The One Constant Through All The Years
Posted: Tue Nov 19, 2013 12:29 pm
A couple of you have asked about how I got 'here'. I'm not sure this is the answer you're looking for.
But, it's the best I got.....
In the second grade, I was sent home with a report card with a note from the teacher. Any time a note went home to my parents, I treated it like a family receiving a telegram during war time. The news was never good.
Most of my childhood pictures include a ball. I was captivated by the many things a ball can do. I could reek havoc with my less coordinated sisters. I could throw it up against the house to strengthen my arm and practice fielding as it rolled back to me. I could juggle them. I could hit it with a bat.
So, it was not a surprise that that note attached to my report card had a one sentence note from my teacher.
'Danny has a bad case of 'baseballitis'. When my parents approached me with this note, I couldn't deny it. My teacher was a female. Worse, not a baseball fan. A male teacher at the school had shown me how to come up with an E.R.A.
We were still doing only addition and subtraction, but I got ahead of the others in my class because baseball necessitated it.
The male teacher understood me, but he wasn't my teacher. My teacher was probably a little peeved in that I would answer a question like this....
27 - 24 = 3 Babe Ruth
Like Joe Friday, she only wanted the facts.
In sixth grade, another note was sent home. Not on my report card, a note in an envelope.
By sixth grade, I was a full fledged baseball junkie. I would wait for my Dad to finish the Sunday paper and write down the top 20 players in each category. Home runs, rbi, runs, hits, Wins, the important categories.
Then go home and add to those lists as each daily paper would keep me informed as to who was leading what.
When I wasn't doing that, I was playing baseball. Either organized or unorganized. Constantly trying to get a game going when Little League was over or hadn't started up yet.
The note from my sixth grade teacher?
'Danny looks forward to coming to school. Unfortunately, it is not for the education. He thinks of school as a collection of potential baseball mates.'
This note was fair. I never went to school to learn. Learning was collateral damage of a possible baseball game.
We moved later that year. From the big city of Hayward, California to the population 200 town of Pioneer, California.
I became a big baseball fish in a dried up 'ol pond in Pioneer.
We only had two neighbors my age in Pioneer. They only played baseball if I begged. And they were both more adept at moving a chess piece than throwing a baseball.
So, most days during summer, I would hit rocks. I took an ax handle, took off the ax blade and hit rocks from the gravel road in front of our house. I still did my stats. Listened to the Giants and A's on the radio and wished I could play baseball.
The next summer, a little league team was formed. A little bit above average player in Hayward, I became a little league 'star' for Pioneer.
Yucky girls would start saying 'Hi' to me. That's how you know you're becoming a 'star' in the seventh grade.
We were winning and had a big game coming up.
That is when school once again interfered. Or, at least that was the way I saw it.
I got an 'F' on my report card.
An 'F' on a seventh grade report card only means one thing to any kid.
Death.
Your life as you knew it, was over.
I didn't want to die.
So, on that school bus home, I did the only sensible thing I could think of to do. I changed the 'F' to a 'B'. Inwardly, I praised the inventor of the alphabet for making an F a bad grade and not a B. A 'B' would be tough to alter.
My parents were happy with the report card. They admonished me for the 'D' I received in another class.
But 'attaboy'd me for raising my grades from a 'D' to a 'B' in my 'F' class.
I went to my room, giving myself mental pats on the back for the deception.
I could play in the game.
I could do my stats.
More important, I was still alive.
That is, until my brother got home. My brother was older than I. He was Wally to my Beaver. He didn't have a nefarious bone in his body. He knew I was having problems at school and when he looked at the report card, he smiled and matter of factly told my parents what I had done.
My Dad opened my bedroom door. You know in cartoons where smoke is coming from a characters ears to show him as being mad, my Dad was beyond that. For those that don't believe in corporal punishment, close your eyes now, and start the next paragraph.
