258 Bishop Place

It’s hard to tell an actual story about a time I barely remember, but there are little glimpses and vignettes kicking around in my head of things that took place while I lived at 258 Bishop Place. 

Ours was a little grey clapboard house on a tiny dead end street in downtown Salt Lake City. There were ten small houses—each belonging to a different relative on my mom’s side of the family—the Bishop side. The house belonged to my Mom’s Grandma Aggie and was across the alley from her parents house—her childhood home. We moved in when I was three and moved out when I was six. At that age, the small things are just as important as the big ones.

I remember we all slept in the same bedroom. Mom, Dad, Mark, me and David. 

I remember when we got bunk beds. It seem to recall sleeping in a play pen until then. I slept in that same bed and mattress until I was 23.

II remember spending the night at Grandma Perry’s once while Mom and Dad went to Yellowstone. I didn’t know why we were there. It didn’t matter, it was just a nice time.

One night there was a huge thunderstorm and I crawled into bed with Mom and Dad.

I remember Dad sketching portraits of the three of us kids.

I remember the smell of Dad’s oil paint, and his paintings of dark turquoise pine trees and rivers.

I remember Mom taking us to “the smelter” early one morning. Dad had forgotten his lunch or wallet or something.

Once, Mom and Dad were arguing. They were in the bathroom. I was sitting at the piano. Our portraits were hung on the wall above.

The next memory is of dad moving out with no explanation. He had an armload of albums, and put them in the back of his yellow pickup truck. It had a portable spare gas tank in the back, with a big “X” painted on it with white house paint.

I remember Dad taking us to his new apartment. It was upstairs, dark and dirty. The bathroom had a rusty sink. I remember a can of shaving cream and a razor. We roasted marshmallows in his fireplace with a woman named Louise.

I remember playing Batman—sliding down the poles on the patio. We’d use the picnic bench to climb to the top of the poles. I dropped the picnic bench on my toe, tearing off the nail, and getting rushed to a dark, dingy hospital where it was scrubbed with a horrible brush.

I remember coming home with Mom one day, to find the neighbor kids jumping on her bed.

I remember Mom’s snowman with food coloring eyes.

I remember the sandbox with dump trucks in the back yard. The birdbath, the snowball bush.

I remember playing cops and robbers on our trikes in Mr. Droubay’s driveway

I remember my 5th birthday. I got a Jack-in-the-Box, a wading pool and a stuffed Smokey the Bear, which Mark threw onto the roof.

I also had a my pink hippo placemat and blue cowboy boot cup, along with a toy Winnie-the-Pooh who would dangle from my cereal bowl and watch me eat.

I remember watching Grandma Bishop standing in her window across the alley. She covered her ears with pillows to protect them from the thunder and lightning

I remember watching “Lost In Space” and seeing Dave hide behind the door—afraid of the robot.

I remember someone broke Grandma’s window with a ball. I remember that I knew who it was, but wouldn’t tattle. She asked if “a cat had my tongue.” A strange phrase to a little kid.

I remember the chest of drawers with our pajamas inside. I also had a little red swimsuit. It was heavy cotton with a little blue dinosaur embroidered on it. I had a brown corduroy coat with white fur trim on the hood.

I remember outings to the zoo and Liberty Park with Mom and her friend Betty Snyder. Betty had three girls to offset Mom’s three boys. Hogle Zoo had a drinking fountain shaped like a big yellow lion. They also had a talking garbage dumpster with a clown face that would suck garbage right out of your hand. 

I remember David slipping on the floor one day. Aunt Doris said “Whoops-a-daisy!” I thought that was a strange phrase, too.

There was a deaf couple on our street.

I remember Faye Lambert. She live next door to Grandma and Grandpa. Her dad worked at Sinclair oil and gave us an inflatable dinosaur. One day Faye, myself, and some other neighbors boys exposed ourselves to each other behind the car.

I remember O.P. Skaggs. The people who worked there. The candy, the butcher. There was a drug store across the street. I bought a Humpty Dumpty ladder toy there.

I remember sitting in front of the furnace. Mark was teaching me to read. It was a story about some ducks that walked through a dirty pipe and turned black. Mom was embroidering in the chair next to us.

