have ended within the first 5 minutes if they’d had a spraying can of Raid handy.) This event could go down in history as the Great Potato Massacre of Wounded Knee, which is a reference to my left knee cap or whatever still remains.

I’m recording a baseball game so that I can go back and play it on a fast-forward basis. I can watch the complete nine inning game in 22 minutes. Baseball is at best semi-boring as a player, and extremely boring if you have to watch it. I am fascinated by the fact that the batters play with their Velcro batting gloves, taking a long time adjusting the gloves after each pitch, whether they’ve swung at the ball or not. What did these guys play with before they allowed the batting gloves? Don’t go there!

Think of the time they would save if they would outlaw batting gloves. This is something that I’m absolutely certain you will ponder over for the next three or four days, and more than likely come up with a meaningful solution that can be inserted into the rulebook for next season.

Another thing that strikes me as bizarre is the amount of “crotch grabbing” when they get on base. These professionals should have an award for whoever grabs their crotch the most during the season. The trophy could be a Golden Cup and a lifetime supply of talcum powder.

Tonight after dinner and throwing away the plates, I’m going to watch a John Wayne film called “Sands of Iwo Jima.” I always cry at the end when “Duke” gets killed, but I do the same thing with “Old Yeller” and ”An Affair to Remember.” I really didn’t think Nicky was that great of a painter! Based on the one scene where you see her portrait, I can understand why the dealer gave it away. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, you’ll have to watch the movie.

As far as Old Yeller is concerned, I think the guy that shot him would have been better off using a shotgun. If he had missed with that rifle and just wounded him, it would have pissed Yeller off no end, and he was close enough to cause all kinds of problems and that would’ve made a whole different ending to the movie. Yuck! The movie promos would’ve been “Come and watch the latest Disney family thriller about a rabid dog that kills family of six. This film is rated PG-4.”

Moral of the story – If you’re going use paper plates make sure you don’t forget the plastic utensils.

JJ in the Majors – Little League, that is!

After a two-year hiatus, my professional responsibilities had changed once again, and I was given the opportunity to manage in the “biggies.” In our Little League community this was called “the Majors,” and consisted of players between the ages of 10 and 12. When you reach 11 years old you were out of the minors, regardless of skills, and so the Dauntless Dodgers were disbanded after succeeding to multiple championships, thanks to the tutelage of yours truly. Don’t I wish?

The coach that followed me knew what he was doing, and “Dem Bums” had a rather fantastic record, mostly because of the few players like “Scooter,” who, when on base didn’t know when to stop. I was happy to hear that his Mom, “Miss Congeniality of 1901,” was continuing her quest and was harassing the new Dodgers coach. I had begun to think I was not going to be in her will.

The new team was given the name “Indians,” and I was pretty unhappy about that for a couple of reasons. One – the Indians had to be one of the worst teams in pro baseball, and two – I was worried that the parents would develop the “chop” and “war chant” adopted by the Atlanta Braves. I had a plan to have the kids put on war paint before every game, but Blue-eyes talked me out of this idea as being somewhat insensitive. Seemed like a good idea at the time.

I did teach the kids a few steps of a war dance and we would yell “Geronimo” anytime someone got a hit. The gang decided that everybody’s nick name was “ke-mo sah-bee.” I heard later that they were doing the same thing in school, and that it didn’t go over real big with the administration. Nobody has a sense of humor anymore! By the way, “ke-mo-sah-bee” means good friend or good scout, not the more popular interpretation of the old joke “**it for brains.”

The rules were pretty much the same as the minors; however the skill sets of the kids were greatly improved. You could no longer just run rampant on the bases, because some of the curtain climbers were quite capable of fielding a ball and delivering it to the proper place, in a reasonable location and at the proper time. For me, that was a great revelation and I would clearly have to change my winning strategy, which could best be defined as “antelope baseball.” These kids could actually get the ball out of the infield and in some instances the 12-year-olds could hit that thing a ton.

Come draft time, I really didn’t know much about most of the players and the only tryouts that were held were for new kids just coming into the league. The Indians only had four returning players. Tom was one of them. I had to rely on JJ Junior and Tom, whose acumen in these matters exceeded mine. I got JJ Junior because he was my son and I think he regretted it when jokingly one day I said, “Thank God, we’ve got an experienced catcher.” He worked me up a list of names for the draft, and one of the top players was Scooter. He told me I really needed to draft him, and my comment was “Yeah, but the problem is – you get Scooter, you get his Mom.”

Junior confessed that I had a good point. I thought about it and the solution I came up with was to draft Scooter, and make his Mom our assistant manager, figuring if she had some complaint I could just look at her and say “Talk to the assistant manager.” Also, that way I could fire her. It didn’t happen because Scooter went in the first round to the Red Sox. I was able to draft a couple of the old Dodger doofuses.

So, we started the practice routine with the same rule – make it to practice if you want to play more than two innings. True to form, I had drafted a couple of prima donnas that figured they didn’t need to practice, and come the first game, which we lost, they did not start and were relegated to two innings. They still didn’t show up for practice and they didn’t start the second game, which we won. They again only played two innings and got the message. The Indians still had their fair share of the less than competent, two-inning players. Unfortunately, none of them had Doc’s unique one-liners. The neat thing was these kids didn’t complain and were team players, and when they were playing they did indeed concentrate.

On our first game with the Red Sox, all of the gang showed up with feathers stuck in the back of their hats. Our faithful gallery of parents and friends thought this was hilarious. Where they got all of the feathers, I will never know and probably don’t want to. I suspect there were some poor unsuspecting chickens running around somewhat bare-assed. No question – these kids were resourceful.