He asked me if I had changed my report card. In seeing the look on his face, I knew that denial would make it worse, so I gave in and said yes. He told me to take off my pants and underwear. In our house, if our Dad asked us to take off both, it was the supreme version of punishment. He took off his belt and whipped me for a long time. A long time.
My Mom came in and asked him to stop once. I took solace in that he hesitated in his beating to answer, 'No'.
A few minutes later, the phone rang. My Mom interrupted again and said the phone was for my Dad. My Dad ran his own painting business, so any call could be a new job. He had to take the call. My Mom hustled me out of the bedroom and into the bathroom where she drew a tub of water to soothe my behind. She started crying when she saw my butt. I asked her to stop crying, I lied and whispered to her that it didn't hurt THAT bad.
I've made this post into a mini-Novellette, so I'll try and make this more to the point....
I continued school and more importantly, baseball, through three other moves to different cities. The last being here in Grand Junction, Colorado.
I've never seen my Dad so proud as when I graduated high school. I didn't think it was that big of a deal. Except for that F, I had always gotten just good enough grades to play baseball. That's all I wanted. All I needed.
My high school baseball coach told me that I had to get better grades to warrant a baseball scholarship from the local college. So I got my grades up.
And I got the baseball scholarship. The first in my family to get any type of scholarship and go to College.
I impressed on my father that it was baseball that made it all possible. He had no recourse, but to agree.
I completed my Freshman year of school.
During winter ball of my sophomore year, I developed a sore arm. In those days, a sore arm was a sore arm. It never came back to the way it was. Years later I would have rotator cuff surgery.
I couldn't play baseball, so I quit school.
Now older, I look back and think that, sure, I wasted opportunity for education. I could have taken school more seriously.
But, to tell the truth, I wouldn't change much.
All those teachers would sure get a laugh, as my folks would, if they were still around.
I mean, think about it. Here is the guy that they would roll their eyes at, writing stories every day and studying every day.
Things I never did at school.
Something they wished for over those years. They'd all think I have changed.
I haven't.
It is still all because of baseball.
THAT has never changed.
But, it's the best I got.....
In the second grade, I was sent home with a report card with a note from the teacher. Any time a note went home to my parents, I treated it like a family receiving a telegram during war time. The news was never good.
Most of my childhood pictures include a ball. I was captivated by the many things a ball can do. I could reek havoc with my less coordinated sisters. I could throw it up against the house to strengthen my arm and practice fielding as it rolled back to me. I could juggle them. I could hit it with a bat.
So, it was not a surprise that that note attached to my report card had a one sentence note from my teacher.
'Danny has a bad case of 'baseballitis'. When my parents approached me with this note, I couldn't deny it. My teacher was a female. Worse, not a baseball fan. A male teacher at the school had shown me how to come up with an E.R.A.
We were still doing only addition and subtraction, but I got ahead of the others in my class because baseball necessitated it.
The male teacher understood me, but he wasn't my teacher. My teacher was probably a little peeved in that I would answer a question like this....
27 - 24 = 3 Babe Ruth
Like Joe Friday, she only wanted the facts.
In sixth grade, another note was sent home. Not on my report card, a note in an envelope.
By sixth grade, I was a full fledged baseball junkie. I would wait for my Dad to finish the Sunday paper and write down the top 20 players in each category. Home runs, rbi, runs, hits, Wins, the important categories.
Then go home and add to those lists as each daily paper would keep me informed as to who was leading what.
When I wasn't doing that, I was playing baseball. Either organized or unorganized. Constantly trying to get a game going when Little League was over or hadn't started up yet.
The note from my sixth grade teacher?
'Danny looks forward to coming to school. Unfortunately, it is not for the education. He thinks of school as a collection of potential baseball mates.'
This note was fair. I never went to school to learn. Learning was collateral damage of a possible baseball game.
We moved later that year. From the big city of Hayward, California to the population 200 town of Pioneer, California.