I remember David writing our great big phone number (359-7073) in blue crayon on the outside wall.

I remember my first day of Kindergarten. Parents and kids filling out cards around little tables. We made construction paper stoplights. I finished mine early and made an extra one. When the class was excused for recess, I kissed Mrs. Hill on the cheek before going outside. It seems that I was hesitant to go out. I just wanted to stay inside with  her, rather than go out with the other kids. I remember the green vinyl sleeping mats and graham crackers.

I remember watching “Concentration” on our old black and white TV before afternoon school. I stopped in at Grandma’s to tell her and Mom goodbye before I left.

One day, on the way home from school, a dog barked at me from behind a fence, running the length of it. I was crying when I got home. Mom was there with some lady. They told me everything would be okay.

I remember one day our class walked to our house. Mom says it was to see our pet ducks. I remember Mrs. Hill shout “Somebody’s making chili sauce!” Mom gave her a jar of some.

Another day, we had our bodies traced on paper then we colored our “self-portraits.” 

We had a teacher’s aide named David Oreno. I remember sitting on his lap and reading a “Peanuts” book to the class before we all took off to the zoo. I remember whispers of disbelief that a kid my age could read.

I remember Mr. Oreno playing his guitar and singing “Puff the Magic Dragon” and “The Bloody Red Baron” on the steps outside.

In first grade, I remember taking a walk outside, gathering autumn leaves with Mrs. Coffee and the class. We also found horse chestnuts and a cocoon. She was the “advanced kids” teacher. I remember the coat rack, the walled-off reading area and her desk. I remember our class conducted a mock presidential poll between Nixon and Humphrey. It seems as though Humphrey won.

I remember the lunch room (vaguely). Big and dark with lots of stainless steel. This seems like it should be an important memory. I’m not sure why. I guess it’s vague, because I only spent a few months eating there. Maybe I went home for lunch. Actually, I remember brown bag tuna sandwiches. But something haunts me about this lunchroom. A telephone?

I remember Debbie Lucero, Rebecca Huff and Thomas Christensen. Rebecca lived in “Swede Town.” I went to Debbie’s house once. I don’t remember why. Thomas and I walked halfway home from school together. I didn’t play with any of the school kids. The Tweedy’s lived a couple of houses away. We’d play with them sometimes—Bobby and Loralee.

I remember the day of Mom and Frank’s wedding. Mrs. Coffee told me that Grandma Perry was coming to get me after lunch to spend the night with her because Mom was getting married and going to Nevada. This was news to me. But it really didn’t sink in until we moved into a nice new house on Pueblo Street with lots of rooms. I remember running down the long carpeted hallway like an airplane and plunging head first into my bed. Mom made bright bedroom curtains printed with colorful clowns. She also made matching pajamas. 

New house. New school. New family. 

New life.

The Wild, Wild West

When our Winnebago trailer wasn’t being used to hide the Christmas presents, our family would occasionally hitch it to the rust-on-rust ’66 Suburban and take it out for an adventure. There was that campout to the Duchesne River were we were accosted by a cow at our campfire. There was also a family reunion at Utah Lake where I stepped on the skull of a catfish puncturing my right foot.

One summer in 1973 or so, Mom, Frank and the six of us kids headed west to Nevada in search of the Wild Burros my Uncle Don told us about. Mom and Frank loved the desert badlands and thought the Nevada heat would be a nice break from the Salt Lake heat. We all donned our crocheted beer can visors, pulled up our tube socks and hit I-80. Westward, Ho!

We spent the first night in Elko in the parking lot of the Stockman’s Hotel and Casino. We were awestruck by the gigantic polar bear in the lobby—completely oblivious to how out far away from the arctic he was. We stood by the slot machines handing our parents pennies to gamble on our behalf from behind the red line on the floor used to keep minors from gambling. When we ran out of pennies, the folks banished us back to the trailer so they could continue having fun. While incarcerated in the Winnebago, my brother Mark passed the time by eating an entire bag of oranges with the voraciousness of a ravenous chimp. He then proceeded to puke his guts out. Mom and Frank eventually returned to a trailer that smelled like Anita Bryant’s john.

The next morning (after taking Mark to the Elko Clinic) we headed south. It was a long hot drive. No radio. We kept cool with an arsenal of squirt bottles aided by the draft from the tailgate window that would never roll up. 

