The BIG One

My memories dim as the years past – they seem to blend together into a long mix of events, holidays, tragedies and mainly just the fun times.

But one memory haunts me still – was in either ’56 or was it 55?  It was 55!

 

Millville vs. Vineland on the “Turkey Day Classic”.  And this was a special day – one that will live in infamy as President Roosevelt once said, for every true orange and blue football fan.  Millvile had won 31 straight games – straight that is!  Some close and many by big numbers.  But at the time this was one of the best records in the history of high school football annals.  

The town was in a frenzy for weeks.  And the gods who play with us could not have planned it better for the game that would break the record was against our age old enemy VINELAND.  

The Poultry Clan (gads what a name for a team – I always had visions of men in white sheets, peaked hats and carrying a rooster under each arm.  But that’s another story)  The fans, expecting sure win had collected enough money to buy coach Barbose a beautiful white Olds as a token of their collective gratitude. The Ed Sullivan show in NYC had called to arrange a visit by the team to be in the audience the Sunday after the contest to be recognized by the national audience.  The cheerleaders cut classes for two days to scavenge wood for the bonfire growing on the pitcher’s mound of the school baseball field – higher and higher it climbed above the trees. 

And the night before the big game the team vanished.  

Whisked away to the Cumberland Hotel in Bridgeton – away from the clamoring fans, family and possible harm from the enemy hordes across the border at the Clayville switch.  That night before the game a giant conflagration  turned my face crimson as I dared to get close in to the symbolic bonfire in the chilly air.  The cheers rang out across Wheaton field and as always it just waited for the dawn.

The next day we arrived two hours early for the game.  The crowd was already big and boisterous.  A nervous tingle went through us all.  And then the whistle and it began.  The BIG one had begun.

Millville received the kickoff if memory serves me ( I was only 10 at the time) deep in our own territory.  And on the third play Eddy Goodwin, number 57 a fullback went up the middle and didn’t stop for 60 or so yards.  We scored and the fans went ballistic.  But Millville fans never cheered that day again.  Vineland did the unthinkable.  The chicken pluckers beat the great Thunderbolts. 

And Coach Barbose new car sat on the 50 yard line for over a week until he finally drove it home.  Hi wife made him accept it. 

 And for us, the day is seared in our minds forever – what might, could, would have been - was lost.  But isn’t that the way life really is?  Storybook endings are only in the movies and the gods of sport laugh at our puny ideas and dreams – and a whole town had to just carry on with only the memories of what might have been.

THE FUMBLE

                      Sometimes, while watching football on tv - a player gets  seriously injured and is carted off the field and I always remember my own day of pain and fear...

            On s crisp October day, we blur collar Thunderbolts played the elite Haddonfield Knights (they were all in black uniforms much before the NFL decided to dress in somber tones).  On the kickoff,  I was surprised to be the first one down the field at own opponent – I wasn’t that fast, but I was pumped and getting better each game. Matter of fact, I was even starting to enjoy football.

             Haddonfield’s All-Star fullback took the ball and was coming full tilt right at me. I imagined, he would easily plow me under, but instead, with a textbook tackle I took him down and he fumbled. The crowd roared on both sides of the field -this guy never fumbles, (especially with college scouts watching).  The Knights recovered the ball on the own 40-yard line.

            On the first play from scrimmage I wasn’t touched by and found myself in the backfield to meet the same player head-on and there was fear in eyes.  I hit  even harder hitting and he fumbled again!  I was on top of him and I saw the ball right along side of  me…I reached for it…just as a bunch of players dove after it too…I was flipped over on my back…but my arm wasn’t, it  was pinned to the ground by a couple of players scrambling for the ball.  The whistle blew and I discovered that my right arm didn’t work anymore, and I was afraid to move it. The team doc rushed out and immediately signal the sideline and I was carried off the field on the dreaded golf cart. As we crossed the field I heard both sides giving me a cheer as I entered the dressing rooms under the stands.

