OLE RILE

RIP in peace Coach

  

Sad news today that a former high school teacher and my football coach passed away – and memories took me to MHS and days I thought would never end.

Bob Riley – known to Thunderbolt linemen as Old Rile was an enigma for sure.  A former Villanova Football All-American, noted body-builder and math wizard.  He was the logo picture for the Charles Atlas ads in the men’s magazines.  But hidden in that barrel chest was the heart of a poet.

One would never guess that he was math teacher from his appearance or manner.  He smiled too much to be mathematically inclined!  But he was and he loved figuring out equations as much as figuring a new defense against Vineland on Turkey Day.

I have expunged the memories of most of my year with him in Algebra II.  (The human brain’s survival instincts has a way of forgetting extreme pain and remembering just the good times)  I do recall I sat in his class fearing the inevitable embarrassment of being called on to make the trek of shame to the blackboard to solve an equation.  This torture usually ended with Rile whispering, “X times 2 over 9 plus B to the third power…you can go back to your seat now Cal.”  Even when I would call David P the “math shark” I still couldn’t remember how this stuff worked.

Rile’s work went far beyond his classroom.

He loved coaching football, wearing short short orange and blue gym shorts, raggedy sweatshirt and high-top cleats to football practice when it was around 30 degrees.

He loved writing, directing, producing, casting, lighting, staging his annual Senior Variety show which was a couple of hours of parodies about current events, TV and the movies.  (I played Mitch Miller, Happy the Clown and did my magic act in the 1962 edition)

He loved making his annual batch of “Riley’s Rotten Root Beer” (that was indeed one of the worst concoctions ever concocted) and he reveled in his secret formula that created an effervescence that could propel a bottle cap into orbit if the drinker wasn’t careful.

But most of all, I think he loved telling a good joke that came from his mental card file of hundreds of old ones discarded by Milton Berele and Henny Youngman.  He and I would play “yeah, but did you hear the one about…” for hours.  And he got laughs without ever telling a dirty joke.

He loved coming to our class reunions and getting a bit misty-eyed about what was and what might have been.

He loved doing a double jack-knife off the high board at the Holly City Swim Club to oohs and ahs of his aquatic pals.

But most of all Robert Riley loved sharing his life with young people. 

And his child-like wonder and enthusiasm rubbed off on his students and players and they loved their lives too - that was his reward.

Rest in peace my friend and mentor.  

I think I can hear you now…”Hey GOD, did you ever hear the one about the …  

THE LAST PITCH

Watching the 2015 All-Star game I felt a sense of pride to see one of Millville’s own Mike Trout, become the most valuable player of the game, the second year in a row – and that got me to think about my own love of baseball…

And then I was in my bedroom on Stratton Avenue putting on my Babe Ruth League uniform again.

As a kid there’s nothing more thrilling than being picked to play on a team (yes in those days one had to try out and “make” the team, unlike today when everyone gets to play, no matter what their skills) and getting that first real baseball uniform was a big part of the thrill.

Putting it on before each game was, for me, like the Matador’s ritual with the traje de luces (suit of lights).  I used to start an hour before the game just to make sure I got it right.  I tried to emulated the pros I would see on the few games that were televised in my day.  Today most pro players don’t worry too much about their pants or knickers (as they should be called) – they wear them touching the ground and in my baseball purest opinion they look awful – and hats with the flat brims?  Don’t get me started on that.

Anyhow…the ritual began after putting on the very uncomfortable, but required protective cup! The next step was to roll on the elastic garters – then the cotton under socks - then the stirrups, mine where lime green.  The next step was to turn the knickers inside out and step into them.  Slide them up over the socks and stirrups.  Roll the garters down and when the pants where pulled they made a nice fold at the knee – the way they were designed to be worn.  

I guarantee there is only two players in the entire major league’s that do this today.  Ty Cobb or Connie Mack would never condone a player to play on their team who did not know how to fix his pants.  

I donned the hot and scratchy wool shirt with the Millville National Bank by the Clock logo emblazoned on the front and my number 3 on the back (which I always requested in honor of the Babe, my hero).  Finally I stood in front of the mirror, tucked in my shirt, tugged on my belt and was satisfied that I looked like a baseball player.

I rode my bike to the field an hour ahead of game time for batting practice.  A sentimental trip as this was the last game of the season and the last game of Babe Ruth ball career – gads I was getting old!  And the whole season came down to this last game.  The Bank versus Coombs Dairy for the championship.