Scooter’s Mom was there and came to our dugout somewhat indignant. Her comment was to the effect that we were being politically incorrect. She said our name was bad enough, but all of the war whoops and general Indian antics was really an insult. I looked at her and said “It’s really okay, because one of our player’s name is Inder Singh.” She looked at me as if I were two cans short of a six-pack and went back to her bleachers, shaking her head. Score one for JJ! I was thinking that maybe she should move to Cleveland and start a crusade. I’m certain she wrote her congressman that night. I guess I should say congress-person.

We lost that game to the Red Sox. Scooter got walked on four pitches, and scored the winning run on a legitimate hit in the last of the seventh. He was still doing the squat routine at the plate, no strike zone, which irritated me no end. I guess that’s what you could call being hoisted on your own petard. Scooter came over after the game to say hello. His mother, Ms. Congeniality, came quickly to our dugout, scowling with the obvious assumption that I was contaminating his mind, probably teaching him swear words in Navaho. She gave me a look that could only be interpreted as triumphant, and that this loss was my penalty for being politically incorrect. I never met Mr. Congeniality, but I suspect that she nagged him to death and that he was buried someplace in their back yard.

When I got home, I did a back-flip into martini, shaken not stirred, and Blue-eyes commented that she had seen the encounter. She said she was going to make it a point to sit next to her the next time we played the Red Sox and cheer for the Indians while humming the Braves’ war chant, accompanied by the Tomahawk Chop. Clearly, Blue-eyes’s Bohemian-Indian blood was up, because she headed directly for the “fire water.”

On another game days, one of the kids showed up with a can of eye black. The next thing I knew, not only was it under their eyes but it was on their noses and a couple of the more inventive ones drew a mustache and sideburns. One of the league officials was there, and of course, they were required to remove this distasteful display of non-adherence to the sacred rules of Little League. I didn’t know this person and asked that he show me where in the rulebook it said they couldn’t wear eye black. Granted, they over-did it a little bit, but I think this fell in the same category as jockstraps and cups.

Naturally, I got blamed for having a bad attitude and received a phone call from the league president, who also had no sense of humor. I’m sure the feather episode didn’t help, because I’m certain they got a phone call from some irate chicken. I think I offered to share the eye black with any team that wanted to use it, and if necessary, by the chickens – dead or alive.

For the most part, the Indians were good group of kids, with the exception of one of the prima donnas who did nothing but complain about his fellow teammates and their lack of skills not being equal to his own. He was getting called out on third strikes, and of course, this was always an umpire’s bad call. I told him one of the strange idiosyncrasies of this game is that if you want to hit the ball, you must swing at. This kid was a real pain, but I know where he got it from. His dad, or possibly his custodian, was obviously vicariously reliving his youth, and had stopped me after another game which we had lost and made a bunch of suggestions.

One of his more brilliant observations was, “We should really do the double play more, because we were allowing too many runners on base.” My answer was, “Hell, we’re lucky to get the ball to first base, let alone thrown it all over the field trying to do a double play.” He was somewhat insistent, so my solution was to invite him to come and help me during practices and he could concentrate on the “double play.” That ended that, he didn’t have any more constructive ideas about how we should try to play baseball. I say “try,” because at that point that’s the best that could be said about the Indians’ efforts. Our “war whoops” were getting more authentic, however.

We actually did get a double play in a subsequent game and I looked around for him, but he wasn’t there. He was probably busy writing the memoirs of Abner Doubleday. Some of the parents were thoughtful enough to offer me a “cold one” after the games, and of course I got busted and got another phone call from the league president. His position was that we should be considering the kids and I think I commented “The kids should bring their own beer!” Whatever happened to “beer; hotdogs, peanuts and Crackerjacks” being part of the grand old game?

Our record was dismal and unfortunately matched the performance of our professional namesake. The kids were taking it pretty well, and the general comments they made after yet another loss was “We are in a rebuilding mode.” We came in at the bottom in the first half of the season, and I lost two of our better players and had to draft up a couple more ten-year-olds from the minors. Thanks to JJ Jr’s scouting report, they turned out to be better players than the two we lost.

The “pappoose’s” comments were that we would do better in the second half. I think they were thinking along the line of “Little Big Horn,” and that I was “Custer.” The team was positive, but I was less than optimistic. After our last game at the halfway point, which we had won rather handily, one of the dads came up afterward and said “Well, there’s light at the end of the tunnel.” My answer was “Yeah, I just hope it isn’t an onrushing train.” Old Doc would’ve been proud me.

Moral of the story –  If you’re going to have a “cool one” after a Little League game, make sure it’s in a plain brown wrapper, and tell the kids to bring their own damn beer.

The Dauntless Dodgers – The Final Curtain

We left the Dodgers in something of a state of flux in my previous story. They ended the first half of their season two games behind the Giants, tied for third place out of five teams, which was something of a miracle and somewhat predetermined. Our loss record was greater than our wins. As I mentioned in my previous scenario about “Dem Bums,” we were becoming more competitive with each game, and actually began to resemble something akin to a baseball team. I had developed a batting lineup that entailed putting those kids likely to make contact between those players likely to get walked. It helped, but we still made too many mistakes.