            Well in just a few minutes, in great pain as they lifted me into the waiting ambulance - my mom and dad joined me.  At a nearby city hospital I laid in the emergency room for what seemed like hours.  Finally, I was wheeled into an operating room where  a surgeon on call looked down at me and said, “Son, we are going to put you to sleep for just a few minutes…you have a total dislocated should…if you are awake for what[COI1]  I must do …well… you probably never forgive or want to play a sport again!”  And then everything went black.

            In the blackness I saw flashes of light and then I was awake, it seemed like only seconds had passed.  Now in a room I awoke to my mom running her fingers through my hair. She always did this to calm me… looked like she had been crying, but she gave me one of her usual “everything will be OK” smiles. 

            My dad, as usual, just watched. 

             I thought he must be thinking of his own dislocation from a game 20 years before.  He had told me many times over the years how his “trick” shoulder plagued him… how it would just fall out of place and he had to wrestle it back. (This was now to be my experience for the next ten years to come until an NFL team doctor connect pinned my shoulder together with a  titanium screw. And for years later whenever it rained, I would feel my extra hardware.) 

            Mom was worried that I was hungry and then she fed me a yellow liquid that was supposed to be soup …it tasted more like dishwater.  After several hours, I was able to go and learned that Coach Barb had our car driven and  arranged for my first ambulance ride home too.  

           After a few painful hours, we left the Cooper Hospital in Camden for the hour trip to the Holly City. 

 When we arrived at the Millville city limits the driver said, “Cal I'm letting the town know your home as he turned on the siren.  It wailed all the way down our main street – even though it was late in the evening – I had  returned a triumphal return to my avid football town. 

            The rest of my weekend I laid on the couch, munching snacks with some heavy-duty pain pills. 

             Monday morning came quickly; I was supposed to stay home for a few days.  Not me. I had to continue my attendance record. I hadn’t missed a day of school since 9th grade and I was determined to make every day for my last year.  So, with my right arm in a sling I trudged to the bus stop and went to school.  That day I learned how much I depend ed on two arms and how awful it must be to lose one.

            Getting my books out of my locker for class became a big chore.  Luckily, I am left-handed since my right hand, even before this injury, had been practically useless and rarely called to duty. Lunchtime however became a life changing event even greater than having one’s arm almost torn off. 

             I found that getting my meal and then carrying the tray to my usual spot with my gang was going to be the day’s greatest challenge until…a petite blond girl behind me in line asked, “Cal want me to carry your tray?”  I replied most intelligently, “Huh…Ya…OK!” (I rarely conversed with the opposite sex except when I needed help with my homework.) I then tried to think of how Cary Grant  would handle this odd situation as I followed her to a table.  (By the way, our cafeteria doubled as a gym which made for an aromatic dining experience – a blend of cooking fumes mixed with the faint scent of recently worn gym socks seeping from the locker rooms.) This was not very romantic... 

            But this was how a fumble and fate conspired for me to “go steady” as they said then, with my first high school sweetheart.  And so, began a romance which would rival any in a Sandra Dee movie on a Saturday night - Or at least I thought so...

(TO BE CONTINUED)

---

 [COI1]

THE LUNCHONETTE

Taking a drive and I see a banner on the side of the road – …“Luncheonette”…can’t help but  think of that word…something with an “Ette’ tacked to it refers either to the size of the mea,,,the place...or the size of the check…the latter more likely…Oh the idle mind is such a devil’s playground…and then I’m hungry for a burger from George & Mary’s. Luncheonette.

In every kid-life there is a luncheonette – or a local diner (a “greasy spoon”) as Grandmother Ethel would say…usually small in size and menu but big in the kid-life…

George and Mary’s…was our hangout…right across from the Bacon Jr. High a (named after a long-gone educator but a just a joke for many of its students who made on king sounds whenever anyone mention it.  And we were permitted, as trusted 8^th graders, a privilege the lowly lower grades didn’t have… to go there for lunch rather than to endure the dietitian delights served daily in the school’s basement cafeteria…which BTW no matter what it was always smelled like cheese!

