JJ and Bear Creek Adventures

 

The name of my blog “Up a Creek with no Paddle,” is literal, but was derived from a “dry creek” that runs down one side of our property. Blue-eyes later named it “Bear Creek.” She could’ve called “Skunk Creek,” as there was a family of these sweet smelling “beasties” living close by. No “Smokey the Bear” around here and I’ve never seen anything “butt naked” even close to the creek. (Bear versus bare, and I preferred the latter.) Shortly after moving into the new abode, I noticed that there was an easement for flood control. Say what? There was even a small fee on my annual tax bill along with other small fees for stuff I never use, don’t want and in fact don’t know what they are. Case in point, a thing called “vector abatement.” I think they’re after the creepy-crawlies.

We have a large chunk of property, and I went out to the “back 40” and found a four by four foot grate covered drain. I know this is boring as hell, but it gets interesting as we move along. This hole in the ground was the termination or starting point, depending on your prospective, and emptied into a 3 foot-pipe, heading off in the general direction of a real creek about 200 yards away. I didn’t bother to further investigate because it didn’t appear to me there was a potential water issue. My thought was it must be there for a reason, but I have to admit, it wasn’t real apparent as to what that reason could have been. Duh! To get water off the property, Dummy!

About two years later, I got the answer. We hadn’t had much rain, and had something of a dry spell. The area we live in is somewhat rolling hillsides, although our property is mostly level. Really no apparent threat of flooding. Wrong assumption! And then the rains began to fall and not just a little bit. The first day there was a lot of runoff, but most of it was being handled by the normal street drain, which appeared to be part of this flood control drain system. The rain let up a little, but the street drains got clogged with debris and were backing up. While cleaning out the debris, I noticed a lot of standing water between my house and my neighbors, but assumed it would eventually percolate into the cement-like Adobe.

That night the rain really came down in buckets, and as well as the next morning. The storm drains were clogged again and the street was flooded. There was over a foot of water pouring over the gutters and down a neighbor’s driveway into his backyard, swimming pool, as well as the garage. His wife was standing there with a broom in about a foot of water, sweeping water out a door. My thought was, “Man that will really work!”

About this time a car came roaring down the hill, doing about 35, smacked into this water, lost control and went into my other neighbor’s rose garden, took out a water faucet and smacked sideways into a walnut tree. Not real hard, but it sure didn’t help the front of the car. Just what we needed, more damn water. The lady driving tried to start the car, but of course that was not going to happen. She finally got out of the car, getting scratched up by the rose thorns, swearing and yelling at me, “Why haven’t you got a sign or flares out?” I felt like giving her half the peace symbol, but being the gentleman I am, better judgment prevailed. I think I said something like “Your mother wears combat boots.” I asked her if she was all right, she looked at me, didn’t say anything got back in her car and sat there. It could’ve been a lot worse.

Then another car came down the hill, going too fast and even though I stood there and waved frantically, it kept right on going into the water with a gigantic splash. Naturally, this killed the engine. A guy opened the door, started getting out into the water, changed his mind and sat there for a while. He was smart enough to take off his shoes and roll up his pants before attempting to wade through the now nearly two feet of water. He came over, really irritated, looked at me and said “How long has this been here?” I looked at him and said, “Maybe two years!” Then I said, “What kind of boat is that?” He didn’t think that was very funny. At the rate the water was rising, this guy was soon to be the proud owner of a BMW swimming pool. Wise-ass J.J. doesn’t know when to keep his mouth shut. I think I was still smarting from the comments from my new friend – still parked in the Rose Garden.

Next down the hill, came a kid driving one of these high suspension, oversized tire, pickup trucks. He at least stopped and I went over a told him how deep I thought the water was. He said he was going to try it because he saw where he could get around the “Beemer” on the left side, which was going to be even deeper. He got about half way, going too fast and eventually the water got into his fan blade causing steam to rise, and must have shorted out the ignition. That about did it for me. Here I am standing in the damn rain, soaking wet and wondering if the next person coming down the hill will be Noah, driving his ark too fast and looking every bit like Charlton Heston. I decided that with two cars and a truck stuck in that small river, what I really needed to do was get another cup of coffee. It was too early for a vodka martini. I looked over at the lady still sitting in her car; she had the window rolled down and was picking roses. The lady across the street was still trying to sweep water out of the garage. She really wasn’t making much progress.

Blue-eyes had been on the phone trying to get some attention from our erstwhile global town administration, but all she got was a busy signal. I finally called 911 and got through, explained what was going on, only to be told that it would be at least two hours before anyone could come out. I said, “Fine, by then this street is will look like a wrecking yard.” Great! Where is vector abatement when you really need them? Our tax dollars at work.

I went out to the corral to see how the horses were making out. They were standing in about two feet of water, watching the small river cascade down my back neighbor’s corral. I had built a nice stall and these two dummies preferred to stand in the mud and get soaking wet. I got on the top of the fence to check out the next neighbor’s yard and could see nothing but water going all the way up to their back patio. Their lawn chairs were now floating away, along with the barbeque. What a mess. They didn’t have horses, but did have chickens, all of which were squatting on top of the hen house, which was also about to float away. That proves that chickens have more brains than a horse or for that matter, J.J.

The storm drain in the corner of my property sure didn’t seem to be doing much of anything. Everything was full of debris from trees and other stuff, all headed for the wrecking yard in the front street. I assume the drain was clogged up. DUH! I would’ve needed a small power boat to get to the drain in order to clean it out, and even then with my luck, I would have been sucked into this torrent of water and become an additional piece of wreckage sitting out on the street. The only upside to all this water was I realized I wouldn’t have to “muck-out” the corral for a while. That’s horse talk referring to cleaning up the stuff that comes out of the horse’s other end.

By now the sheriff had showed up, put up a bunch of flares and told me they had closed the road at the top of the hill. There were no new automotive contributions to the river. He went over and was talking with our “Lady of the Roses,” while making notes in his little citation book. Clearly, he was pouring salt into an open wound! I wondered if he was going to say something like “Have a nice day.” At least she got a nice bouquet of roses. The guy that owned the roses was standing in his garage, with a large class of something red, and I’m sure it was just tomato juice. The rose bushes were the pride and joy of his ex-wife and I had a suspicion that he didn’t really give a damn about the damage done to the collection of florets. Mr. “Beemer” was using my phone, and I was sure he was calling Germany to order a new car. The lady with the broom had finally given up and had moved to higher ground, but she still had her broom in hand, just in case. The kid with the “high-rise” truck was sitting in its bed, smoking a cigarette or whatever, with a fishing pole. Just kidding about the fishing pole.

The rain had let up, but the water kept rising. It was now at least 3 feet deep. The Sheriff told me that the real creek was on the verge of overflowing further down the road. I asked him, “Where the hell is all the water coming from?” “From the freeway! It all drains into this here creek of yours,” gesturing toward Bear Creek. He commented that it was backed up for over three quarters of a mile and two other roads were shut down. Oh joy! It now became obvious why I was paying a flood control assessment for a system that didn’t go more than 300 yards.