The kids could be down by 10 runs in the late innings and would start a chant, “It ain’t over till it’s over,” straight out of Yogi Berra (or was that Yogi Bear). I thought about mentioning, “It ain’t over till that fat lady sings,” but decided that would be politically incorrect. Besides, I think that has more to do with Opera than baseball! Although, come to think of it, some of the Moms were rather Wagnerian and resembled the Valkyries. If you have no idea as to what I’m talking about, you’ll have to look it up on the web, because it’s too much to try to explain here. I digress!

When “Doc” would go to the batter’s box, he began to squat down so low that there was no real strike zone. The ball was either in the dirt or over his head, so he had a high probability of getting on base. When he got on base, the fun would really begin. If somebody hit the ball he would run until he was either out or would score. Please don’t get the impression that I coached “Doc” into this batting, base-running technique. I wouldn’t stoop to such a low and unsavory, unsportsmanlike practice. (Sorry, I couldn’t help myself.) I asked him why he started doing that, and his response was he “was reducing the strike zone by an order of magnitude.”

Now – that scared the hell out me! He said that he had watched a TV program about a manager in the majors who had actually hired a midget, and would put him in when he needed somebody on base. This is true! The guy’s name was Bill Veeck, and he did it in the early 50s. Eventually the league banned the use of “little people” in the major leagues. “Doc” was a real thinker! He would still get some hacks in, but that was a hopeless cause.

Our fielding acumen however, left a lot to be desired. To offset this inconsistency, we really did not have an outfield because they were brought to within 20 feet of the infield grass. I modified that only when I got information from the scouting reports that so-and-so could hit. We still needed to work with the outfielders, because anything hit in the air to them was usually an unmitigated disaster. But not all of the time. One of our limited-talent outfielders actually caught a fly ball. He was so happy, he ran all the way in to the pitcher’s mound and handed him the ball. He got a standing ovation.

You have to remember that these were young kids, and to them a hardball was a dangerous thing, and in fact, could cause bodily harm. Getting hit by a batted ball or a pitch is not pleasant, especially if it’s in the mouth or face. A majority of the kids were really afraid of the pitcher and would bail out of the batter’s box, even if the ball wasn’t close. I really couldn’t blame them because the majority of pitchers, including our own, had little or no control. They did get to go to first base if they took one for the team, however, I doubt that they thought it was worth the pain.

So, next on the agenda was to teach them how to get out of the way, and in such a fashion that they did not increase the probability that they were going to get nailed by the pitch. For whatever reason, most of them would turn into the ball, rather than turning away from the ball. In some instances, they would just freeze. This was bad, because many of the kids began showing a degree of fear, specifically those kids that were playing organized hardball for the first time. It was pretty easy to detect, because they were bailing out early, or were literally reluctant to bat. As Martha Stewart would say, “Not a good thing,” but I don’t think she played much baseball, even while she did her time in the low-risk, boutique clink.

So I asked JJ Junior, who is pretty good pitcher, to throw the ball at me so I could demonstrate how to get out of the way. After he plunked me three times, smiling after each of my painful grunts, I really began thinking that this was a bad idea. JJ Junior was getting even because I made him a catcher. I was able to coach each would-be “major league” prospect on how to bailout or duck, or just plain fall on the ground to avoid being nailed. I put each batter at the plate with the catchers vest on, and went to the pitching mound and told them I was going throw at them. I did – but not hard, and they got out of the way. Sweet smell of success!

When “Doc” climbed into the catchers vest, he literally disappeared, waddled to the plate, and I suddenly realized that there was not much of his body visible to throw at. All I could see was this little black mound, a bat, and a helmet that was five sizes too large. He actually dove out of the way a couple times, and had a big grin on his face. I think the kid was a masochist. The other rule I had was no swearing in the dugout. These kids knew some really choice words. It was a good thing none of the Moms were around to watch this mean man throwing baseballs at their little darlings.

There was this kid that his teammates call “Scooter,” because he could run like a deer. He was even faster on two legs. That’s a joke! I don’t know why people say “run like deer,” because when they do I envision this person on all fours hopping and weaving all over the place. Anyway, the problem with Scooter was getting him to stop on those little white things called bags. One time, he scored all the way from first base on a grounder hit back to the pitcher. But frankly, that’s how we got most of our runs. There were others of these speed demons that did the same thing, until we made it clear what little white bags were for.

“Scooter” had a rabbit’s foot attached to the back of his hat, and one day I asked him what it was for. He answered, “Good luck!” Feeling somewhat whimsical, I looked at him and said something to the effect that I wasn’t sure that it was working, because look what happened to the rabbit, and he had four of them. He just looked back at me and said, “Well, I guess there’s a three-legged rabbit out there somewhere.” He and “Doc” were good friends and now I understood why. “Doc” was a realist and “Scooter” was an optimist. “Scooter” did become a good ballplayer.

As the second half of the season rolled on, we were actually winning more games than we were losing. The deviant and nontraditional batting order was actually working quite well. Our infield started to tighten up and our pitching surprisingly was walking fewer batters. We had beaten the Giants once, and had one more game to play against them. This was crucial, because the Giants once again were leading in the second half with only five games to go. The way the league worked is if you won both halves, you were the champs. So, to have a shot at being champs, the pressure was on us to beat the Giants again.

The league had another rule that I didn’t know about, as I hadn’t bothered to read the rulebook. Our diminutive league was considered the minors, junior to the players in the age bracket of 10 to 12, which were considered the majors, and was something of an oxymoron. My little Dodgers were good enough at this point to beat some of the teams in the majors. This rule – simply put – said that if a team in the majors lost players (leaving fewer than 12 players on their roster), they could draft a 10 year old from one of the teams in the minors. Guess what! The day before the Giants game, I got a call and was told that I had lost one of my best players. I was really bummed, but that’s showbiz.