Brad my South Millville buddy was the opposing pitcher.  Off the field we were best friends but on this day we were serious enemies.  Brad was over six feet tall, lean as a bean poll.  And he had a wicked curve ball for a kid.  Matter of fact he had a bunch of pitches his dad Bucky had taught him.  He was a formidable opponent for this last game.

The game turned out to be a classic pitcher’s duel.  I batted clean-up and had one of the 2 hits Brad had allowed so far.  Our pitcher was doing great until the sixth inning when Coombs scored a run on a passed ball.  

As we entered the bottom of the seventh (at our age we only played seven innings) you could cut the tension with a butter knife.  The fans were very quiet.  Even my mother and grandmother who came to every game were frozen in place. And as fate would have it I came to the plate with two outs and the bases loaded with Bankers.  

Sweat was pouring from everywhere.  Brad knew I was a good fastball hitter – but he also knew that I had trouble with the curve.  He grinned and threw a ball that took a minute and a half to reach the plate.  I watched it right into the catcher’s mitt.  Strike one! Called the hump.  Brad threw another pitch, it looked like it was straight for my head.  I backed off but it broke right over the plate.  Strike two!   That one really fooled me.  Brad’s grin turned to a sneer.  I hated that sneer.

 I took off my hat and wiped my brow as our third base coach called time out and waved for me to come down the line for a chat.  He put his arm on my shoulder and drew me close.  Brad watched and I’m sure he thought - a suicide bunt with two outs…NEVER...But what was the strategy?  He knew I was a good hitter and had a bunch of big homers that season.  But he didn't look too worried.

Coach whispered, “Cal, you’re on your own.”  That was it?  That was the plan???? 

Now I was really drenched.  Why me? was all I could really think to myself as I walked back to the plate trying to look as confident as possible.  I tapped the plate.  This was it.  My big chance to be hero or…bum.

Brad glared as our eyes met.  He did a double wind up and threw a side arm roundhouse change up sinking curve ball.  And just like Casey I missed it by about two feet and almost fell over.  And the game and the season was over.  

No storybook ending for me.  No trophy.  No picture in the Daily.

As the Dairy boys hooted and carried Brad off the field I had to look my teammates in the eye as we gathered up the bats and our gloves.  A couple of them patted me on the back.  My mom hugged me and went to her car.  But no one spoke a word.  And soon in the dwindling evening light I was still on the bench and the field was empty and it was time for me to go.

I peddled back home and went right to bed.  

I have learned over the years that life is rarely like the movies or a good book or the way we wished it would turn out.  Sometimes we win and sometimes, no matter how hard we try - we loose.

And guaranteed happy endings are why we write stories.  

BOY WITH A HORN

After a year of renting my golden horn a friend of my mom, who was in the antique business, gave me a silver cornet.  One that he attested had actually been used in the John Phillip Sousa Marine Band.  He was sure because it belonged to his dad who played it under the baton of the great march king.

This should have given me the motivation to succeed.  But after a year I was still just blatting through my lessons.

My grandmother enforced my half hour of practice before I could go out and play routine each afternoon.  Most times I would sit and just blow random notes occasionally turning a page in my lesson book in case she was watching.  I don't think my grandmother ever knew this scam - she never mentioned it, but then again, she was very cagey about me when I strayed from the straight and narrow.

The Bacon Elementary School band "played in and out" the students as they marched by grade to their weekly assembly, which usually entailed a long oration from our principal Mrs. McCorristin and a grainy movie about hygiene or which country exports tin. Principal Edith M. prowled the stage like a lioness alerting us, in her high warbling voice, to the dangers of running in the hall or disobeying our AAA Patrol Boys on the corners.

We usually gave the fidgeting audience a new number each week - I scammed this too.

Most times I just sat there with the horn to my mouth and pretended to play.  This was for two reasons.  One I was afraid I would make a mistake.  And two I was sure I would make a mistake and hit a sour note - therefore, I didn't hit any.  Every once in awhile the first trumpeter - a burly 8th grader would look over from his prime seat and say, "Hey Iszard give us a hand here, won't ja?"  I would blush and then continue faking it.

One day my mother informed me that it was time I moved up and took lessons off the number one music teacher in town.  The ancient Mr. Leski, retired big band professional.  I guess she thought this might spark my musical enthusiasm ?

My first lesson with him was so different. After brief introductions which focused on the fact that I had been "playing" for over a year, we began the $2 dollar torture. For one thing he didn't use a song book - he wrote out all of the music on small music sheets.  He gave me one and asked that I toot a "test" for him.  I will never forget trying to play "Home Sweet Home" in 3/4 time.