A maintenance worker from the town finally showed up in a truck, looked at the situation for about 10 seconds, took out two of the things that flash, and left. It was lunch time, so I figured he went to get a hamburger and a beer. The water level began to slowly subside and “Mr. Beemer” went back to his “Bavarian sponge,” obviously waiting for a tow truck or possibly a delegation from the German Embassy. I went out back and one of our horses, Mr. Lucky, was rolling in the mud. I suggested that he wipe his feet before he went into the stall, but somehow I don’t think he was paying any attention.

The next day was Saturday, the rain had quit, the street was clear and the water had gone off in its own mind’s direction, with the exception of small lake surrounding the storm drain in the back of the property. The water was still backed up over two or three of my neighbor’s properties and not moving at all. I expected to see a small boat and water-skier at any moment. Either that, or one of the neighborhood kids yelling “Hey Dude! Surfs up.” I put on my trusty waterproof boots and went to clean out the drain to get rid of this unexpected trout farm. After about ten steps I discovered, the hard way, that the depth of the water was higher than the top of my boots. Oh joy! I poked around with a shovel for about five minutes, with very little effect, but could feel some of the debris starting to move.

All of a sudden all hell broke loose. A three foot whirlpool of water develop and was taking leaves and branches with it, and to some extent I began to worry that J.J. was about to be the next item being sucked into the flood control tunnel of oblivion. I got out of there real quick, went to high ground and took off my water soaked boots. The lake was actually draining. The sweet smell of success. Over the next few hours or so I had to clean out more detritus’s material, but the drain continued to do its thing. One of the chickens didn’t make it. Probably couldn’t swim.

The following week I got an appointment with the city engineer, the objective being to discuss this particular flood control project area. I was informed the city had no records of this project and had no responsibilities regarding drainage from the freeway system. I asked if they had any of the plans on file as it related to the land development of this particular area, which had once been a walnut orchard. The wonderful world of technology, “All the plans are on microfilm, except most of our files going back this far are not legible, due to improper storage. You’ll have to go to the County; we weren’t even a city when this was done.”

Thus began a year-long odyssey involving five different governmental agencies with limitless layers of bureaucracy. The only worthwhile thing that came from this effort was a comment made by one of these civil servants which was “You’re up a Creek with no paddle.” There’s a lot more to this story which bears a distinct similarity to “Alice” and anthropomorphic civil servants. But I’m late, I’m late, for a very important date and will have to discuss more of this after my meeting with the Mad Hatter.

Moral of the story: The fastest way to blind some people is to put a windshield in front of them.

The Golden Horde: The Finale

 We left this fish story with our multiple cold-blooded vertebrates enjoying their new home, a hand-built pond with a 4 foot waterfall, developed with loving care, lots of money and more than a little of J.J.’s blood. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, go back and read the other episodes regarding this major contribution made to our household by our thoughtful children.

The pond was a great success. Well, maybe not great, but at least it worked! I did install some lighting as Blue-eyes had suggested. I even put in a timer so that the waterfall would commence cascading at appropriate intervals. The downside to this pond was I could no longer turn on the “1812 overture” and watch the fish go nuts. I checked around for an underwater speaker system – they actually exist – but gave up on that idea when I saw what some of the prices were. Besides that, I was having a tough time explaining to the salespeople that I was involved in a program of music appreciation for my goldfish. The local pet store was no help whatsoever, and told me they were tempted call the Pisces police.

One of the fish, which I had named “Deliverance” because of his acute dementia and possible stigmatism, must’ve thought it was a salmon because he kept trying to swim up the falls. Some of the other fish would gather around his starting point, and I suspect they were taking bets on whether he would make it or not. He didn’t, but he might’ve, if he had abandoned his banjo. He would take a running start, flap like hell, get about six inches up only to be knocked back into the water, and I could swear the spectators were giving him the Bronx cheer. He would continue this for five or six attempts and then abandoned his efforts, swim to the bottom of the pond and sulk.

As I mentioned previously, our aquanautic population had exploded expotentially and a small horde of teeny-weeny little things were cavorting, in a large mass, all over the place. They were too fast to count, but there was a bunch. I have to assume that I had more than one or two females who were sexually proactive. There was one large, pure gold beauty that I named “Jane” and I suspect that she and “Johnny Weissmuller” were having an affair. They were spending a lot of time together playing adult fish tag.

The little additions seem to be a happy lot, but what they didn’t realize was that their population was slowly diminishing. After a couple of weeks, I noticed that there were only about half of them still in existence. My assumption was that Nixon, as rotund as he was at this point, was still making his presence felt. Clearly – they eat their young. I can only assume that this is Mother Nature at her best. The offspring of the Golden horde were going to the great unknown, to visit the guppies. The only upside to that was it didn’t cost me anything. Some survived, but not many.

Blue-eyes revisited her friend with the Japanese pond that had provoked this project, and discovered that what “we really need to have was some Koi.” So, off I went to visit my friendly pet store and to buy yet more fish. Shockingly, the price of Koi per ounce was the same as gold bullion. Before I laid more bucks on the table I asked the clerk about the mixing of Koi and goldfish. I was assured that they were compatible, “Even though they may try to eat each other.” This guy’s concept of compatibility was certainly unique. My immediate thought was that this could define the essence of politicians, and that I also knew of some marriages that fell into that category. This was not the same person that sold me the original sacrificial guppies, and I asked what happened to her. The new “Pisces expert” told me that she was now the store manager, and the reason was she had set a new corporate record for selling guppies to unsuspecting goldfish owners.

I’m now the proud owner of five beautiful Koi and approximately $160 lighter. Naturally, Koi won’t eat regular fish food, and must have a special pellet which is twice the cost of a lobster at an upscale restaurant in New York City. I figured if the goldfish ate their young, they would certainly eat Koi food, even though the clerk told me they wouldn’t. My attitude was the same for the goldfish as it was for my curtain climbers. “Eat what you’re served or starve.”

My new fish family seemed to adapt real well, but it was clear that there was a new “King of the Hill.” Nixon had lost his position of power, and was forced to abdicate to one of the larger new Koi inhabitants. He was pretty upset, probably a little paranoid and wanted to call a press conference. I had to explain to him that that was not in the best interest of the continued harmony of his previous constituency, and he had to accept the fact that he was just another “small fish in a big pond.” But I digress!

Things seem to be going along swimmingly, if you will excuse my pun, with all the flora and fauna happy with their environment, with no apparent major conflicts between these two species of carp. The hoard was consuming fish food about as fast as I could throw it in there. I bought some more guppies, at a rather astronomical price, to facilitate the cannibalistic tendencies of thier aquian brethren. I stood there for a while, expecting to see absolute carnage, but nothing happened. I was extremely disappointed that I didn’t witness a feeding frenzy and told Blue- eyes, and her comment was the usual, “My mother told me you were weird!” By this time, the goldfish were so fat, they couldn’t catch the guppies. So now I have more damn fish to feed. I decided eventually the guppies would get frustrated because they were not being consumed, and slow down enough for the other fish to catch them. Evidently, this must have happened or they got really bored, and started eating each other. As a matter of more useless information, I couldn’t find the escargot that was intended to clean up the fish residue, and I came to the conclusion that I got sold some dud snails. Naturally, the warranty had expired.