The team didn’t really understand how that could happen, and thought it was unfair. I had to remind them, for the umpteenth time, of my rule about swearing in the dugout. I was concerned that this event would cause a letdown. Just the reverse happened. We played the Giants and beat them hands down. All we had to do now was win our four remaining games, assuming that the Giants would win their remaining games, and we would be champs of the second half by virtue of the fact that we had beaten the Giants twice. We won three of the final four, but so did the Giants.

The last crucial game was to be played on a Saturday, following the Giants final game. All of the team showed up to root for the Giants’ opposition, but to no avail. The Giants won easily. Now it was my “Bums” turn for final glory and the victory parade that would follow. The adrenaline level was out of sight and their confidence was vibrant. Although we were missing one of our better hitters and a real solid infielder, we held together quite well, and we approached the seventh inning leading by two runs.

We were the visiting team, so all we had to do was get three outs in the seventh. I had saved one of my better pitchers for the last three innings. We got two quick outs, but then gave up a walk and a base hit. The next kid coming to the plate was identified by my scouts is not being a real good hitter. We got two strikes on him in a hurry. The next pitch he hit was a bomb, way out to center field, and two runs scored – tying the game as he rounded third to come in with an inside-the-park home run. There was no trophy for second place.

“Ah! There is no joy in Mudville tonight,” or as they say “Game, Set and Match.” Sorry, wrong sport. Some guy that was clearly a Giants parent kept yelling, “Giants win the pennant. The Giants win the pennant.” He had to be from the Bronx. The kids took it pretty well, certainly better than some of the parents and unequivocally better than their coach. “Doc” and “Scooter” were standing in the front of the dugout, tears streaming down their eyes and yelling “Wait’ll next year.” You gotta love those two. If I had seen the movie “Bad News Bears,” I would’ve opened up the beer and passed it out. But I hadn’t seen the movie.

The Minors, like Majors, had the managers select the All-Star team at the end of the season, and they would go on to play other teams in other franchises. A total of 15 players were chosen, and the Dodgers, “Dem Bums,” had five All-Star players. The Giants had two.

That was my only year with the Dodgers. My job responsibilities had changed, and I was traveling a great deal more and really could not take the management of the “Daunting Dodgers.” I was able to get to a few of their games the next year, but it wasn’t the same. JJ Junior and Tom stayed with the team. “Doc” and “Scooter” had been prophetic. The Dodgers won it all, but “Scooter” had broken his arm and “Doc” had moved. JJ Junior developed some lifelong friendships during his tenure with the Dodgers. I stayed in touch with many of the players. They would come to the house to go swimming or whatever. I eventually managed a team in the Majors, and some of old Dodgers fell under my fantastic baseball tutelage once again. Right!!  But that’s another story.

Moral of the story –  If you see a three legged rabbit, then you’ll know “Scooter” had it right.

The Return of the Dauntless Dodgers

At the end of my other story, Enter Little League, we left this pint-size team, having successfully snatched victory from jaws of defeat. I didn’t offer much of a description of how this was accomplished, other than a timely hit during the last inning. To give you a flavor of the baseball acumen of both these teams, I will just note that the final score was something like 25 to 24. At best, I think there were maybe nine balls actually hit, and maybe only two of those got into the outfield, with some direct assistance from the infielders.

It was your classic pitchers’ duel, but with a reverse concept of “How many can we walk?” A majority of the runs were created by walks with the bases loaded. On one occasion, one kid was forced in by yet another walk, and to show his baseball prowess, he slid into home. Out of curiosity more than anything else I asked him, “Why did you do that?” He answered, ”I don’t know! I just wanted to try it.” Our would-be orthodontist, Westley, who I had nick-named “Doc,” was standing there and commented, “He probably had an irresistible urge.”

There were many strikeouts, but very few were called by the umpire. One of the kids actually had hit a ball that bounced twice before it got to home plate. “Doc” swung so hard at a pitch, he missed it, but the ball hit the bat’s back swing and he ended up on second base. Now that takes real talent! His mother came over later, and asked me if I had taught him that trick. I told her, “No! I think Westley has got God-given talents.”

“Doc” was one of my two innings players, who played in the outfield. I say played, but I mean he usually sat down and plucked grass or filled in gopher mounds. I don’t think he hit the ball again the rest of the year. “Doc” was a good kid, the smallest kid on the team, tried real hard, came to all the practices, and would come up with some of the funniest one-liners that I ever heard. He was only with the Dodgers that one year, as his family moved. I often wondered if he ever did become an orthodontist. I knew one thing for sure; he was not going to be a professional baseball player!

For those of you that have not had the Little League experience, I will explain a few of the rules that exist to impede the natural tendencies of the kids to be a little assertive, and get into the spirit of the good clean fun of baseball. As an example, there was a rule stating you can’t wear spikes. This, of course, eliminated the need on my part to teach them how to sharpen their spikes. There was another rule that said “no stealing,” which I think was incorporated to give the impression that this sport is meant to be a role model against the concept of theft and general corruption. I must make note to you that there was no mention of the use of steroids!

To make matters worse, if you’re on any base, you had to stay there until the pitcher released the ball. No leading off. If the catcher failed to catch the ball, you still had to stay there, meaning you can’t run down to second or third or anywhere. You had to stay there. Another rule was the manager or coach could not go onto the field. During one of the games, our infield was in its usual sieve-like configuration. My second baseman attempted to field a ground ball, missed it and fell on his face, got up, sat down on second base, then threw his glove at our pitcher. I was really encouraged by that, because the glove actually came close to his target.