"NO...NO...NO, he wailed!  Timing my boy, it's all about timing"!

"You must put into you head these phrases; he wrote below the notes on my music.  GET IT - for half notes, SAN FRANSICO for quarter notes.  This will help you hold the notes the proper time for which they are written.  Here's how you should think 'Home Sweet Home' when you play the notes think:   Get it, get it, get it, San Francisco get it get it.

Get It?"

No I didn't get it.  But for the next two years I filled my repertoire, not with old standards, but with an array of musical mnemonics in hopes that I would someday gain a smidgen of rhythm = Result, to this day I still have no rhythm; ask my dance partners.

Fact my mom had to face  - I am not musical.

However, by the time I got to 8th grade and was anointed second, first trumpet - I was actually playing along with the band and enjoying it, to some extent - albeit our leader would occasionally caution me to play softer and not drown out the other 20 players.

After 8 years of trumpeting I graduated to Millville Memorial High School and went out for football that fall  - and never touched my horn again.  I limited my music to listening to the radio.

MUSIC LESSONS

For some reason (perhaps from an article in Ladies Home Journal) my mother got the idea that for me to be a well-rounded and cultured person I should play a musical instrument.  I would have rather played baseball but there was no arguing.  She had made up my mind on this.

But what to play was the key question?  One thing for sure a piano was out of the question.

So on a Saturday in the 8^th year of my journey through the vale of tears we took the bus to look at musical instruments at the Millville Music Center.  A center it was – record shop, sheet music, an array of rent to own instruments and in the rear of the small High Street shop were four small windowed rooms a bit bigger than phone booths used for music lessons.

We peered at the window display of instruments.  The sun bounced off the highly polished brass as I scanned the music making machines.  I imagined myself playing each one.  The saxophone – too many keys that had to be hard to play.  The trombone no keys that had to be hard too.  The clarinet looked sinister and not fun.  Ah, the trumpet – that had to be an easy one to play, just three keys. 

I blurted, “I think I would like to play the trumpet!”

We inquired within and the owner indicated that I should take a horn test first before we decide.  We were led to one of the practice rooms and told to wait for the teacher who would finish a lesson in a few moments.  Mom and I sat and listened to what seemed like the wailing of a mortally wounded alley cat from the room next to us.  When the lesson ended I saw it was a classmate of mine toting here new clarinet.

Mr. Mirentz, the Center’s one size fits all music teacher. came in our booth with the gleaming trumpet from the window.  He showed me how to hold it – it was pretty heavy I discovered.  He explained that trumpet players needed “lip” to play this wonderful instrument.  I had a lip and checked that off my list.  But then he added, this “lip” was called the embouchure - some have a good one – some don’t.  Some can make beautiful music and others never do.  He urged me to try to play a note.  I blew as hard as I could – but just a lot of air came out.   “No Cal it’s not about blowing,” he said. “It sort of like humming – you’ve got to make your upper lip buzz into the mouth piece.”  I tried again.  A rasping blatt erupted from the thing. 

“AGAIN!” he ordered. 

I tried again and a ragged, ear piercing sound came out. “He’s a natural!” he exclaimed.  And the die was cast.  My mother beamed with pride with visions of a classical virtuoso dancing in her head. 

Mom signed a rental form which indicated that $5 dollars a week would go to the price of owning this proud and ancient instrument.  She bought a music stand, my beginner's lesson manual and booked me for my first lesson the following Saturday. 

And for the next 7 days I practiced the one note I could muster - as every dog in the neighborhood bayed a duet with me.

A PHRASE IN TIME

(Editors note:  Mr. Bob Stutz a Masonic Brother, historian and good friend sent me this - and I like to share it with you.  These phrases stoke many a Millville Memory for me - sometimes just hearing one makes the gray cells dance - what do they spark for you?)

Back in the olden days we had a lot of moxie. We did our best to straighten up and fly right. Hubba-hubba! We’d cut a rug in some juke joint and then go necking and petting and smooching and spooning and billing and cooing and pitching woo in hot rods and jalopies in some passion pit or lovers’ lane. Heavens to Betsy! Gee whillikers! Jumpin’ Jehoshaphat! Holy Moley! We were “in like Flynn” and living the life of Riley, and even a regular guy could not accuse us of being a knucklehead or a nincompoop. Not for all the tea in China!