Now, all is well with Lake Shasta. Not so fast! One night I woke up thirsty and went out to the kitchen to get some ice water. There was a considerable noise and rattling around in the patio. Much to my chagrin, I found two huge raccoons on a fishing expedition. One was in the pond, and the other was standing on the edge pointing out the fish. Having already had a bad experience with raccoon’s nasty disposition, I went and got a “three iron” and ventured outside to chase them away. They reluctantly, and leisurely left, giving me dirty looks and half the peace symbol as they departed. (A good thing too, a three iron is not my best club. I lean more toward a fairway wood.)

They had created absolute havoc, destroying most of the plants and had made a meal of a couple of the Koi and a few of the goldfish, one of which was poor ole deposed “Nixon.” As a solution, I considered using the low-voltage horse zapper used to protect fence boards in the corral. It gives the beastie a “harmless” shock, supposedly! I decided against it for fear that I would wake up one morning and find fried raccoons lying all over the place, and end up on the SPCA’s ten most wanted list. Clearly, the pond was not deep enough to keep the banditos from having a rather expensive dinner, using JJ’s credit card. Major design flaw!

A few days later, while contemplating this development, I walked in the back where the pond was, and low and behold an egret was standing in the pond, poking fish out and laying them on the side. I chased it away, assuming this was something of an anomaly. Two days later, ”Big-bird” was back, doing the same thing, only this time he brought a friend for lunch. I chased them away again, yelling that “Kermit the Frog” would hear about this.” By now what was left was one Koi, named “Kamikaze”, and about half the goldfish population. I had named him that because he had two black circles around his eyes which looked like pilot’s goggles. My friend “Deliverance” was still there, plucking away on his banjo. Even the fish gods protect those of us that are complete idiots.

I noticed the water level in the pond had gone down considerably and refilled it only to have it get even lower by the next day. After a few days of this routine, I decided to drain it to see what was going on and discovered dozens of little holes had been punched in by the egrets whenever they missed one of their targets. Some rips were clearly the result of the raccoon attacks. The rubber liner was now nothing more than a sieve. Back to the drawing board.

Blue-eyes got on the phone to her buddy with all the Koi and discovered that we should have had Lake Shasta at least two feet deeper in order to avoid this invasion of unwanted critters. Further, her pond was built like a swimming pool, and sounded like it cost a small fortune. One of Blue-eyes’ comments was, “Gee! Do we really need the fish?” I didn’t say anything, but my thoughts went back to when the “house apes” first brought the goldfish home, and how this whole thing started. “You can’t flush them down the toilet! The kids would never forgive you. They’ve named one of them after you!” I was afraid to ask what that name was. Besides the implications of sentimental history, my ego is now on the line, and this was really a matter of principle. The decision was made! You make it a cement pond.

For a change, I uncharacteristically, did a little planning. I numbered all of the waterfall rocks to preserve our architectural marvel, starting from the bottom, and then took a bunch of pictures so we could reconstruct this thing. I got my ditch digging buddy, (not Blue-eyes, as she informed me this “was not in her job description”), and after fishing (sic.) out all the fish, putting them into their semi-leaky aquarium, began the process of excavation. I found snails and they too had multiplied. Must be something in the water that always promotes procreation. (I wonder how snails do it? Slowly I suspect.) Hey! Three feet by eight by five is a real hole, especially in rock hard adobe, and the size was reminiscent of the Panama Canal. We hit water twice – some damned pipe that I didn’t know was there. Blue–eyes said that we reminded her of an “Oliver and Hardy” movie. (In case you don’t know them, they were an old comedy team like “Cheech and Chong” but without the pot and if you don’t know those two, forget that I even mentioned it.)

During this process the Blonde bombshell discovered some pictures in a garden magazine of a patio very much like ours, with a nice two-foot brick wall and waterspouts feeding into a pond. “I think this would look really nice!” she said, while giving me her big blue-eyed, enticing smile, and handing me a chilled Vodka martini J.J.is a real push-over for a Vodka martini. Slight change of plans! Goodbye “Vernal Falls” and Hello to a bunch damn feather rock that I no longer need. Now I need bricks, mortar, Portland cement, steel mesh, white plaster, plastic plumbing, a more powerful pump, cobalt blue tile for the sides, training, a second job to pay for this stuff and renewal of my weekly visits to my analyst. (Did you know that a bull-nose brick is three times the price of a regular brick? Not really important, but I thought I’d just throw that out there, in case it should be a subject of a trivia game.)

After about three or so weekends of concentrated effort, more of J.J.’s blood, our latest contribution to outdoor living was complete, brick wall and all. “Nixon” would’ve been proud! There was now new lighting on a timer that would probably keep my raccoon buddies away. I read somewhere they don’t like bright lights. Some of the “feather rock” was replaced in the bottom of the pond to provide a degree of shelter and privacy for those fish that were still sexually active. I found the snails and they were considerably larger and in greater quantity than when I originally bought them. I didn’t know whether to put them back into the pond or eat them. (Best served with butter, garlic salt-and-pepper.) There were now three spouts delivering large quantities of water from about 2 ½ feet. Deliverance was still pursuing his swimming upstream fantasy, still carrying his banjo on his back. The rest of the goldfish quit watching because they knew he just wasn’t going to make it. The raccoons gave up on the free lunch at JJ’s Restaurant and the egret returned, only to stand on the brick wall, looking longingly at the pond and leaving rather nasty deposits on the top of the brick wall. “Big bird” must have had some serious intestinal issues. Ugh!

This whole episode happened almost 25 years ago. The kids are long since gone, but the fish are still here. Their kids have enjoyed feeding and watching the horde during their visits. I never mentioned what a pain in the “tush” they were, the goldfish, not the grand kids. (Let me think about that! Just kidding!) I’m not sure how many of the originals are still around, but I suspect more than just a few, predicated on their lifespan. Chances are most of them are second or third generation. The surviving Koi bit the dust many years ago. I think he probably drowned.

Sadly, some time back, I was cleaning the pond and found a little tiny banjo floating on the surface, but no “Deliverance” to be seen. Maybe he made it up the falls after all. Years back “Johnny Weissmuller” got old, lost his ability to swing from tree to tree and “Jane” lost interest and was playing “fish tag” with someone else. But, they both subsequently have gone to fish heaven. As a constant reminder of what an idiot I am, I have feather rock scattered from one end of my property to the other.

Moral of the story: If your kids go to the fair and bring home a bag of goldfish, keep the goldfish and get rid of the kids!

J.J. and the Methuselah-ion Goldfish, or the Sequel to the Saga of the Golden Horde

Some time back, I bored you with a short story about the Golden Horde of goldfish that came into my life, thanks to an innocent attempt at being a good daddy. I’m not going to repeat what was in the first story; you’ll just have to read it, if you’ve got nothing better to do. The purpose of this resumed narrative is to alert you to the associated pitfalls and issues, so that you can avoid long-term servitude, which equates to nurturing something that is dumb as dirt and like to eat their young. In retrospect, this may not be such a bad idea. I jest!