We reached the town of Eureka and stopped in a little general store where Mom bought the fixins for tuna sandwiches. The woman at the register was a haggy looking thing whom we knew was most certainly a witch. She gave us the creeps and we made a beeline out of the store chased by a pack of wild dogs nipping at our heels. Lunch was less than we had hoped for due to the jar of expired Miracle Whip. Not a big demand in these parts for sandwich spread on a roadkill sandwich, I reckon.

On to U.S. 50, which is known as the “Loneliest Highway in America.” So lonely, in fact, that it is even devoid of the aforementioned Wild Burros. Dirt and brush followed by more dirt and brush—just the sort of thing an 11-year-old kid longs for. Did I mention no radio? I spent the 80-mile drive envying the pioneers and what must have been a walk in the park for them.

We ended up in the bustling metropolis of Baker where we toured the Lehman Caves. My siblings and I placed bets if they were named after Lynn Lehmann, KCPX’s morning deejay. The stalactites and stalagmites reflected in the many pools—the only sight of water we’d seen since we left home.

After exploring the caves, Mom and Frank needed a thirst quencher. They found a bar in the middle of nowhere. The kids spent what seemed an eternity in the parking lot kicking gravel and throwing radioactive dirt at each other. Finally, bored to tears, we went into the bar and demanded that we get out of that hell hole. Unswayed by our demand, the folks continued with their swigging. A man at the end of the bar spoke up. “I have a ranch just a few miles from here,” he said, booming like Hoss Cartwright. “Want me to take them off your hands?” “Hell, yes!” Frank said. Mom seconded the motion and ordered another can of Burgie. We loaded into the man’s pickup (sans parents) and drove away in a cloud of dust. 

We spent the rest of the day hanging out at the ranch doing farm chores. Gail and Mimi drove a tractor. Mark was brave enough to mount a horse and rode it pretty handily until the horse decided to head into the barn. Mark forgot to duck and was beaned in the doorway suffering only a mild concussion. 

In the morning, after the girls made pancakes for everyone, the man returned us to our parents. We were free from any harm except for the grapefruit-sized lump on Mark’s forehead. He sure loves his citrus.

Anyway, we eventually made it home. Mom and Frank went on to have many more shenanigans along the back roads of Nevada without us kids, but for some reason are completely mum on any of those goings on. 

Of course, I’ve never told them of my Las Vegas escapades, either. What happens in Nevada stays in Nevada.

Family Belongings

Harry Bishop was a shooter.

At his funeral, his grandsons stepped to the podium to tell of the times they shared. “Grandpa was with me when I shot my first duck,” my cousin Matt recalled. “Grandpa told me to shoot a snipe,” said Wade, another cousin, “because it was sitting still and would be pretty hard to miss.” One by one, they told how he thought of hunting and fishing as art forms. Whether he was bagging a deer or a drake, they said he was a man with a sharp eye and a steady finger. I listened to each one and was surrounded with the quiet isolation that I usually feel when I am with this side of my family. Their childhood remembrances were so remote from my own. I wish I had known the same Harry Bishop that they did.

My cousins finished speaking. I stepped to the podium for my contribution. I was asked to sing a song since I am considered the “artsy’ one of the family. I am not a hunter. I haven’t fished since I was twelve. I always felt like the outcast, so their invitation made me feel like a guest artist rather than a family member.

“Because he called the forest brother.

Because he called the earth his mother.”

My legs quaked like aspens as friends and family sat still. When I finished I took my place next to Aunt Ruth. She hugged and thanked me—I guess I did okay. Later, I learned that some were moved by the words, others were shocked that I could sing, and the others just wondered who I was.

Later that evening we went to Grandpa’s house. He had moved from his house on Bishop Place a year or so before, but there were things to attend to. The rickety gate from the picket fence would mean more to Mom than to the next homeowner. My brother had spoken for the china cabinet. Ruth grabbed and old flashlight and Frank, my stepfather, retrieved some rusty garden tools from the shed. Everyone was looking for a last belonging to remember him by. Ruth and Elaine led me to the tiny bedroom they shared with Mom and Sandi. A handmade wooden trunk coated with generations of paint (forest green being the most recent) sat beneath the dusty sill of the lone window. “Here’s what you want,”said Ruth.