I could see he was upset, so I went out to talk to him. The umpire, a 16-year-old kid, came over and said that I couldn’t do that and I had to get off the field unless the kid was hurt. I looked at the kid umpire and said, “I think he gave himself a hernia.” I don’t think the umpire knew what that meant, because he just turned around and went back to home plate.

One of the other interesting rules was something of a mandate. All players must wear a jock strap (aka athletic supporter) and a cup. I was somewhat intrigued by this level of protection at this particular point in our young men’s development, and conceded the only possible necessity for this might be for the catcher. I passed out the device at a team practice. It got more than a little complicated when I tried to explain to the team what the purpose was, and how to wear it. They seem to accept my explanation. I knew that both the rule and I were doomed to failure when at the next game, they were flipping their jockstraps like slingshots – over the fence into the crowd of the parents. After that little episode, we were known as the “Flying Jocks of the Dodgers.”

Westley’s Mom came to the dugout and demanded an explanation. At that point, I wasn’t sure whether she wanted to know what this little elastic strap “thingie” was, or why the boys were being so unruly! Tom and JJ Junior thought this concept was so funny that they wore them on the outside of their uniform trousers. The “big guy,” El Presidente was there, and he went into absolute hysterics at this scenario. I couldn’t figure out how they were going to enforce this rule. I could hear it now, “Okay gentlemen, crotch inspection time.” Later, he told me that the Dodgers had to have a little more self-restraint on the field. After he said that, he started laughing, turned around and left.

After the first couple of games, which consisted of the kids not doing much more than running around the bases, the Dodgers management went into a strategy conference, which was me talking to myself. Clearly, the name of this game was “run until you have to stop,” and hopefully that’s at home plate. It was evident at this stage that there was not going to be a lot of hitting, and if there was that happy accident, the kids needed to understand that it was unlikely that the ball would end up in the right place at the right time.

So, we really worked on running the bases and watching the other players throw the ball here, there and everywhere. It was probable that if at any time someone actually hit the ball, the likelihood of someone catching it was about as remote as finding the Fountain of Youth. I had eliminated infield warm-ups because it was too painful to watch.

We still had at least one practice a week, and sometimes two. It clearly became important to attempt to instill the basics, because if we could do that we could be competitive. Doing nothing but getting bases on balls was pretty boring, and I could tell that the kids felt that way as well. I had one rule. You had to show up for practice if you wanted to play more than two innings. I asked only that they call me if they were going to miss practice. I had a couple kids that thought they were too good to have to practice, and when they didn’t show up, I wouldn’t start them the next game.

On one occasion a father came over, who appeared a little red-assed, asked me why I wasn’t starting his little Johnny, because clearly his ”little Johnny was one of the best players on the team.” I just looked at him and told him that little Johnny doesn’t like to come to practice, and these other kids worked for a couple hours to improve their skills. So if little Johnny wants to play more, then he should show up for practice. With that, Dad turned and went back to the bleachers. Little Johnny started showing up for practice.

We concentrated on hitting and fielding, and naturally I took the best players and put them in the infield. We didn’t use the T-ball concept because hitting a stationary target versus a moving one is two different things. Four of the kids could actually pitch well enough to get the ball close to the plate, some of the time, so we didn’t work on any of that. I didn’t bother to teach them any pitches, like a curve (which should not be used in Little League anyway because it can screw up a kid’s arm in a hurry).

By about the fourth or fifth game we actually started getting hits, and much to everyone’s surprise, we were able to throw runners out – once in a while! The concept of a double-play was well beyond the reach of these kids. One of the interesting things that happened, without any surreptitious activity on my part, was some of the players would go to other teams’ games and would come back with scouting reports. When we played the other team, the scouts would come up and remind me that “that’s so-and-so, and he can hit.”

Another rule was that pitcher could only pitch so many innings per week and could not start two games in the same week. There was no way to enforce this rule, other than the managers all making sure that it was adhered to. These teams would sometimes play three times a week, so you could burn through your “pitching staff” in a hurry. Pitching staff is defined as any kid that can get the ball over the plate – every so often! I had explained this rule to the team, and much to my surprise, that became part of the scouting reports. “Hey coach, so-and-so pitched last Tuesday!”

If you’ve read my other story about Little League, then you’ll remember that during the draft I thought one of the managers kept muttering “Just win, baby. Just win!” He was also the guy that drafted the two “ringers.” They were the hated Giants, and were leading the rest of the teams by at least two games before we reached the halfway point of the season. We were about two or three games behind them, but they were fairly good, and not likely to lose the first half.

We were about to play the Giants, and “so-and-so” walked out to the mound to start the game. Good old Westley, “Doc” said, “Hey coach! That kid pitched Tuesday against the Reds, and according to Rule 14, paragraph 4, sub-paragraph 3, he’s not eligible.” So I went over to the Giants’ dugout and got the attention of “Just win, Baby.” I said something to the effect that “I don’t think your pitcher is eligible because he pitched on Tuesday,” and mentioned the rule. He got a little huffy and said “Well, nobody follows that rule.” I just looked at him and said, “I do!” I didn’t think to ask him if he had his jock strap on.

The kid stayed in as pitcher for about five innings. We ended up beating them by four runs. After the game, I went over and told this guy that I thought he should talk to the league president about the rules relating to pitching. It turned out that the manager who had lost to them that previous game was in the stands watching the game, and told our league officials about the pitching rule violation. They fined him $50,000. He got off by filing an appeal and settled for a six-pack of Bud.