Do you know what the average lifespan of a dumb goldfish is? Let me enlighten you! Try bloody damn forever. I looked this up in my handy fish encyclopedia, and if you get an expensive one, it’s 15 to 20 years. If it’s one of your average “off-the-shelf” goldfish, it can be over 25 to 30 years. Of course, why not? They don’t do anything except swim around in warm water, eat, poop, and fornicate. The only thing they ever say is “Glub-Glub.” You could commit murder and get less time than 30 years. I think the penalty for killing a goldfish is they take you to a large swimming pool and incarcerate your ass at the bottom in one of those “fish castles.”

So, after a short period of time, our offspring which had introduced these diminutive descendants of carp, of course, lost interest. By now I’ve got approximately 300 bucks invested in fish paraphernalia, and a new “honeydew” task called clean the fish tank, at least twice a month. You may ask why I didn’t just flush them down the toilet. I had a good reason. I had read in the paper about people in Florida flushing little baby alligators down the toilet ,and the results were some rather large alligators showing up in the sewage system. I figured considering the lifespan that I mentioned, a few years from now I’d read about some sanitation worker attacked by 6 foot goldfish that had a large black spot in the middle of its forehead. (You’ll meet him later — the fish, not the worker.) 

I could never figure out how eight or nine little fish could screw up 20 gallons water as fast as these did. Cleaning the charcoal filter was really nasty business. Smelled gross! I almost gave up drinking water when I thought about what it is fish do in it. The fun part was using this tiny little net to catch these suckers so I could drain the tank. You don’t realize how fast goldfish swim, until you try to catch one. I named a super-fast one Johnny Weissmuller — you know, the guy that played Tarzan in the movies. (I think he won four or five Olympic Gold medals for swimming — Weissmuller, not the fish.) His best line was “Me Tarzan, you Jane.” Or, “That is Boy! Run like Jane, swim like rock, smell like Cheetah!” The chimp that played Cheetah was a better actor, with real creative lines, like “Hugha-Hugha-Hugha!” But, I digress!

Eventually, I got to the point where I would sometimes, after work, with vodka martini in hand, dump in some fish food flakes, which cost about $900 a pound, and sit in what we called the sunroom and watch these fish go berserk. The stereo system was in there, so I would put on some really good classical music, such as Ray Stevens playing “Freddy Feel-good and his Funky Little Five Piece Band,” followed quickly with “Gitarzan,” which the fish seemed to prefer. One of the speakers was right next to the tank. I would turn the volume up enough to make the water ripple and you should’ve seen those fish dance. Blue-eyes would come in and ask me, “Are you tormenting those fish again?” My answer would be something like, ”Nah! Look at them! They’re all smiling.” Or, “I think those two are doing the “Lindy.” Her answer was the usual, “My mother always said you were weird.” (If you don’t know what the “Lindy” is, I suggest you Google it. God knows, it may come back!)

There was one particular fish that was bigger than the others. It had a white tail, and a big black spot on its head that reminded me of a toupee. He looked rather swarthy. I assumed it was a male because he would dominate the castle, and when it came to food, he would chase the other fish away until he got a belly full. I named him Nixon. There was another one which was completely Golden, with the exception of the black spot in the middle of its head. Once it had eaten, it would go to the far end of the tank, take off like a bat outta hell, and crash headfirst into the other end. He was the only one that tried to leap out of the tank. I guess he didn’t like his new home. I think it might’ve been cross-eyed. I named him “Deliverance,” because I figured he was the offspring of an illicit brother-sister relationship, and could probably play the banjo.

After a couple of years, it was clear the fish were here to stay. During this period, we only had one fatality, and by now they were known as J.J.’s Horde. I was still spending time teaching them the virtues of classical music, and they were still developing their multiple dance routines. The grass that I put in was called Dwarf Hair grass, and it had a mind of its own. This stuff grew faster than dandelions. I tried to get rid of it, but it just kept coming back. I thought about using some kind of weed killer, but came to the conclusion that it would probably kill the fish, have no effect on the grass, and I would end up getting a letter from “Rachel Carson or Bette White.”

One day, when I was down at the pet store buying more fish flakes, I mentioned this problem to the super-knowledgeable clerk. She said what I needed was some “guppies” that would feed on the grass. I said, “Yeah! Why didn’t I think of that?” But I was thinking “What the hell is a ”guppy?” She further commented, “You also need snails.” I told her I had a backyard full of them, and she let me know — that was not going to work.

So, I ended up with a bag of little tiny snails that cost two bucks each, which would drive a Frenchman crazy because they are so small. The “guppies” turned out to be little tiny fish, between a quarter inch and a half inch long. The “fish owner support professional” had just reached in with a net and poured a bunch of them into a plastic bag, and asked for another 10 bucks. So I went back home, dumped in the pint-size escargot, and what looked like 30 or more guppies. I watched them for a while and they formed what is called a school, which is an oxymoron when it comes to Pisces intelligence. They immediately went to the bottom, swimming in and around the grass. Aha! A solution to the problem of too much grass! (Of course, there are some of you that would suggest there is never too much grass.) The snails sunk to the bottom and didn’t do anything but lay there.

The next day, I went in to feed the fish and noticed that the goldfish were playing tag, or hide and seek with the guppies. Isn’t that cute! I didn’t feed the fish every day because someone told me that it created problems if the fish did not eat their miniature Wheaties. A day or so later, I went to feed them and treat them to the “1812 Overture,” especially the cannon part, which would really shake up the tank. I looked in the tank and couldn’t find any guppies. I finally saw a few hiding in the grass, but that was it! As I was watching, one of the more intrepid guppies left its leafy sanctuary, and much to my shock and dismay, immediately became dinner for Nixon. What the knowledgeable clerk had neglected to tell me was that goldfish eat guppies. Another 10 bucks down the drain!

Sometime later, Blue-eyes convinced me that we needed to redo a portion of our patio. She had a friend who did a project in something of a Japanese water garden motif. The next thing I know is I’m staring at a couple of magazines with various demonstrations of how to do this. Having had some terrible experiences with contractors, we decided to attempt this minor project ourselves. Mistake number two. Mistake number one was considering this in the first place. I drew up something we called “plans,” which was an undecipherable set of drawings with a bunch of meaningless notations, measurements and sketches of rocks and plants. She selected the plants and rocks, and I selected the shovels. I hired a guy help dig a hole that would become the new home for our Golden Horde, which by the way had multiplied by about 4-fold, because clearly the goldfish were doing more than just swimming, eating and pooping. I wasn’t worried about over population, because I figured Nixon would eat the young sooner or later, if he could catch them. He was getting so fat now, that he didn’t swim so much as he waddled from point to point.