I became a big baseball fish in a dried up 'ol pond in Pioneer.
We only had two neighbors my age in Pioneer. They only played baseball if I begged. And they were both more adept at moving a chess piece than throwing a baseball.
So, most days during summer, I would hit rocks. I took an ax handle, took off the ax blade and hit rocks from the gravel road in front of our house. I still did my stats. Listened to the Giants and A's on the radio and wished I could play baseball.
The next summer, a little league team was formed. A little bit above average player in Hayward, I became a little league 'star' for Pioneer.
Yucky girls would start saying 'Hi' to me. That's how you know you're becoming a 'star' in the seventh grade.
We were winning and had a big game coming up.
That is when school once again interfered. Or, at least that was the way I saw it.
I got an 'F' on my report card.
An 'F' on a seventh grade report card only means one thing to any kid.
Death.
Your life as you knew it, was over.
I didn't want to die.
So, on that school bus home, I did the only sensible thing I could think of to do. I changed the 'F' to a 'B'. Inwardly, I praised the inventor of the alphabet for making an F a bad grade and not a B. A 'B' would be tough to alter.
My parents were happy with the report card. They admonished me for the 'D' I received in another class.
But 'attaboy'd me for raising my grades from a 'D' to a 'B' in my 'F' class.
I went to my room, giving myself mental pats on the back for the deception.
I could play in the game.
I could do my stats.
More important, I was still alive.
That is, until my brother got home. My brother was older than I. He was Wally to my Beaver. He didn't have a nefarious bone in his body. He knew I was having problems at school and when he looked at the report card, he smiled and matter of factly told my parents what I had done.
My Dad opened my bedroom door. You know in cartoons where smoke is coming from a characters ears to show him as being mad, my Dad was beyond that. For those that don't believe in corporal punishment, close your eyes now, and start the next paragraph.
He asked me if I had changed my report card. In seeing the look on his face, I knew that denial would make it worse, so I gave in and said yes. He told me to take off my pants and underwear. In our house, if our Dad asked us to take off both, it was the supreme version of punishment. He took off his belt and whipped me for a long time. A long time.
My Mom came in and asked him to stop once. I took solace in that he hesitated in his beating to answer, 'No'.
A few minutes later, the phone rang. My Mom interrupted again and said the phone was for my Dad. My Dad ran his own painting business, so any call could be a new job. He had to take the call. My Mom hustled me out of the bedroom and into the bathroom where she drew a tub of water to soothe my behind. She started crying when she saw my butt. I asked her to stop crying, I lied and whispered to her that it didn't hurt THAT bad.
I've made this post into a mini-Novellette, so I'll try and make this more to the point....
I continued school and more importantly, baseball, through three other moves to different cities. The last being here in Grand Junction, Colorado.
I've never seen my Dad so proud as when I graduated high school. I didn't think it was that big of a deal. Except for that F, I had always gotten just good enough grades to play baseball. That's all I wanted. All I needed.
My high school baseball coach told me that I had to get better grades to warrant a baseball scholarship from the local college. So I got my grades up.
And I got the baseball scholarship. The first in my family to get any type of scholarship and go to College.
I impressed on my father that it was baseball that made it all possible. He had no recourse, but to agree.
I completed my Freshman year of school.
During winter ball of my sophomore year, I developed a sore arm. In those days, a sore arm was a sore arm. It never came back to the way it was. Years later I would have rotator cuff surgery.
I couldn't play baseball, so I quit school.
Now older, I look back and think that, sure, I wasted opportunity for education. I could have taken school more seriously.
But, to tell the truth, I wouldn't change much.
All those teachers would sure get a laugh, as my folks would, if they were still around.
I mean, think about it. Here is the guy that they would roll their eyes at, writing stories every day and studying every day.
Things I never did at school.
Something they wished for over those years. They'd all think I have changed.
I haven't.
It is still all because of baseball.
THAT has never changed.