My Grandpa was a shooter. His sharp eye and steady finger captured Utah through a camera—an image of a bait-laden hook as it plunged into Smith & Morehouse Reservoir, turning its glassy surface into a sea of ripples. I can still hear the hollow kerplunk. He shot portraits of Salt Lake’s prominent and colorful, as well as humdrum product photography for Utah’s early advertising execs. He began his career as a photographer with C.R. Savage, at that time the area’s most renowned photographer. He shot and developed photos for Fred Wilkes, Utah Photo, and Hal Rumel Studios until he retired in 1965. Nearly 50 years of his life were spent peering through a camera and the countless trays of developer had stained his fingertips gold.

A good part of his life was in that trunk—a good part of my life was in there, too. I saw the young faces of women I knew only as little old ladies and uncles I had only known by a name.

We sifted through the damp yellow envelopes. Some of the prints had been hand-tinted by my grandma in the early part of their marriage. Some negatives had melted—probably from the heat of the glove box in their 1950 Ford, others were fused together by water from years of leaky roofs. Most of the images were of my mom and her sisters (Sandi, the youngest and cutest received the most exposure). I came across a print of my grandma, Dorothy, sitting on the front porch of their cabin in Oakley. She and Grandpa had been best friends since they were twelve years old. As a kid, I spent many summer afternoons at the cabin. Chewing on caramels and Fig Newtons, Grandma and I watched the birds from that porch as they’d nibble seed from the feeders in the quakies. My favorite memory is when Matt and I lazily floated on inner tubes down the canal that ran along side the Weber River. Sun-burned and water-logged we sauntered back to the cabin where we spent the rest of the day reading old issues of Mad magazine. That’s when I unleashed a sense of humor and twisted view of the world that would become my most recognizable trait. I slept overnight that saturday—my first sleepover—and discovered that I had a family beyond that of my own four walls.

The cabin is also where my brother Dave, my cousin Wade, and I hiked along the bridle trail, looking for watercress and chasing squirrels with bows and arrows. At the end of our adventure, we’d return to the cabin, heading straight for the water pump. Lifting the baked enamel mug from the nail on the post, we’d fill it with a gush of ice cold water. We always underestimated the pressure of that pump and would get soaked with a splash that took our breaths away. In the pasture across the road, Pam, the Koester’s horse seemed to be laughing at us as she whinnied into the breeze.

In another envelope, I found a series of negatives. They were our annual family portraits taken at the Lakefront Gun Club. I held each negative to the filtered light of the window, I watched our family grow and disappear at the same time.

The gun club and cabin were like night and day. The shade of the aspens gave way to salty sagebrush and a scorching sun. Our family had gathered in that one-room clubhouse every Easter since the beginning of time. At least my time. From our benches of planks and overturned buckets, we’d gaze down the long dirt road. One by one, each family arrived in a cloud of swirling dust and gravel, just in tome for our traditional Easter dinner of Kentucky Fried Chicken, potato salad and Oreos. Once in a while a grown-up would even sneak us a swig of Coors. We’d paddle in beat-up fishing boats, usually getting stuck in the shallow spots, and scream for an uncle or older cousin to rescue us. Our Easter egg hunts seemed more authentic than those of my friends. The jackrabbits we watched run through the brush were really the Easter Bunny (so we were told) hiding bags of eggs and Hershey’s Kisses. But softball games were the highlight. With about thirty players per team, we used cowpies and mud puddles for bases. The late night ka-thumps of our sneakers in the dryer, clean for school the next morning, comes back to me still, as I drift off to a lullaby of tumbling dress shirts and dish towels.

The family spent countless chilly mornings sitting in duck blinds at the club, shotguns in hand, just waiting to bad a honker or a pintail.

Here is where Wade bagged his snipe. I had a snipe experience, too—my only hunt with Grandpa. He wanted nothing more than to have me succeed my first time out. He pointed to a sitting snip and nudged me. It was a sure-fire trophy. I aimed, I winced and I pulled the trigger. The morning sky shattered with the spray of a billion BB’s. All I knew was that my shoulder hurt like hell. “Hey! That’s keen!” Grandpa hooted, “Get out there and pick him up.” The memory of sloshing through the marsh to fetch that innocent bird, dead by my hand, was a far cry from running through our muddy softball field the spring before.