We did follow one of the plans suggested in the pond magazines — sort of. The pond we chose was approximately 8’ x 6’ in a half circle, 12 inches deep with a four foot rock waterfall. The rocks were artistically piled on top of each other, with the gentle flow of water cascading into the pond and really looked great — on paper! It even told us what kind of rock to buy (called “feather rock”), because it was really light lava-based stuff. Naturally, the magazine recommended a manufacturer of the kit containing a rubber liner, a pump with hoses, a small filter and miscellaneous tent pegs to hold everything in place. Price tag for the kit, just under $400. What a bargain. That’s okay, anything for my guppy-eating friends.

We went and picked out the rocks at our local rock store, or I should say Blue-eyes directed the architectural selections. What the magazine didn’t tell us was that feather rock was as sharp as a razor, and soon made my hands look like steak tartare. We ended up with a truckload of man-eating small boulders, and me bleeding like a stuck pig, shelling out another $400. “Blondie” had a visualization of what the waterfall should look like, and I spent the next three days rearranging, at least a dozen times, rocks for this four foot waterfall. One consistent thing which continued to happen, was after each rearrangement was she commented, “That rock on the bottom — it’s in the wrong place.” Naturally, we had to set it up so the water would fall, rather than just gurgle all over and just make the rocks wet. We ran some tests, and this, of course, required more modification to our miniaturized version of Yosemite’s Vernal Falls.

Back to the handy dandy rock store, but this time with gloves and body armor, for more lava rock for decoration and gravel to go on the bottom of the pond. More bucks out the door! Of course, we had to have flagstone to get from the edge of the patio to the pond, and all around what I have now dubbed as Lake Shasta. Water plants were an absolute necessity, as well as more grass for the now non-existent guppies to hide in. If we followed the instructions in the magazine, we would have put in enough water plants to cover three quarters of the pond. My reaction to that, beyond monetary, was “How the hell do you see the fish?” Did you know that some lava rock actually floats? Believe me! One was about 18 inches long and 10 inches wide, and looked like a little island. It worked out okay though, because I figured I’d buy a little lighthouse, and stick it in the middle to warn any passing ships of this uncharted obstacle. I gave up on that idea, because I figured I would have to hire the little man to live there.

Finally, inauguration day came. We turned it on, and lo and behold, we had a waterfall and a bunch of fish that had gone into complete seclusion. It all worked, and actually looked pretty good. Blue-eyes brought me out of vodka martini to celebrate our achievement, and remind me that it was time to change the bandages on my multiple wounds. She had a few suggestions, one of which was submerged lighting, and I asked her, “Do you really think the fish want to read at night?” I can’t repeat her retort. By now, I figured these fish had cost me close to a grand. As I stood there taking in this marvelous architectural accomplishment, I thought if I could see the fish, which I couldn’t because of all the flora, they would be laughing their little golden rear ends off.

Now, this story isn’t over yet. We failed to consider a few things like raccoons, a blue heron, multiple egrets, and a bobcat that took up fishing. But that’s another story.

Moral of the story: Don’t be afraid to eat a goldfish, they’re not an endangered species!

JJ and The Girls in Little League — Part Two

We left the Daunting Debutantes, aka the “deb’s,” in something of a dilemma. They had lost their first four of five games, and unfortunately were sitting at the bottom of the barrel. A reawakening had occurred by the Shakespearean declarations made by “Bubba” that articulated her observations in a personal, less than sanguine attitude regarding their losses. Something to the effect that she was tired of getting “her sweet ass kicked,” which caused an immediate reevaluation by her fellow team members. It was now a war. (You have to read part one to understand what brought on this emotional outburst.)

The girls were collectively clearly uptight, and Bubba’s pronouncement broke the ice. As I mentioned in part one, after that they didn’t lose another game, but not without some interesting events. They really got into the spirit of things and had developed some pregame and postgame cheers that they would force the spectators to chant. I taught them the only one that I knew and it went, “Wreck-em, wreck-em ree, kick-em in the knee. Wreck-em, wreck-em rass, kick-em in the other knee!” For some reason, Blue-eyes nixed my contribution. I don’t know why, based on the language that I was hearing on my occasional visits to the dugout. The sweet young things knew some rather interesting words. My blonde roommate’s solution to this language problem was to teach them some Bohemian phrases that she had often used to get my attention.

At one point, the concept of chewing tobacco was brought into play, and of course, was discouraged rather emphatically. Bubblegum was suggested as an alternative, but was turned down by the majority of them who had braces and further said that “gum was bad for your teeth.” Like chewing tobacco is okay?

As an alternative there appeared a 400 pound bag of sunflower seeds and it invoked this massive shower of saliva-laden shells being evacuated throughout the dugout. The debs developed a little game to see how far one could expectorate a whole sunflower seed. Every so often, somebody would come out of the dugout and put a popsicle stick next to seed with the greatest distance. At one point, I expected my daughter, who was part of this routine, to come home and asked me how to propel this projectile further. I already knew my answer was going to be, “Talk to your mother!” I really wasn’t fascinated with the idea of being the father of the best “spitter” on the team. I came to the conclusion that there was far too much “pro ballplayer” emulation.

“Half pint” had probably blackmailed her brother into helping her with her new responsibilities as the starting catcher. It was paying dividends. He had taught her how to block the plate without getting killed, how to field a bunt and doing snap throws every once in a while, which she managed to do with some degree of success. She became a very good bunter, extremely fast and was the lead-off batter. She eventually became an All-Star. She had one minor defect and that could be called a bad temper, probably because she was vertically impaired. If she didn’t like a call the kid ump made, she let him know in no uncertain terms, using some rather less than ladylike language, or accusing him of having amorous interests in the batter. The umps were usually from the debs’ high school peer group. On more than one occasion, Blue-eyes would receive a phone call from the chief of umpires regarding the abuse of his relatively blind umpiring crew. (I ran into “half-pint” some years later, and she was clerking for a law firm and was close to a law degree. She probably made a good lawyer.)

It was mid spring and warm weather had begun. Part of my job description as assistant to the assistant, was to bring an ice chest with soft drinks and water for the team during practice sessions. I would of course, throw in a six-pack or so of adult beverage for the coaches. I’m not much of a beer drinker; one beer usually makes me want to go take a nap. However, after a couple of practices, I noticed that the adult beverages were extremely popular. Blue-eyes didn’t drink much beer, even though she was from Wisconsin. Bev was capable of knocking down at least one, but that was usually it. She was a “branch water and bourbon” afficionado. At the same time, I detected a little more giggling in the dugout than usual. What I found out was our sweet young ladies were taking some of the soft drinks, emptying the contents and going into the little girls room filling the can full of Corona light and passing this around the dugout. From that point forward the “brew-skis” were in a smaller container which never left my sight. God- kids grow up in a hurry!

The season ended with the “Debs” winning the whole “shootin” match, and had eight players named to the all-stars. As winning coaches, Bev and Blue-eyes ended up as managers of this team for tournament play. This means that you play other teams in your district. If you win, you get to go play in a regional tournament and so on. All this tournament play is what’s called double elimination, and no one in our particular league had any idea of what to expect. Our anticipation was early elimination, as had been experienced in the boys’ tournament play. It was almost like starting over, trying to figure out the best place for this conglomerate of skill sets.