But G&M served anything that could be fried…long before the Golden Arches popped up all over the world…the menu…great kid cuisine designed to taste good…not to reduce sodium intake…lower calories or fight global warming.

My regime changes daily…sometime a burger dripping with goodness other days I craved a cheese steak drowned in fried onions…my best buddy Bub preferred “subs” – which he devoured every day…I however with a more sophisticated appetite did not particularly enjoy ich meat swimming in vinegar and oil…I found that this seemed to overpower the continental flavors of the Italian lunchmeat,  .  (Why is it that almost everything in life that tastes good is now considered bad for you…and now kids must subsist on a baked burger without meat…I feel sorry for them … but I digress)

Each lunch the place was wall to wall with hungry kids JUKE Box who only had 20 minutes to eat and make it back to classes before the late bell tolled.  But George, the owner, wrapped in his white apron and presided over the chaos with great skills taking orders and shouting them out…even though Mary was only standing a few feet away…(this routine I observed was to xxx that everything was “cooked to order” as they say in the trade…actually, Mary started cooking burgers two hours before our lunch period or half of us would have gone back to school hungry.

The lunch battle was played out Monday through Friday – 180 school year battles of the burger and shakes.  But on Friday and Saturday nights the placed changed dramatically from a food joint to a “gambling den” for in the rear of the store was a magnificent flashing, dinging pinball machine – presided over by Brad the grandson of George and the all-time South Millville pinball shark!  His was always the high score and initials that was announced to the regulars on the machine backboard – this was a feature of most of these very expensive and exotic machine.  And there was always glowing pictures of a theme of the machine which always featured a buxom women smiling suggestively at player.

When Brad played none of our gang was permitted to talk…or we would get a withering stare from the perpetual champion of the game.  He was a master at flipping the flippers at the perfect moment to control where his ball would go and he never “titled” the machine like must of us…this the frustrating mechanism that immediately shut the game down if the player was trying to force a ball into one of the dingers or big score hole in the deck which cause the machine to come alive with music and ringing bells.  For two nickels two could play against each other – the challenger providing the coins and Brad playing free forever…he rarely had to fork up 5 cents as he never lost in our collective memory.  Sometimes however, he did buy his opponent a cherry coke as a token – his was a benevolent master.  (And he always paid George his grandpa for all his drinks but never was charged by Mary…his grandmother. George was known for to be thrifty and that’s why I always wanted his wife Mary to dip my ice cream cones)

I never came close to beating Bradley…I contended that the machine was designed for right handed flippers and I was lefthanded for everything.  Brad just smiled when I said this every time I lost.  But then one Friday night…

With 5 pals as my witness I tied Brad’s score for the first time…he was shocked and demanded a re-match.  And so a South Millville legend began…

Brad’s brother was on the payphone telling the rest our gang to hurry over as history might be made tonight.  Brad bought me a coke…he always waited between games because he said it gave the tilt device a chance to cool down.  Brad made a surprising move – he said, “Let’s put some money on this…and winner takes all - he put a dollar on the counter (big money in those days).  I in of their own. 

Brad went first an scored big.  I followed and after the first ball I was down by 5000 points – a miniscule difference in the high scoring system of pinball. By the end of the 4^th ball we were tied at 38,000 points each – everyone in the place was now gathered around the machine, Mary even had unplugged the Jukebox during a song even George was watching…he too felt that this could be a monumental night for his luncheonette…for is family.

I sent my last ball up the shut and played it a long time as sweat poured down my face…Brad as usual just patiently and coolly waited his turn…he was confident in his long practiced skills.  Finally my last chance dropped into the depths of the machine and my score posted – 56,757.

Brad ball began its’ journey with dings and bells galore.  He was playing the machine like a virtuoso plays a Stradivarius…and then it happened as he finesse his ball against a bumper – the machine stopped TILT the sign blared – he stood looking at the machine transfixed in shock.  He overplayed the game and lost to the dreaded default sensor not to me –  Brad left without saying a word. 

 This night would go down in our kid-lore as the night Brad tilted…not the night Cal beat the master – but for me it was a win and I would take it and his buck too.