As the season rolled along, I came to the conclusion that the kids were absolutely fantastic. The problem was some of the parents and some of the managers, who seem to have forgotten that these were just kids. Winning is important, but not as important as the concept of a team and sportsmanship. In talking with other managers, it was apparent our League was really low-key compared to others, and they knew of events in other leagues that were absolutely preposterous – with parents and managers getting totally out of control.

Moral of the story – Sometimes an athletic supporter is more than a fan.

Enter the Little League Years or “Who’s on First?”

Since Blue-eyes and I were erstwhile aging athletes, it was only natural that we get the offspring involved in different types of sports. This activity extended itself from the organized local school programs to things such as Little League and tennis. Having resurrected the swimming pool at the New Abode, everybody was a swimmer, even though the water was sometimes a bit chilly. Blue-eyes’ idea of the acceptable water temperature for swimming was around 85°, which our pool rarely met.

We were fortunate in that we were just a few blocks, if you can call our residential area blocks, from a relatively low-key Country Club that featured a bunch of tennis courts, an Olympic size swimming pool, and a rather large equestrian facility. Now, don’t get me wrong! This was not a fancy place and was really very oriented toward family activity. The best part, didn’t cost an arm and a leg. So, somehow, regardless of good old JJ’s attitude about country clubs, we became members. I think it was either Groucho Marx or perhaps WC Fields who said “I wouldn’t want to belong to a club that would have me as a member.”

The other neat aspect of our location was we were a very short distance from the three local Little League fields. So naturally, as the curtain climbers began to become interested in a certain level of competitive sports, we got them going on the concept of baseball. I say “concept” because my first experience with Little League was far from what my understanding and past experience of what the game of baseball was all about. I had played organized baseball until I was about 35, and thought I knew a little bit about it, but this did not prepare me for what I was about to face. But that’s another story.

The town we live in has maybe 2500 single-family residences and 10,000 horses, and could be euphemistically defined as a bedroom community, with no retail businesses of any kind. I should qualify that to say that a few years after we moved in, the Sheriff’s Department discovered a “house of ill repute.” I don’t know if that qualifies as retail or not, but I guess you could surmise that there was a certain emphasis on the term “bedroom.” I digress!

This particular Little League franchise was pretty low-key and had been around for a number of years. Because of the limited talent base, they had never really had any inter-league championships. They usually got their butts kicked and eliminated in the first round of regional tournament play. We were surrounded by large communities with multiple franchises, and one of them had nearly gone to the Little League World Series.

With such a small number of families, the league still managed to attract enough kids to form five teams per league. There were three specific leagues, starting with the Minors who were somewhere between 7 and 10 years old. I don’t think there was a lot of attention paid to the lower end of that spectrum because some of those kids were really young. So JJ Junior decided “it” wanted play organized baseball. He was a good athlete, once he made his mind up whether he was to be left-handed or right-handed. And from the time that he was very small, we used to play a lot of “wiffleball” in the backyard along with the other kids in the neighborhood.

So, we went about the process of signing up, paying the fees and during this process, when asked if I would help, made the mistake of saying “Sure, whatever I can do.” The next thing I know this “big guy,” a 6-foot-four character, is at my doorstep with a bag of equipment. I commented “What’s that for?” and he said “I need a manager for one of the teams.” I told him I really didn’t have the time, etc. etc. He said, “Well okay, it’s just interim, until I can find a permanent manager.” He told me there was a meeting at his house the following evening and gave me his address and directions. We chatted for a few minutes and it turned out that he had three sons playing in the league and was also President. Nice guy and too big to argue with. As he walked away, I got this strange feeling that I had just been had, and he was never going to find a manager.

At the meeting, we “new managers” got a Little League rulebook and some quick instructions on the basic philosophy that every kid plays at least two innings. That was a must! Failure to do this meant a forfeiture of whatever game you played, and you would no longer be suitable as a manager. Headlines in the next day’s sports page of the daily newspaper, “JJ gets fired as Little League manager.” Aha! A loophole from which I could weasel out. I guess this was the early stage of “No child left behind,” with little comprehension on my part of the interesting and delightful effects that this would have during the forthcoming season. “Gee Mom, how come I only get to play two innings?”  “Well, that’s because you’re a total klutz, Westley.” We were also informed that there would be “tryouts” for the kids the following Saturday, and that we needed to be there for the selection process. “Wow!” I thought. “This almost sounds like a draft.” I was beginning to wonder if they had “signing bonuses.”

The tryouts event was basically an evaluation and ranking of all those kids that showed up. It’s intent was to discover who had a modicum of exposure to the little things like catching, throwing and hitting. Some were seasoned players returning for more outlandish exposure by mostly incompetent coaches. There were about 75 of these pint-sized Babe Ruths, and only about 40% of them had even the slightest clue about the basics, let alone how the game was played.

After watching some of these kids for a half-hour, my candid conclusion was that most of them would visit the hospital before the season was over. A couple of them had a real good shot at accomplishing that before the season even began. As an example, during tryouts at least three kids got hit in the mouth while trying to catch the ball and ended up looking for Mom. One of the kids swung so hard at the ball, he lost the bat and nailed one of the Dads that was doing the pitching. I didn’t blame “slugger,” because this particular guy was a terrible pitcher. Couldn’t get the ball close to the plate. The kid stayed. The Dad left! I later drafted “slugger” simply because I thought he had style, and worst-case was that since most of the kids at the tryout saw this incident, he would scare the hell out of our opposition’s pitchers.