Back in the olden days, life used to be swell, but when’s the last time anything was swell? Swell has gone the way of beehives, pageboys and the D.A.; of poodle skirts, saddle shoes and pedal pushers. Oh, my aching back.

Like Washington Irving’s Rip Van Winkle, we have become unstuck in time. We wake up from what surely has been just a short nap, and before we can say, “I’ll be a monkey’s uncle!”  We discover that the words we grew up with, the words that seemed omnipresent as oxygen, have vanished with scarcely a notice from our tongues and our pens and our keyboards.

Poof, poof, poof go the words of our youth, the words we’ve left behind. We blink, and they’re gone, evanesced from the landscape and wordscape of our perception, like Mickey Mouse wristwatches, hula hoops, skate keys, candy cigarettes, little wax bottles of colored sugar water and an organ grinder’s monkey.

Where have all those phrases gone? Long time passing. Where have all those phrases gone? Long time ago:  The milkman did it. Think about the starving Armenians. Bigger than a bread box. The very idea! It’s your nickel. Don’t forget to pull the chain or my finger. Knee high to a grasshopper. Turn-of-the-century. Iron curtain. Domino theory. Fail safe. Civil defense. Fiddlesticks!  You look like the wreck of the Hesperus. Cooties. Going like sixty. I’ll see you in the funny papers. Don’t take any wooden nickels. Heavens to Murgatroyd! And Awa-a-ay we go!

Oh, my stars and garters! It turns out there are more of these lost words and expressions than Carter had liver pills. This can be disturbing stuff, this winking out of the words of our youth, these words that lodge in our heart’s deep core. But just as one never steps into the same river twice, one cannot step into the same language twice. Even as one enters, words are swept downstream into the past, forever making a different river.

We of a certain age have been blessed to live in changeful times. For a child each new word is like a shiny toy, a toy that has no age. We at the other end of the chronological arc have the advantage of remembering there are words that once did not exist and there were words that once strutted their hour upon the earthly stage and now are heard no more, except in our collective memory.

 It’s one of the greatest advantages of aging. We can have our cake and eat it, too!

MANO A MANO

I was a big kid.  Many time mistaken for being “fat” -  I wasn’t really fat. But I did weight 190 in fourth grade.  “Big boned” my grandmother would say – she was always supportive and for her I could never be anything but handsome and a reminder of her father – who was also a big boned German. 

I had to buy clothes from the “Cubby” section in Frank’s Men & Boys store.  Being in that section made my face flush.   Frankly, being big was a burden that was far more than just being taller than everyone in my Bacon School class.

My size led to many bigger boys wanting to fight me. 

I was and continue to be - NOT  a “fighter” – I talk a good game, but have had two actual fist fights in my life.  The first was with Jay P. a second cousin, who called me "the wart hog" and was in sixth grade.  He had been after me on the playground every recess that fall of my 4^th grade year.   I will always remember hiding from him behind the girls jump rope cluster or over with the little kids by the monkey bars.  The worst part I was missing all the playground fun lurking around the whole period.  

This cat and mouse game went on until pimply Jay confronted me one morning right before we had to return to class. He grabbed me and said, “Hey fatso, want a smack in the mouth?”  His gang of greasy friends guffawed heartily. I just couldn’t take it anymore, even as the alarms went off in my head - “your mother will kill you if you get suspended for fighting.”  This the usual penalty for playground pugilism.

Just like one reads about at that boiling point of unbridled anger - I actually did see red that blotted out everything.

Then Jay tried his famous bear hug on me – I made a quick move to the side as he grabbed a bunch of air.  A move I saw watching wrestling on TV with my grandmother.  This was his undoing.  With a strong doze of adrenaline coursing through my veins and to my surprise - I picked Jay up (remember I out weighted this weasel by 40 pounds) and I easily tossed him against the school building wall. He bounced off it like a tennis ball and collapsed in a pile.  I prayed that I had not actually killed him.  He slowly go up - stunned.  His henchmen friends were stunned. 

I was really stunned!

Then he started to cry and gibberish came out of his mouth.  Was he speaking in tongues?  No!

I couldn’t believe it.  He was blubbering that he was sooo sorrrryyyy!  Sorry?  Sorry that I hurled him at least five feet in the air.  I started to cry then and heard myself saying, “I’m sorry tooooo!”  And our teacher blew her whistle and we filed back in for some more dreaded arithmetic. 

Jay never bothered me again.  

Neither did any other "big" kid on the playground.  His friends never said a word to me the rest of the year.  They just  gave me a lot of room.  And I learned a life lesson that day – sometimes one has to just stand and fight.  Running away doesn’t solve - it usually just prolongs.  