The practice sessions went pretty well, but not without incident. During a practice session the team lost Stacy, an outstanding shortstop and a good backup pitcher, to a broken ankle caused by a needless slide into second base. When she hit the bag I knew she was toast. Fortunately, her mother was there and took her to the hospital. The next practice, she showed up on crutches in her pink cast to cheer the team on.

The second incident was one of our better hitters fell off a horse and dislocated her shoulder, so she was through. The third unhappy event was a fist fight. Yes, a fist fight, between “half pint” and one of the players from another team who was about twice her size. No serious damage was done, but the dust was really flying for a short period of time. Bubba finally broke them up. You didn’t want to mess with Bubba! These two wouldn’t quit and had to be separated again by Bev. “Houston! We have a problem.”

Apparently, there had been bad blood between them caused by their mutual interest in some boy at their high school. Oh well, girls will be girls! Bev, who was also the League President, threw them both off the team. Of course, the parents got involved, threatening all sorts of action, making life interesting. Oh joy! I guess that’s why Little League coaches get the big bucks. I didn’t know the other participant in this little altercation, but felt badly for “half pint” because she had worked so hard. They brought up some other players, one of which was an extremely good pitcher and probably should’ve been an All-Star anyway. Not an auspicious beginning!

Tournament play began with the loss of the first game by one run. It was a close game; the “Debs” were hitting, but made too many errors at the wrong time. After that, they settled down and just kept winning, and finished the tournament with that one loss. Wow! District champions! Gee-whiz, pigs can fly. The encouraging thing was there was no raucous behavior on their part, no sneaking out for a quick Corona light, however the sunflower seed storm continued.

Next was the regional championship tournament, which meant playing against much larger demographic cities, unfortunately requiring having to travel all over the northern part of the state for the next two weekends. In some cases, this meant driving as much as 200 miles to get to a weekend series of games, but most of the parents were getting pretty excited. We would have a lot of volunteer caravan drivers. In a few instances, we had to stay overnight, and in retrospect, I’m sure there are a few motels that would prefer never to see any more participants in Girls Little League tournaments.

They pulled the same trick in their first regional game; they lost by a couple of runs. More errors and lousy pitching. The team they lost to was a powerhouse that had won the tournament for the last two years, and was an odds-on favorite to win again. Plus, it was their home field, and their fans were in the multitude, took it all very seriously and were well-armed. They had a bunch of monster girls that look like they were in their mid-20s. A couple of them appeared as though they needed a shave. Know no fear!

The Debs came roaring back, and won the rest of the games by some rather large margins. The final game for the regional championship was against, you guessed it, the Monsters of the Midway, who came out of their dugout foaming at the mouth. The Debs did not seem to be intimidated. They just kept chomping on sunflower seeds and dreaming of a cold Corona. The game was an anti-climax. By the sixth inning our little darlings were up by seven runs, with bases loaded and nobody out. Bubba was at the plate and got two quick called strikes, which were rather questionable, and then smacked the next pitch over the center-fielder’s head, clearing the bases.

As Yogi would say, by now “the fat lady was singing.” As something of a sportsmanship-like aftermath, the girls would line up after every game at third base and “high five” the opposing team. As this was happening, all of a sudden all hell broke loose. One of the monsters, “Sunday” punched Bubba while going down the congratulatory line. This, of course, caused a chain reaction with a couple of other “sweeties” getting into a nasty altercation, with both fists and words flying all over. The coaches and a few fans got it broken up, but it seemed to me that there was a large group of their spectators encouraging this unfortunate demonstration. I stayed firmly attached to the bleachers. After watching their fans, I came to the conclusion that this could get ugly in a hurry, and suggested that we forgo the trophy ceremony and get the hell out of Dodge.

I don’t know if there were ever any repercussions from this incident, but there should’ve been. The Debs eventually got their trophies, but never an apology. Oh well, as I said before, “girls will be girls,” even if they do need to shave. It really didn’t much matter, our little debutantes were now Regional Champs and on their way to the Western Region Championships, whose winner would go to the Little League World Series for senior girls. The tournament was held in a small suburb of Los Angeles, called Hawthorne, and would run for a three day period of double elimination. Our gals would be playing against teams from all over the wild West; including Oregon, Washington, Arizona, Wyoming, Utah and California, etc. The winner would go to the World Series in Portland, Oregon.

By now, the Deb’s had a multitude of fans, most of them intending to be cheering the team on to victory. Hawthorne is about a six-hour drive from our little community, so it was decided to rent a bus to take the team to the tournament. Further arrangements were made with one of the hotels nearby to house the team during the three-day stay. Blue-eyes went with the bus and I opted to drive with the balance of our clan. Good decision on my part, because based on later reports, the ride down there was pretty chaotic. That poor bus driver didn’t know what hit him. When we got down there, I was staying at the same hotel but a different floor. Another wise decision. The team was on the fifth or sixth floor facing the hotel entry. I don’t think there was any Corona involved, but apparently there was a plentiful supply of water balloons being dropped on unsuspecting hotel customers, which of course were summarily frowned upon by the hotel management. Other than that, nobody got arrested, and the girls were pretty well behaved. The host city did a great job by providing a banquet and a few parties. All in all, the entire trip went without incident; other than a big time hit on my wallet. At least there were no fistfights.

Now, are you ready for this? Hawthorne is where Blue-eyes went to high school and played softball for their team. Even more strange, is that two of the players on the Hawthorne team were the daughters of some of her old friends from her high school days. So, for her, it was something like a homecoming. She actually had time to get together with many of her old friends that she had not seen for years.

Let the games begin! They played extremely well, losing one game over the next three days. They were in the finals, playing against the team from Hawthorne. Both teams had lost a game, so this was for a birth to the World Series. It was an extremely close game all the way through, and our debs were leading in the final inning by one run. Bev had saved CeCe, our best pitcher and put her in for the last inning. She got two quick outs, but then walked the next batter and then allowed a hit putting runners at first and second. The next hitter grounded to short, who for some reason decided to throw to third base. The umpire called the runner safe, insisting that our third baseman had bobbled the ball. From where he was standing, he could never have seen it if it had been a beach ball. Nail-biting time! Not to worry. CeCe had things under control. The next hitter put her first pitch in between the center-fielder and the right-fielder, and two runs scored. Game over, and all hopes of glory were dashed. The Debs came in second, which is about the same as kissing your sister. Oh well, I never liked Portland that much anyway.

The league went on for a number of years after that. Both my other daughters got involved, and the girls’ league was still a fairly major family event. I don’t remember any of the teams ever getting past the district playoffs, so this team was a real anomaly. Blue-eyes retired from management, but became president of the league, which she continually regretted. Bev moved back to Iowa to grow corn or something like that.