The ranking system was pretty basic; excellent, good, fair and needs work in the various basic skills. After watching these kids I came to the conclusion that they should have one more category, and that should be called “hopeless.” After the tryouts, the managers got together and had what was called a draft. Each team was allocated so many players from the top two categories to provide some degree of parity. The rest were divvied out on something of an equal lack of skill-set basis. What I didn’t know was that a couple of the other returning manager’s drafted players who had not been at the tryouts, and it turned out these kids were “ringers.” So, clearly the games began before the games began. One of the other managers kept muttering, “Just win, Baby. Just win!” I thought maybe he was in wrong sport. I ended up drafting the “big guy’s” youngest son, assuming that with two older brothers he would’ve developed some of the basic essentials. Smart move! His kid turned out to be a real good player.

Now spring training begins! Each team was given a specific day to use the fields for practice, and this of course had to start after school. The weekends were open and each team was given a two-hour time slot. The team names were not taken from animals like the Bad News Bears or the Woeful Wolverines, but were basically major-league names. My little team was the Dodgers. And as it turned out, aptly named, because you really never knew what was going to happen! One of the neat things about this league was the kids all got uniforms, not just shirts, but actual uniforms with the team name. Most of the uniforms were about three or four sizes too big, but that was okay.

Some of the dads on our team volunteered to help me with the practice days, which could be best described as absolute chaos. Practice started with the basics of breaking them up into pairs and having them play catch, which really evolved into most of the kids running after a ball in the outfield because they couldn’t catch it, let alone throw it close enough to their partner so that he could catch it. Everybody wanted to play first base, or be the pitcher or play shortstop. Nobody wanted to be catcher and I couldn’t find an outfielder to save my soul. One kid didn’t want to play anywhere; he just wanted to wear the uniform and bat. He also informed me that he wanted to be an orthodontist. I almost made him team captain.

Batting practice consisted of mainly showing the kids how to stand, how to swing and most importantly – how to get out of the way of the ball when it was headed straight for them. They all had to wear batting helmets, which were about four sizes too big and flopping over their eyes. It didn’t really matter because not many of them hit the ball anyway. I was doing the pitching, underhand, and watching them swing at just about anything, even if I rolled the ball to the home plate. I tried to explain the strike zone and the concept of watching the ball all the way to the plate. I got this message crossed however – one kid just stood there. I stopped and asked him why he let those good pitches go by. He just looked at me and said “I didn’t think I was supposed to swing.” The next pitch – he hit it a ton, took off and rounded the bases, trotting into home. All the kids cheered!

We had about four more practices before our first game started. I found a catcher, JJ Junior, who I’m sure was more than just a little unhappy with the Dodgers management. We had a couple of kids that could at least get the ball close to the plate, but I was convinced that if anybody on the opposing team hit the ball anywhere, it was likely to be a home-run in that our infield had a tough time coping with the concept of fielding a ground ball. Even if they did, it was highly unlikely that they were going to throw it anywhere near the first baseman. I figured we would get beat by 24 to 2, based on the successes of our practices.

We played our first game and I discovered that the other team was as bad as we were. The best description of this game was that if anybody did in fact make contact with the ball, they just kept running until they got to home plate, because nobody could throw the ball successfully to any base. After the first couple of innings, I moved all my outfielders in about 20 feet off the infield grass, assuming if any of the other players hit a fly ball, it was going to be a home-run anyway. I put the would-be orthodontist out in right field, where he promptly sat down and picked grass. “Slugger” actually hit the ball three times, managing to hang onto the bat. The first time though, he was so shocked, he forgot to run to first base and stood there so long – with all of us yelling “run, run!” He eventually took off to third base, assuming if he gets that bag, he would be able to come home. He was eventually tagged out by their center-fielder, five minutes later.

We would end up winning, but not because we were more skillful than our opponents, but because the “big guy’s kid,” whose name was Tom, hit the ball into the outfield with JJ Junior on first because of a walk. The kid in the outfield was so surprised, he stood there and held the ball while those two rounded the bases. I was satisfied with that because I now realized that the other teams had the same problems. At least I knew that the Dodgers would not go 0 and 25. This was just the beginning of a number of years of fond memories, some not-so-fond memories, the development of lifelong friends, three peptic ulcers, and two broken windshields.

Moral of the story – It’s not so much in winning as it is how you played the game, especially if you can’t hit, can’t catch and forget to run to first base.

Don’t Fence Me In – or – Dude, Keep off the Grass, both types!

If you’ve been following some of my stuff, you’ll know that in “Border Wars,” I was putting up a huge grape stake fence that was reminiscent of the Great Wall of China. It took me about three weekends and couple of “sick days” to finish this job – not to mention a whole bunch of cash. Blue-eyes and the curtain climbers would alternate in holding the grape stake while I continued to pound my fingers. I had placed a level string from post to post to maintain a consistent height on the fence line. All the holder had to do was have the top of the stake just below the string line. Blue-eyes was pretty good at this, but the kids, being somewhat shorter, didn’t prove to be real competent. I came to the conclusion that they all lacked depth perception. But now the property was almost fully enclosed and the insurance company was a happy camper.

One of the things that is important in a project of this nature is called planning. I thought I’d done a pretty good job in laying out the fence line and executing post holes in their proper spacing, including positioning these all in place, facing the right direction and being somewhat level. Minor problem! J.J. forgot to plan for gates. For you “techies” that’s not Bill, but the kind that swing. I don’t think Bill is much of a swinger. This caused a minor flap in that everybody in the family had an idea of where the gates should go and what size they needed to be. I think the suggestions for gate location got around 20!

