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We rode into town totin’ our shootin’ irons and hell-bent on bringing down the value of every home in the neighborhood. That’s probably not far off from what the busybodies prying from behind curtains must have believed when they saw a convoy of overloaded and dusty pick up trucks cough and spit their way to a stop in front of our newly bought corner stucco house. Though he didn’t use words like y'all and tain‘t, or refer to his children young’ns, my dad did yank us away from the easy life of country living to throw us into the more complicated task of coping in the big city. It didn’t take long for us to adopt the term, “back home,” when longing for the life we had been made to leave behind. Never mind that back home was less than twenty miles away or that we came into the city several times a week to fetch vittles, visit kinfolk, shop the Sears and Roebuck husky department for my britches, or stock up on ammo. From my point of view it was a nice place to visit but I had no desire to live there. But I was convinced that dad reasoned, or may have even reckoned, that his unspoken but obvious mission of turning my brother and I into major league baseball players would be better realized living in town.
The men folk carried the heavier and bulkier of our tattered and scruffy belongings into our new home while my little brother Brett and I delivered smaller boxes to whatever room they were labeled to be taken to. It didn’t take long for our large clan to wrap up their chores and loosen up their overalls to commence with a backyard hoedown. After gorging on cracklin’s and such, I sneaked off with my brother to mosey on down the block. The colloquial language may be a bit of stretch, but I was certain that’s how we were being perceived by our new neighbors. One day earlier the concept of a block had meant little too us and now we lived on one and would have to learn to deal with it.


The old home place had a field behind it where dad would set out hubcaps as bases for a makeshift ball diamond. He had played baseball in high school and then for a traveling semi-pro team after that. Though he never talked of anything beyond that, the grapevine had it that he was offered tryout with the minor league affiliate of a major league baseball team that never panned out because of an injury. We would go out to that field during the warm months whenever time allowed and take ground balls and try to pull hard hit fly balls to the edge of the adjoining forest. There were paths coming from three different directions going deep into those woods and leading to what we called the frog pond. It was actually more of a low and marshy spot, but there was enough standing water to support a good number of bullfrogs. One of the paths connected to Tim Kipp’s house, another to Steve Ball’s and the third came out to our dirt and stubble diamond and then our own backyard. But even with our friends joining us, we were well short of fielding a real team. Life there was more simple and if there were a feud with Steve or Tim we would have at it, the loser would lick his wounds, and all would be forgotten. There was no shame in following your path back home sporting a bloody nose or ripped shirt. It would simply be explained to mom and dad that there had been a scrap. Mom might ask what it was over and dad might ask who won, and that would be the last of it.

It may be inaccurate to refer to our new digs as being the big city and I don’t want to leave the impression that we had been plunged into any sort of an urban jungle. There is jet service, a number of art galleries and museums and various ethnic restaurants. On the other hand if you wish to take a taxi cab, don’t expect to step into the street to hail it. You may see the occasional tipsy out of town businessman attempt that, but taxis here are summoned by telephone and are apt to be driven by courteous former altar boys. A trip through the city, east-west or north-south, takes no more than twenty minutes other than at “rush hour” when you may want to allow yourself an extra five minutes. And I think that other than being much closer to my dads work, what the city offered above anything else was organized youth baseball.


It wasn’t long after we had moved in before Brett and I managed to find trouble. It turned out that there were strong negative feelings in the neighborhood over my brother and I perching ourselves in the window of our second floor bedroom to shoot arrows at our little sisters doll that we had nailed to a large maple tree in our backyard. It apparently wasn’t acceptable either for us to climb onto the Burrell’s garage roof to tear off shingles and sail them toward the white sheets drying on Mrs. Moody’s clothes line in the next yard over.


My fathers moment had come and it was made known to us that if anything would straighten us out it would be the discipline and hard work of being a member of a team. We were marched to the neighborhood park, placed on the roster of the East League Braves, and then promptly drummed into a strict routine that neither of us was accustomed to or in favor of. We more than held our own on the field, but the coaches were harsh taskmasters and far too serious for our liking. When Brett took the first base position from Gary Hafner and I relieved Joe Brush of his duties in center field, hard feelings, taunting and fisticuffs ensued. The new kids on the block were unceremoniously escorted to the nearest street corner, banned from the East League, and never again played organized baseball.


There was no longer a well worn path back to a far off home and the nature and tone of the questions when we returned weren’t the same as they had been only a few weeks earlier. Our parents still wanted to know what the fight was over and who won, but a little less was the forgiving civility of the too recent past. Dad, I think, somehow really didn’t seem too disappointed, or at least surprised, and mom pulled us aside and told my brother and I with what sounded like a tone of relief in her voice as she glanced at her husband, “Probably 40% of his life… gone. Wasted on a project that now could never be duplicated.” Mom still held out a faint hope the Welcome Wagon lady would still come to visit her, but she was also beginning to realize that whatever problems her sons caused back home usually dissipated harmlessly, floating far out over field and forest, but troubles here would be amplified and echo out against each and every too close house.