After the two younger siblings got too old to play we kind of lost contact with what was going on, and unfortunately so did the rest of the community. Sad to say, the girls’ league dissolved, and that was that. Over the years, we would get visits from some of the players, and it was very interesting to see what became of them. A couple of them did go on to college and played for the women’s teams, but for the most part they just became old friends who enjoyed some interesting memories of a rather exciting time.

This is a true story! I still have the empty Corona bottles to prove it.

JJ and a thing called Girls Little League or You throw like a girl!

If you’ve read some of my previous meanderings, then you’ll remember that I had dedicated some of my time and talents (sic.) to nurturing young male baseball enthusiasts. In other words, I tried coach Little League. Further, you should remember that three of my four curtain climbers were female. This, of course, led to a little disparity of what’s called “quality time with kids,” because there wasn’t any organized baseball for the other gender, regardless of “title IX.”

Blue-eyes had played softball in both high school and college and was an excellent athlete. After a couple of years of watching our semi-coordinated son and the other klutz’s play the game of “baseball,” Little League style, she suggested, ” I think girls ought to be allowed to play in this league!” My response to that was “lots of luck on that idea.” This, of course, led to a “discussion” on gender equality, and she didn’t hold back on her thoughts on the hypothesis of the men in the league being “a bunch of chauvinist, backward ex-jocks, vicariously reliving their childhood” and a few other things in Bohemian, which I didn’t understand and probably couldn’t include in this little dissertation. Naturally, in her charming and delightful way, she got my attention.

Nothing came of this discussion for a week or so, until one day after playing tennis she remarked that her good friend Bev, whose son also played in the league, had played women’s softball in Iowa, both in high school and college. Bev had two daughters, both athletic as hell and was in complete concurrence with Blue-eyes regarding “female integrated” little league. I was drafted, regrettably, to discuss this with our league hierarchy, which I knew would be reminiscent of attempting to push wet spaghetti up a hill. Actually, it turned out better than I contemplated. Although the league charter was not prepared to allow girls to play in the boys’ hardball program, the National Little League had developed a girls’ softball league over the past few years and maybe I should investigate that opportunity. I knew this was not going to go over well, but at least it was an alternative.

I told her about the conversation with him and that I had mentioned things like city property, current attitudes about equality for females, etc. etc., and that I had also mentioned “title IX.” I explained to her that I knew I was in trouble when the president of the league thought title IX had something to do with real estate. I mentioned the girls’ softball thing and her comment was, “that’s great, but what if the girls wanted to play hardball?” I commented I didn’t know, but I thought the league might have a dilemma because “what would they do with all those extra jockstraps?” Blue-eyes’ comment was, “My mother told me you were weird, donkey brain.” (Her mother loved me!”)

Within a few weeks, Blue-eyes, Bev and tennis partner by the name of Jan (who by the way was 6 feet one or two), had all the paperwork necessary to file for a franchise. Game on! This was a girls’ senior softball Little League and was for the ages of 15 through 17. They did all the organization grunt work and by next spring, at sign-up, had enough young ladies to field five teams. They got a bunch of sponsors from the little town adjacent to our bedroom community and bought uniforms and some equipment and got ready for tryouts. The boys’ Little League officialdom was a little less than sanguine about the necessity to share the fields on an equal basis, but it was city property and had to be done, besides these guys were all married and subject to maintaining matrimonial bliss.

I was traveling the weekend of the tryouts, so had no idea of what the caliber of play might be anticipated by these female phenoms. Blue-eyes and Bev teamed up as co-managers of one team, Jan (otherwise known as “Shorty”) drafted her husband, who was about 6 foot seven, an ex-pro football player, and took another team. (He played tennis like a linebacker and you could get permanently physically damaged if he happened to nail you with one of his serves. I always tried to be his partner in doubles, out of fear more than anything else, but even then you could still get seriously hurt. He was at tad wild. But I digress!) The rest of the teams were managed by other “volunteer” husbands and their associated spouses.

I had played slow pitch softball in a church league many years before and it is a considerably different game strategically than hardball. It’s very difficult to whack one of these things out of the ballpark, so you’re relegated to playing what is conceived as “small ball,” with the bunt being one of the primary offensive weapons. Speed is a very important asset. There is no leading off until the pitcher throws the ball. The rest of the rules were pretty much the same. By the way, the concept that a softball is soft is an oxymoron. It’s just bigger, meaning a larger bruise!

Naturally, I was given the opportunity to become the assistant to the assistant coach, otherwise known as ass number two, for hitting. This was an excellent opportunity and the pay was quite good. I went to the first practice about as dubious as I could be about the forthcoming event, not knowing what to expect and quite frankly, anticipating the worst. I know some of these girls were good athletes, tennis and swimming and a few of them had even been on the track team at high school. The issue was, what did they know about baseball? I expected a repeat of my previous experiences of the kids throwing the ball everywhere except where it was intended go and a lot of running around the field chasing the errant throws. Man – – – was I in for a surprise.

There were about 15 of these young ladies, a couple of them were missing and they were mostly in the outfield in twosomes and threesomes warming up. I watched for a few minutes, looking for the telltale signs of gross incompetence, but found very little. There weren’t too many errant balls headed for never-never-land and watching most of them handle the ball I couldn’t say “you throw like a girl,” which of course I wouldn’t have done anyway for fear of being stomped to death by a bunch of aggressive females. They all had gloves, but unfortunately most were too small, the wrong type for softball and you had to assume that they belonged to a brother or someone who played hardball. The girls didn’t seem to know that, and if it bothered them, it didn’t show. Clearly, they have been playing catch or perhaps even baseball with some of the other gender. My first reaction was “hell — these gals are better than some of the teams I coached!”

A cute blonde, blue-eyed lady came over and said, “JJ, get a bat and some balls and let’s see if we can find an infield.” I said, “Yes dear!” I spent the next half-hour hitting ground balls to see if they could throw at, as well as to, first base. I took it easy, hitting relatively soft ground balls. I shortly came to the conclusion that this action was not one of the strong points of our talented debutantes. There were some obvious stars, but for the most part their basic technique was wanting. There were a couple of them that continued to close their eyes and pray about the time the ball got there, and the results were what they termed as “owies,” followed by some unladylike expletives, as they went limping to retrieve the ball. After a while Blue-eyes came over and commented, “JJ, hit the ball harder.” My retort was, “Hey, I don’t want to kill anybody!”

After everybody got a shot at trying to field grounders, Bev came over and picked six or seven likely candidates and started working with them. She had played shortstop in college and knew what she was doing. My oldest daughter was playing first base and was getting a little disgusted, and tired of chasing balls that were flying all over the place, so I asked my middle daughter, who was a little too young to play in the league, to back her up and throw the balls to home plate. Our youngest was in the outfield chasing down some of the wild-ass throws, and getting the ball back to the intended recipient. She had a real good arm, for a five-year-old. This worked out well because it kept her from playing in the dirt. After a while things started looking little bit better.

Finally, “Blondie” came over and told me I could go rest while they tried to find some pitching talent. I said, “Yes dear!” They needed to have at least four pitchers who could find home plate, once in a while. So they rounded up girls who said they could pitch and I sat there expecting to see this slow moving ball closing in on the plate. Big mistake!