It was finally mandated that we had to have a gate for the corral large enough for a truck to get through – and a small gate so we didn’t have to open the large gate to get the horse out. So that dictated a large gate up front, near the entrance to the backyard so a truck could get in and – naturally, a small gate so that we don’t have to open up that large gate. We had to have a small gate at the other side of the front of the house so that we wouldn’t have to walk to where the other gate was. There was an area of the property that was not enclosed because it was basically a dry creek, except in the winter, with a storm drain and was about 3 feet lower than the nominal surface of the yard. So naturally, we had to have a gate there so we could get into the area to clean out the weeds and check the storm drain. We got that sorted out, and I had to revise my layout and sink additional posts.

At this point, the priority list mandated the labor battalion (meaning J.J.) move to concentrate on the front of the house. What little lawn there was, was mostly dead. The previous owner had installed a sprinkler system, however it didn’t seem to be working. I located two control valves and turned them on. Nothing! I looked around side of the house and found another valve and turned it on. Eureka! There was water shooting up all over the area and most of it was not going anywhere near the lawn. I decided to try to isolate the problem, and discovered that the guy had attempted to put in both a drip system as well as sprinklers. It clearly wasn’t going to work. After a few hours of trying to figure out this mess, I came to the conclusion that this was the sprinkler system from hell. I suspect this guy was ether drinking something or smoking stuff.

Rather than mess around trying to fix the problem, I just ripped out the lawn and the old sprinkler system. Good decision! The guy had put in flexible tubing, and unfortunately it had kinked in a number of areas and was absolutely useless. In the process of digging out this tubing I discovered tubing for water in areas that went nowhere at all, no input, no output and no sprinkler head.

I went down to the local garden store and got a truck load of loam delivered after I had rototilled the entire area. I got it all spread out, and dug the trenches for the new sprinkler system. I used PVC and had a lot of fun gluing my fingers to the pipes and the various fittings. By the time I finished, my fingers were purple and mostly stuck to each other. One of the more interesting things I learned was that this glue likely contained either or some other interesting substance in it, and you could get a little silly in a hurry. I found myself having a strong desire to say “Hey Dude,” and to begin sniffing the can. “Surfs up!” I jest as usual.

I got some good advice on the type of grass seed and put in the new lawn. I was really quite surprised at the variations of grass available. I’m talking about the type for growing lawns, not that other stuff! The new sprinkler system worked like a champ and I proceeded to stand around and watch the grass grow. About a week and a half later, a bunch of green stuff started poking its head above the mulch. Sweet success!

The guy at the garden store told me I had to keep the new lawn very damp and should water twice a day. Because of this, any little varmint that wandered into the area would leave its little footprints. That’s how we discovered that a mass of dogs, raccoons and cottontail rabbits inhabited the neighborhood. In some instances, the raccoons had dug up small areas, but the ground was so wet I couldn’t walk on it to repair the damage. I figured I’d fix it after the lawn came in. The cottontail rabbits didn’t do much other than to leave a little trail which is not really noticeable. The dogs left some rather interesting deposits that I just chose to ignore.

One morning I heard a bunch a racket in front and went out and found three of one of my neighbors horses racing around on my new lawn. I had put up small string barrier, about a foot tall with red plastic ribbon all around the entire newly planted area so that people would realize that it was not to be walked on. Two of the horses had gotten tangled up the string, and had pulled all the stakes out of the ground and were racing around, somewhat panicked, attempting to get free from whatever was on their hoofs. My new lawn was now a great big mass of horse hoof prints.

I recognized the horses as belonging to my neighbors in the back and went over to his house and woke him up. It was at least 6:30 in the morning. Time to get up, anyway. He answered my banging on his door in his PJs, cute things with little red hearts. I told him his horses were out. He didn’t seem surprised. He asked, “Where?” and I pointed in the general direction of my house. With that he turned and shut the door, clearly an unhappy camper. That’s what he gets for wearing PJs anyway. I’m a skivvy’s man myself, but that’s probably more than you wanted to know.

By the time I got back to my place, the horses were gone, along with my little string barrier. My neighbor showed up a little later and his only comment after surveying my newly destroyed lawn was “Where’s my horses?” I felt like suggesting, “Just follow the string and the muddy hoof marks!” I don’t think he’d had his morning coffee. Naturally, he did not comment on the obvious massive destruction to my infant lawn. Maybe he thought I had planted it that way. If that were true, I assume he went home later and said to his wife, “Boy! This new guy has a unique idea about what a front lawn should look like.”

He didn’t say squat – as in a “Hey! I’m sorry. Can I help repair this mess?” or even return to the scene of the crime. I figured he must be a soul mate of my “Border Wars” neighbor. I later discovered that his horses got out pretty regularly and went down the street to visit their buddies at the stable, which was a couple of blocks away. Within three weeks, my new friend’s house was “For Sale.” J.J. strikes again, making new friends all over the place and changing the basic topography of the neighborhood. I guess maybe I had discovered yet another non-candidate for “Welcome to the neighborhood committee.” Blue-eyes’ comment was “If you keep this up at the rate you’re going, we’ll be living in this neighborhood all alone!” I actually thought about that, but came to the conclusion it would be extremely difficult and too complex to accomplish. Besides, some of them were very friendly.

Moral of the story There’s two types of grass and sometimes you need both.