And thus was born the family outcast.

I may not have been cut out for “the hunt,” but shuffling through these photos helped me realize that the family hadn’t shunned me. I had shunned them. Like Grandpa wandering silently to shoot a lone buck or perfect sunset, I set out alone aiming for my own forms of peace and beauty. Looking at his photo of a kid fishing at a lake, I hear the whistle of the wind through the rushes. I smell the damp, squeaky straw of a fishing creel. These were the images he captured.

That’s the Grandpa I remember.

Looking at the world as an outsider, whether through a camera lens or the distance of self-imposed exile, you can make the time to really see. Grandpa and I had something in common after all.

These are the thoughts that filled my head as we slipped the gate and trunk of photos into the minivan and left Bishop Place for the last time. It was quiet except for Ruth clicking her flashlight on and off and the clatter of shovels behind the back seat. I had lost a grandpa—but discovered a new sense of belonging.

Things that go bump in the night

My mom's dog, Koko was a special needs dog with a too-long tail, an even longer tongue, and four rickety knees. Picture an alligator with the coloring of a Doberman then add some static electricity and a thick spray of Aquanet. That was Koko. She was the sweetest dog you ever met, but ferocious when guarding her squeaky toys. Chalk her temperament up to a hardscrabble puppyhood in Delta, Utah. More so, blame her rather unconventional parents. 

Ziggy and Muttley were my brother's two dogs—a brother and sister team who never could keep their dirty paws off of each other. Their trysts resulted in more than one litter of countless pups including Koko and Petey (the dog with no feety).

What would drive two mongrels like these into such unbridled lust? It certainly wasn’t a physical beauty that drew them together. Does chasing pheasants all day increase one’s testosterone level? Are the pheromones of wet dog so irresistible? Or maybe (short of the Snow Goose Festival) there’s just not a lot to do in Millard County in Early March. Whatever the reason, Ziggy and Muttley were in love. There was no denying or stopping it.

One night, Muttley lie awake at the foot of my brother’s bed with one eye open, one ear cocked—waiting to hear the sounds of snoring. That was his signal. Once the family was finally asleep he could make his move. Ziggy sat on the couch wondering what was on Nightline when the invitation finally came. 

Muttley leapt onto the couch and nudged her with his waffle-cone muzzle. Ziggy rolled her eyes and let loose with a sigh. The 10:00 news had depressed her—what with the war, the ports and all. He nudged her again and let out a whimper—that one that says “come on, just one more table scrap?” Ziggy caved. She gave him a nibble on the ear and they escaped through the doggy door into the cold country air. Their hearts raced. Their breath huffed clouds of anticipation.

Delta is quiet. Except for the distant sound of an occasional flock of honkers or the whinny of a horse a couple of acres away there’s not much sound. There’s also not much to see at that time of night. An occasional porch light isn’t enough to illuminate the barns, the tractors and the long stretches of desolate road. 

Maybe Ziggy wanted something a little dangerous. Maybe Muttley wanted it right there. Right now. Maybe it was both. They must have thought that a moonlit romp on back road in Delta was safe enough, but neither one of them possessed much in the good judgment category.

“Now!” Muttley yapped. “Huh?” Ziggy answered in that Scooby-Doo sort of way. “Now!” he yapped again. It was too much for Ziggy and he nipped her on the ear and scampered  around her in a circle. They stopped—frozen for a second or two, their eyes locking onto each other like two deer in the headlights. Then the teasing continued. Soon, this game of cat and mouse evolved into something right out of “Lady & The Tramp—The Director’s Cut.”  The couple became so embroiled, so entangled, they fused together as one and were eventually immobilized—in the middle of the road in the middle of the night in the middle of “It.”

There isn’t a lot of traffic in Delta, but whatever car there was that night barreled along the road past my brother’s house. The moon and the headlights tried their best to shed some warning, but two black dogs in one intertwined knot aren’t easy to see in the dark. The driver recognized too late what it was as the ker-thump under the tires jolted her back to reality and made her heart sink.

Ziggy and Muttley were dead. Canis interruptus.