The first gal, whose name was CeCe, (never did get to know her real name) did the full softball windup, releasing the ball from her hip with some real speed. It turned out her father had played a lot of softball and taught her how to pitch. She was really very fast, a little wild, but just enough to scare the hell out of an unsuspecting batter. Up came another one named Stacy, and I’ll be darned if she didn’t do almost as well. So, all of a sudden the team had two sharp pitchers. A number of the others could get the ball there, but the differential was immense. Clearly, this was not going to be a slow pitch league.

Blue-eyes had taken the rest of the team into the outfield and was hitting fly balls. The successful execution probability rate was around 50%, but that in itself was encouraging. There were numerous collisions until they got the idea of calling for the ball. Even then, there were some sprawling bodies here and there and I’m sure additional expletive commentary. One thing was impressive, none of them seem to show any fear. There were a couple of the young ladies that would’ve had trouble catching a cold, but with a little work would probably be okay. One of these gals was quite short, but extremely fast and would overrun the ball. Her brother had played for me when I was coaching, and was an extremely good catcher. Since the rules state you couldn’t steal, I suggested to Blue-eyes that this young lady be the catcher, even though she couldn’t catch. I figured I’d get a hold of her brother and have him work with her. Her nickname was “half pint” and she loved it. It really worked out, as you shall later discover, if you continue reading this rather boring dissertation.

The next couple of weeks were spent on practicing and working on the basics. Fun little things would occur — like one of the gals insisted that she play first base because the only glove she had was her brother’s first baseman’s glove. The problem with that idea was she had a tough time catching the ball, even with a basket. Blue-eyes eventually convinced her to be a backup for “half pint” at catcher. One of the other gals, a lefty, was a real good hitter, but she did it right-handed, never from the left side. I thought that was a little strange. She was having a terrible time catching and throwing. I watched her doing other stuff and she seemed to be right-hand dominant. I mentioned this to Blue-eyes, and it turned out that she was right-handed, but thought it would be cool to be left-handed. They got her a right-handed glove and she did great.

There was a late addition to the team who went to a parochial high school, had recently moved here from Texas, so nobody knew her. She was 16, 5 foot 9 or 10, probably weighed 165 pounds, and was without a doubt the best athlete on the team. She had shoulders like a swimmer and could catch, throw, hit a ton and run like a deer. This was the team’s ringer, the teenaged female “Babe Ruth.” The girls nicknamed her “Bubba.”

My role as assistant to the assistant was batting practice, and basically teaching the two forms of bunting — not one of my strong suits. It’s a different game when it comes to hitting. Small ball. Not many of these young hopefuls were going to hit the ball out of the park. So the intent was to work on hitting ground balls and trying to move the runner to the next base. This also involved trying to teach them how to slide without breaking any number of the bones in their petite little bodies. I wanted no part of this and relegated that responsibility to Bev. After watching an exhibition of their sliding acumen, I got out my cell phone and pre-dialed 911.

The team managed to get through the practice sessions without any major disasters, with one exception. The gals were in the outfield shagging balls, and all of a sudden a couple of them screamed and came roaring into the dugout. “There is a huge snake out there!” This, of course, panicked the rest of the girls and everybody headed to the protection of the dugout. Blue-eyes look at me and said, “Well, do something!” My response was an unequivocal, “You gotta be kidding! No way am I about to go out there looking for a snake.” My thoughts were this is probably an escaped python, and I’ll go out there and get swallowed up never to return. Or maybe it’s a rattlesnake; I’ll get bit and die foaming at the mouth like in the movies. I don’t like snakes.

One of the gals stepped forward and said, “I used to have a pet snake. I’ll go look!” My only thought about that was “can you teach a snake to rollover or fetch the paper?” Blue-eyes then told the assistant to the assistant, “You go with her, just in case.” I figured I better do it, but I wasn’t intending to go unarmed. I went to the car, pulled out my golf clubs and selected a three iron, just in case this reptile got overly aggressive. Blue-eyes said, “Why the three iron?” My response was, “You’re right! Maybe a five iron would be more appropriate.”

We went, carefully I might add, into the jungles of the outfield, with me not taking my eyes off the ground where I was about to step. I began to worry that the five iron was an adequate tool if indeed it was a giant python. The young lady found the snake, and informed me it was a gopher snake. Much to my horror, instead of shooing it away, she picked it up and triumphantly walked back to the dugout, with JJ trundling about 10 feet behind her, five iron at the ready, just in case this beast turned on her. The girls in the dugout went berserk. Our little snake charmer informed them that this snake is perfectly harmless and offered to let them hold it, which of course didn’t happen. She took it back to the outfield fence and released it. The only good thing that came from the snake episode was from that time forward, the girls in the outfield were much more alert. I’m still not sure that the three iron wouldn’t have been a better club selection!

The season started! Our daunting debutantes looked like real ballplayers in their spanking new uniforms. That was about the only positive thing that happened that particular day. They got stomped. CeCe, our best pitcher, walked about everything in sight, including the umpire and two spectators sitting in the stands. What few balls were hit by the opposition went through the sieve-like infield and created absolute havoc in the outfield. Nobody could throw the ball, nobody could hit the ball, catching it was, of course, out of the question and everything else was an absolute disaster. The only upside was Bubba hit the ball so hard that she disabled two of the opposition,s infielders. There was no joy in the dugout after the game.

When we got home, Blue- eyes did my normal, her abnormal, backflip into a vodka martini and said “I think we need some work!” My thoughts were, “No! What you really need are three wise men coming from the East.” But the better part of valor kept me from saying that out loud. So, back to the drawing board! More pressure was brought to bear when the assistant to the assistant batting coach, a.k.a. JJ, with questions like, “Why aren’t they hitting?” answered by the old baseball phrase, ”Duh!” The unfortunate facts were they were hitting during practice, but not during the game. I consulted with Dr. Freud, who suggested that they were uptight. He didn’t offer any solution other than a couple of “cold ones” before the game, which I suspected would be inappropriate (for the girls I mean), not for JJ.

The solution presented itself after their third or maybe fourth straight loss by a score equaling two touchdowns and a field goal. The girls were in the dugout, crying in their beer, when Bubba started thrashing around, kicking things, throwing stuff, and then looked at everybody and said in her sweet soft voice and eloquent Texas accent, “I don’t know about y’all, but I’m plum tired of “gettin” my sorry ass kicked!” That did it! The other gals just went hysterical with laughter and good ole Bubba just stood there, tears streaming down her face, not having a clue as to what was so funny. All of girls came out and gave her a big hug and a few mentioning that her sorry ass was right. That was the last game they lost.

The team went on to do some rather interesting things, but this narrative is already too long, so I’ll cover that in a second edition.

Moral of the story – There is no substitute for a good, liberal, parochial education when it comes to expressing oneself at the appropriate moment.

JJ and Culinary Catastrophes

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Indians on the Warpath – Revisited

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Indians on the Little League Warpath

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Ancestral Family Bush

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Domesticized Wild Beasties

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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