And I didn’t have to prove my manhood again for years.

PINBALL WIZARDS

George and Mary’s Luncheonette - what a great place, a great memory.

I still smell the smoky emporium soaked in the residue of ten thousand fried burgers.  G&M’s was the hangout of the Bacon School scholars.  Lunch time filled the soda fountain and grill with 7^th and 8^th graders, the only students not required to eat in the cafeteria.  The menu, true teen gourmet - grease burger, cheese grease burger and the infamous G&M American sub, a roll loaded with oil, vinegar, oregano and an array of cholesterol laden lunch meats and more oil.  

In the back room of G&M’s was a row of pinball machines.  Dark and foreboding, only the true devotee would venture to this lair.  The walls were black from grill smoke and the odor of sneaked Lucky’s hung in the exposed eves.  The flashing lights of the immense machines gave it an eerie throbbing glow.  This was as close to a den of iniquity as a junior high kid could get.  . 

And Brad H. was a pinball wizard who ruled in this twilight of flashing lights and the ping and clunk of the dancing stainless steel balls. (His grandmother was the "M" in the G &M, so he had played countless games without spending a hard earned nickel.)  

I, on the other hand, had invested hundreds of buffalo heads in these pirates without once adding my initials to the winners circle on the illuminated marquee of the Batman and Robin Double Trouble machine.  I am convinced that the machines knew an amateur from a pro.  Bing, bang, bong, and the lights would blink and the flippers would flip.  It was hypnotic to say the least.  Our burger and coke waited on the bar as we frittered away our lunchtime. Bing, bam, the balls flew and the scores mounted.   But never was I (or anyone else) ever able to match the 999,999,999 points of the great Wizard - Brad. 

But one night I was hitting on all cylinders.  It was a Friday and the South Millville boys were at G&M’s and not at the movies like most of our Jr. High classmates.  Pin ball had won over a Jerry Lewis comedy.

The machine was hot.  I had 56 million gazillion and now only needed one good ball, just one last good ball to overtake Brad if only for a brief moment of kid fame.  I pulled back the “striker” to its fullest.  My left index finger  poised on the flipper button.  I started to sweat.  This was the moment of truth.  A moment where I had an opportunity to become legend or be hurled back once again into pinball ignominy.

I loosed the striker.  Bing, Zing =  another 50,000 points on the big wheel and the ball spun around and was thrown toward my left flipper.  I waited for the precise moment and flipped and also struck the side of the machine, with just the right amount of force – so that my ball moved to the left, but not hard enough to “tilt” the machine.  This would mean immediate "game over" by the ever vigilant cheater watchdog built into every machine.  (Brad was a master of this slap technique and had never tilted a machine in over 10,000 games.)

My ball curved and hit the big red target.  Another 75,000 points.  I only need 100,000 more to post a big win.  I would become a G&M's  pinball wizard.  Maybe even get a free shake from my friends who were gathered around in silent respect for my attempt.   Iszard the Wizard.

The ball traveled down the inclined deck.  I rapped it with my right flipper and it flew around the machine like it had eyes - zing, zing, bong.  999, 999, 9998 points chalked up, I needed only to sink my ball in one of the bonus holes or hit the big zinger in the middle and I would make pinball history.

The ball was spit back at me at warp speed by the mechanical plunger at the top of the board.  My adrenaline spurted and I tensed.  My hair stood up on the back of my neck. This was it. But I knew I could do it.  Pinball fame was one flip away.  The silver orb shot toward my left flipper, my weak side.  I waited until the precise moment and with a dynamic twitch of my index finger pressed the flipper button.  It didn’t flip.  The flipper didn’t flip.  For god’s sake a malfunction in the machine.  The ball fell into the gutter and the game was over.

I had racked up 999,999,998. Two lousy points short of besting the Brad the best for at least until he played again.

 The machine stopped whirring and went into its “ballyhoo mode” playing the Batman and Robin theme from the TV in that tinny, mechanical, pinball machine music.  I stood there stunned for a moment and then walked away.  So near and yet so far away was that win.

I never played pinball again after that.  And Brad H. would never be beaten.  His initials remained on top of that list until George and Mary retired, the joint closed and their machines where trucked off to be sold at auction. 

But the record stands forever - and the pinball records of my day will never be challenged by the kids of today – those great gaudy blinking machines all went the way of the dinosaurs – killed off  by Xbox and iPad.