What was I thinking!

My grandson Max following his scientific discovery

I like to take my six-year-old grandson Max with me when I run errands. I enjoy hearing things from his perspective. He likes to work me for ice cream and other goodies.

Win – Win

This afternoon we headed to the store to fill my wife’s shopping list. As we entered the store, Max inquired “Could we get a box of popsicles to take home?” Though I rarely say “no”, this was the first of several stops. Frozen treats to-go were not an option.

While Max was scanning our groceries at self check-out, I glanced at the snack bar. No long line. “How about getting an icee and drinking it here?” I asked.

Problem solved.

Icee’s in hand, we took a seat at a small table between automotive and the check-out lines. As I was engaging in people-watching, a favorite pastime of mine, I heard a noise of surprise from Max. His icee was undergoing a mini-volcanic eruption.

“I was just trying to make some bubbles” he explained. Splashes of icee lava covered the small table.

After expending a handful of napkins to clean up the icee eruption, he shared what his “What was I thinking?” moment had taught him:

NEVER BLOW INTO A ICEE!

I then shared a story from my checkered childhood that took place when I was about his age.

The year was 1954. Our family had just moved from a trailer park in the Chicago suburb of Melrose Park back to Springfield, Mo. so I could start the first grade at Tom Watkins Elementary school. We had towed our 25-foot mobile home right along with us and parked it in back of my grandparent’s home on North Broadway. To supply water, a hose was run from an outdoor faucet at my grandparents home to our compact, metal homestead.

Like a lot of things in my younger (and older) days, I am not sure what I was thinking. But for some inexplicable reason, I thought it would be a neat idea to poke a very small hole in the hose supplying our home with water with my pocket knife. “A six-year-old with a knife?” you may be asking. Remember, it was 1954. And we had just moved from a trailer park in Chicago.

It was harder than I expected to puncture that hose, but when I did, it didn’t just dribble as I expected. It shot out like a fire hose – right into the screened, open window above the kitchen sink where my Mom was standing washing dishes. I can still recall her shriek of surpise as the powerful stream of water doused her

My little experiment was a secret no more.

One new hose later, things were back to normal. I don’t recall if I got a spanking, but remember: it was 1954 when, unlike today, spanking was still considered a useful tool in the parental toolbox.

A very innocent looking and congenial me before the “hose incident”

Two generations later, my “Never poke a hole in a garden hose!” became my grandson’s “Never blow into a icee!”

Everybody makes mistakes. My goal is to avoid making the same mistake twice and to learn from other people’s mistakes. And to impart that wisdom to my grandson.

I seriously doubt Max will ever blow into an icee again. Or puncture a garden hose. Though he might try to talk some other unsuspecting kid into blowing into an icee. And he now loves to tell my garden hose story.

As Will Rogers observed, “Everything is funny, as long as it is happening to someone else.”

Note this picture of Will and compare it with my kid picture above. I may not be a great judge of what is and what is DEFINITELY NOT funny, but at least I kinda, sorta LOOKED like a great humorist when I was puncturing hoses at age 6.

Will Rogers, who was born just up the road from where I was born in Vinita, Oklahoma, died in a plane crash near Point Barrow, Alaska in 1935. That was thirteen years before I was born. His pilot was one-eyed Wiley Post, who also died in the crash. Will’s last words were rumored to be “Wiley, I think you have that patch on the wrong eye!!”

The Day the NBA Came to Springfield, Mo.

Front Cover Featuring an autograph from Hall of Famer Bob Pettit

On October 7, 1963, something that would be unheard of today happened in Springfield, Mo.  And I, along with my friend, Ronnie Potter, was there.

The NBA World Champion Boston Celtics and the St. Louis (now Atlanta) Hawks played an exhibition game in the Parkview High School gym in Springfield.  I still have the program from that game.

The Back Page of the Progam which is autographed by Hall of Famer Cliff Hagen

The Celtics won 134-116 in front of a packed house.

By 1963, Celtic’s future Hall-of-Famer Bill Russell had been named NBA MVP six times and had led the Boston Celtics to six World Championships.  The Hawks were led by 10-time All-Star and future Hall-of-Famer, Bob Pettit.  The Celtics would go on to win another NBA Championship that year, while the Hawks were runners-up in the Western Division.

Can you imagine the 2018 NBA Champion Golden State Warriors coming to Springfield, Mo. and playing an exhibition game in a high school gym?

Me neither.  But things have changed a lot since 1963.

The highest salary Bill Russell ever made in the NBA was $100,000.   That equals about $600,000 adjusted for inflation today.  Stephen Curry of the 2018 NBA Champion Golden State Warriors will earn $37,157,154 for the upcoming season.  The average salary in the NBA is now $7.1 million per year.  One of my favorite quotes about players salaries came from Babe Ruth.  When a reporter asked him how it felt to make more money than the President of the United States, the Babe responded “I had a better year than him.”

The most memorable thing for me about attending that game in 1963 was not the game.  It was what happened after the game.  Programs in hand, Ronnie & I sneaked into  the Parkview Boy’s locker room where both teams were showering and getting dressed after the game.  Just walking around in there was memorable enough, but I took advantage of my good fortune by securing 20 autographs on my program from players in various stages of dress – or “undress” in some cases.  Five autographs on my program are from players who are now in the NBA Hall of Fame.

The memorable night did not end there.

Ronnie’s dad picked us up after the game and before he dropped me off at home, I heard my very first Beatles song on the radio.  Later that month, the Beatles came to the attention of  variety show host Ed Sullivan when the plane he was on was delayed at London’s Heathrow Airport by screaming teens welcoming the Beatles.  On February 9, 1964, 73 million viewers tuned in to the Ed Sullivan Show to watch the Beatles perform five songs: “All My Loving”, “‘Til There Was You”,  “She Loves You”,  “I Saw Her Standing There”, and “I Want to Hold Your Hand.”

The music world was changed forever.

Something else that would be life-altering for teenage males was brewing in October of 1963 totally unbeknownst to Ronnie Potter and me.  When that game was played, there were already 16,732 American troops in a little known place in Southeast Asia by the name of Vietnam.   Five years later that number had grown to 536,100 American troops  in Vietnam.  Ronnie Potter joined the Marines.  He spent over a year in Vietnam, much of it in combat.

He survived, thankfully, though I’m sure he had some close calls.

Eleven months and two days after that game – on the very day I turned 16 – I got my driver’s license.

I have since survived 54+ years and a couple of million miles behind the wheel, thankfully, though I’ve had some close calls.  Occasionally my passengers from the 60’s still remind me.

And my autographed program from October 7, 1963, the one and only time the St. Louis Hawks and the Boston Celtics ever visited Springfield, Mo. has survived the last 55 years as well.

I wish I could say the same thing about my baseball card collection.

Here is my record of first half scoring.  Basketball fans, especially old ones like me, should recognize quite a few stars from the 1963 Celtics and Hawks.