It wasn’t until morning that the family learned of the tragedy. There was a note on the door. My brother broke the news to the family then gathered the dogs up in a box and buried them beneath the big elm tree by the shed. There, in the yard where they used to romp with the geese, where they chased cats and each other—they’d spend forever together.

Meanwhile, no one had the heart to tell Koko that she was now an orphan. Being a special needs dog she never took solace in knowing her mother/aunt and father/uncle died with smiles on their faces. 

Called Up  

Five feet. Four inches. I scribbled the benchmark on the door of my bedroom closet. I was still a good head away, but if I could just make it to five feet four inches I’d be okay. 

Five-four was the height of Freddie "the Flea" Patek—shortstop for the Kansas City Royals. They were my favorite team that year—largely because I idolized Freddie. Mom even embroidered me a Royals ball cap, which Donna Bridgewater, the school bully, tossed into the girls’ toilet the first day I wore it to school.

Like most other boys, my summers were all about baseball. I (like Freddie) played shortstop for the Blue Barons. We were in the minor league of our neighborhood’s little league, but at least I was in the infield. One Saturday, a stellar (albeit lucky) catch netted me a quarter from the ump. I spent it on a Tiger’s Blood snow cone—not exactly the Cy Young award, but gratifying nonetheless.

When I wasn’t practicing or playing, I was preparing. I’d spend an entire afternoon seasoning my glove with linseed oil. My brother Mark said it was good for the leather. I was actually doing it to loosen it up. My hands, which were the size of silver-dollar pancakes, could barely squeeze it shut. It had so far only been used as a barricade to keep grounders from going between my legs.

I also won an aluminum bat that year for selling the most candy bars door-to-door and it was also the summer I for all intents and purposes lived at Derks Field. Mark and I were the Seventies equivalent of mall rats—ball rats, I guess you could say. We’d buy a ticket to just about every home game, but rarely stayed in our seats. We’d sneak to the box seats behind home plate and get kicked out by the ushers. We ran around the stadium, scaling the concrete stairs like peanut salesmen on uppers.

The Salt Lake Angels were the AAA farm team of the California Angels. It was there we got our first glimpses of future big leaguers like Mickey Rivers, Rudy Meoli, even Tommy Lasorda, who was then coach of the Albuquerque Dukes. Once a year, the California Angels would roll into town for an exhibition game. (I still have an autographed Nolan Ryan card that I’m thinking about passing down to my nephew, but with its Ebay value going the way it is, he may have to settle for an autographed Dick Lange.)

Mark and I had the run of the park. We’d taunt the program barkers, try to get hired on as underage concessionaires, then run up to the broadcast booth where Augie Navarro was calling the play-by play. He’d whack his pencil on the desk, and in his deadpan drone announce "Marcano grounds out to third."

After the games, we became stage door Johnnies and waited outside the locker room door in hopes of scoring some autographs. We’d usually nab one or two, if we could get to the players before their wives or girlfriends did. It was sort of disheartening to watch these gods turn into regular guys when they changed from their crisp white uniforms into street duds, we knew they really weren’t like that; their real lives were on the field.

The best part of the game was hanging out at the bullpen. I’d lean over the concrete wall, like I did at the lion pit at Hogle Zoo. That’s where I became friends with some of the relief pitchers. Mark would be at the dugout groveling for broken bats, so this allowed me some quality one-on-one time with the guys.

I don’t know just what it was we talked about—probably nothing—which makes me think I was probably a distraction from their warm-ups—but the players knew me by name, and didn’t seem put off by my starry-eyed chatter. I’d watch, mesmerized at the speed of the fast balls and loved to hear the "thhhuk!" of the ball as it slapped into the catcher’s mitt. I missed most of the actual game, watching instead this high-speed game of catch. 

Of all of them those summers, Bruce Heinbechner was my idol. He was a long, lanky relief pitcher who was the nicest guy on the roster. Beyond cool. Beyond heroic. He was superhuman. And, at the last game of the season, he gave me a brand new ball. 

No dings, no stains, not even an autograph—perfectly white cowhide. I couldn’t take my eyes off it as I rode home in Mom’s Impala, tracing the stitching with my finger as we drove through the streets of Poplar Grove.

Fall hit, and the world series got underway. Donna McGuire prowled the neighborhood with her twenty-five cent grid sheet. We always bought a dollar’s worth, and waited anxiously by the phone until she’d call us with our scores. I never won one.

When winter came, Mark and I would look through old Derks Field programs in anticipation of the next season. We also had a dice game that would recreate an actual game using real player stats and abilities. I was always the Royals. Mark was always the Angels. My Freddie Patek versus his Jerry Remy.

When spring rolled around, we’d scan the sports pages to see who was being traded, who was on the injured list. There was never the politics of holding out for more, or wanting to be traded. It was all about who could hit, and whose fastball would be the first to break 100 mph.

I opened the paper one morning and was hit with my own curve ball: Bruce Heinbechner had been killed in a car crash while at spring training in Houston. Not just killed. Decapitated.

I’d seen cowboys and Indians shoot ‘em up and cried at the end of Where the Red Fern Grows. Mark and I had analyzed Roberto Clemente’s plane crash and even buried Gil Hodges’ trading card in our garden when he died, but this one hit home. This was personal. Bruce was the first person I actually knew to die. He was my friend, not just a bunch of stats with a stick of gum attached. I pictured the mass of twisted metal. It was a sports car—a convertible. The image of his headless body slapped into my mind with a "thhhuk!" His confident, smiling face replaced with terrorized eyes and a wide-open mouth. 

My head sank. I headed to my room. Take me out, coach.

The ball he gave to me was on my nightstand with my two other treasures, a pinewood derby car and freckle king trophy.  I held it up and stared at it like a red-headed Hamlet.  

Bruce. Decapitated. 

The papers said he was going to be the hottest rookie reliever in the majors. They also had it that he was probably showing off his car’s horsepower when he crashed. All I knew for sure is that Bruce Heinbechner was a superstar who was still grounded enough to befriend a little kid.

I stood under the pencil mark on my door—still short. But something was different. I had grown. I could feel the pain of it.

The Bean Season

Well, its here. The time I start getting all reminiscent about our old family reunions. We haven’t had one (that I know of) since Grandma Perry died back in the ‘80s. Back in the day, we’d all gather at Liberty Park or Sugarhouse Park — aunts and uncles showing up with Tupperware containers, TV trays and aluminum folding chairs all tagged with magic marker on masking tape. Aunt Doris always brought the volleyball net and croquet set that she got from County Parks & Rec. Aunt Dorothy always whistled cheerily from her wheelchair. Uncle Lou always greeted me with a slug on the arm and a jolly “hello” in that British accent of his. 

I was n introvert and not too familiar with many of the relatives,  so the food was the star of the show. Grandma always brought Swedish meatballs, yellow cake with chocolate frosting, and a huge vat of Hawaiian Punch spiked with lemonade.

And these beans. Oh, these beans...

Grandma Perry’s Nothing-Fancy-but-Delicious-as-Hell-Baked Beans 

24 oz. can Pork and Beans, drained 

1/2 small onion, chopped 

1/2 green bell pepper, chopped 

1/3 cup catsup 

1/3 cup molasses 

2 tbs. prepared mustard 

2 tbs. brown sugar 

Spray baking dish with non-stick spray and bake for approximately 1 hour at 350° 

Jeep Thrills  

My parents always brought home the strangest things from their Saturday nights at the China Doll Lounge—things like a three foot John Wayne whiskey decanter, or an equally tall bottle of Galliano. I’m not sure if they actually paid money for these things, won them in raffles, or if they were simply gifts from friends. I suspect that my parents were probably kleptomaniacs—but some objects (like the occasional nameless drunk that was found sacked out on our couch when we awoke on any given Sunday morning) would have been pretty hard to spirit away under an overcoat.

A favorite "keepsake" was the Budweiser clock. It used to hang on the wall in the booth where they’d drink their bourbon and Cokes to the sound of Hank Williams’ caterwauling. It was a couple of feet high, with a brassy team of Clydesdales under the clock’s face. The frame of the clock was filled with lava lamp bubbles that, I suppose, represented the bubbles in an ice cold bottle of Bud. Mom proudly recalls the story of how she pried away the power cord that was stapled to the wall. Next, she put it under the table when no one was looking. Then, with a good kick, slid it under the pinball machine that stood like a sleeping sentry by the door. On the way out, she nonchalantly grabbed it and threw it in the back of the truck. It was quite a find, but karmic forces eventually kicked in—later blessing our home with an army of cockroaches.

Lots of treasures, lots of stories, but the best souvenir of all, was discovered one quiet summer morning. It was far too big to fit under a pinball machine—too big, even, to sprawl out on the couch. It was parked in our driveway.

Painted a flat olive green, and lacking any signs of actual warfare, the World War Two Army Jeep seemed dusty, as though the previous owner had stored it for years, unaware of the mayhem it could have provided. I never learned who they got it from—or how—but that’s beside the point. The real story is how my parents put it to use that summer in Poplar Grove.

It was the Fourth of July weekend, and our usually quiet neighborhood popped and cracked with the distant sounds of caps and illegal Evanston firecrackers. The blistering hot sidewalks were being scarred with the black stains of "Snakes"—you know, those things that started as a charcoal pellet and ended a long, loopy stream of ash. My dad always questioned, "What’s up with these Snakes? What do they have to do with Independence Day? Did the Founding Fathers all sign the Declaration on Independence, and say ‘Hey! Let’s go light some Snakes?’" He had a point.

I sat on the front porch listening to the sprinklers’ hiss. I wished for some pyrotechnics of my own, but my holiday weekend was destined to be spent on the front porch playing "Rorschach Test" with the melted popsicle drips on the tops of my bare feet.  

Soon, the calm of the sprinkler hiss was broken by a bang! and sput-sput-sputter! coming from the driveway. I turned to look and saw them both, Dad in the driver’s seat—Mom riding shotgun. They were both sporting army helmets—thrown in as part of the deal. The military effect was sort of lost on the fact they were also wearing t-shirts, cutoffs and flip-flops. "Where are you going," I yelled—partly wanting to go, but mostly afraid for their own well being. "We’ll be back in a minute," Dad hollered back over the din of the engine. They backed out of the driveway onto Pueblo Street and headed north—possibly never to be seen again.

I stared back at my feet and said a silent prayer.

Looking like Colonel Klink and Sergeant Schultz, they prowled the back alleys and side streets of Poplar Grove. They zipped down the alleys, flinching and wincing as they were whipped with low-hanging twigs and Virginia Creeper. Perhaps this mobilization was not such a good idea, they later recounted. But it was a mission. They were red-blooded Americans. Duty called. You could almost hear them whistling "The Bridge Over the River Kwai."

Breaking free from the torturous Guadalcanal-like alley, they turned out to the daylight of Emery Street. Looking right, looking left, they got first glimpse of the enemy.

Three boys in tank tops and tube socks were crouched in an "up-to-no-good" formation in the middle of the street. Dad stopped the Jeep and sounded the horn. It sent them all into the air, revealing the reason for their huddle. It was a Coke bottle—loaded with a bottle rocket—and ready for launching. There was also a dozen scattered, tell-tale matches showing that this firing wasn’t their first. "What’s going on here," Dad shouted in his best George C. Scott snarl (but sounding a bit more like Barney Fife). "Nothing," stammered one of the kids. "Well, why don’t you hand all of that ‘nothing’ over to us? We’re from the UNITED STATES ARMY!" The kids, wide-eyed and shaking, gathered the goods and placed them in Mom’s outstretched hands. This was going to be much easier (and cheaper) than a trip to Evanston.

My parents pulled away to the astonishment of the three ne’er-do-wells and resumed putting a halt to the other neighbors’ holiday fun—snickering all the way home.

When they returned with their loot, I looked at them in disbelief. Not because I was getting a ration of bottle rockets, Roman Candles and M-80s, but someone’s angry parents—if not the cops were probably not far behind.

The paranoia wore off by nightfall as Mom and I sat in the yard under the big birch tree. My little brother ran across the lawn, doing loop-di-loops with a glowing sparkler. The first cricket of the night began to chirp. A block away, other neighbors were celebrating, too. 

Mom aimed a bottle rocket down the street at them. "Watch me scare the piss out of these guys," she said with a squint and launched it. "Hey, watch it!" they shouted, retaliating with a screaming rocket of their own.

War had been declared.

I ran for cover.