This entry is a day early because we are at the Fireside tomorrow. Your mom said I can’t miss my normal Friday entry. Who is writing this blob anyway?
First I got some feedback on comments I made about my children and their cars last time. I struck a few nerves. One person I tried to embarrass was Grasshopper No.3. He has this parking lot in back of his house full of cars. Two Saabs, the GMC truck, an old Suburban being painted and finally the boat. I was admonished for providing wrong information. There is also a Dodge Durango(the wheels keep leaving the road) and a motorcycle. Can that be right? Yep. I’ve counted and recounted. No apologies here.
This will be the last of the Bucky series. In the first entry. I tried to portray “Bucky, the person” and then I followed with a chronology of the cars he had owned. The car article was intended to be fun. Last, some random memories of my dad.
I remember the smell of sweaty sports apparel. My dad would carry baseball bats, balls, and catching gear in the trunk of his car. Included were warm-up jackets, sweaters and hats used at practice sessions. They always had the cruddy jock strap odor. He made up for the stinky trunk by smoking cigars. I don’t know which was worse, jock straps or cigars. God, I miss those smells.
Everything for Bucky was a contest. We’d throw crumpled up paper at wastepaper baskets and brag about who was the best shot. In golf it was “who can hit the ball the farthest”. We would sit at the dininig room table and argue about who had the best handwriting. The challenge was to see who could write his name “W.C.Andrews” the best. How in the hell do you judge who is the best. My “C’s” were always too round and the “d’s” written too tall. Give me a break. What it did do was get me to develop pretty decent handwritting. Sounds like two people with nothing else to do. I mean comparing handwriting. Come on.
I would play basketball at the Gradeschool playground up the hill from the City Club. Actually I’d play hour after hour on the blacktop and I got to be pretty good. Every now and then, Bucky would pull up in one of his classy cars and challenge me to a game of “21”. Now I was into jumpshots and quick releases. He lived in the 30’s and did everything with a two hand “set shot”. I told him he shot like an old man. The son of a gun would beat me regularly. Then we’d argue over who was the best shooter. If you’ve ever played basketball on blacktop you know your hands pick up some of the oil from the blacktop and there is a certain stench that goes with it. I still love that smell.
When I was going to high school, I’d rush home to the City Club at noon. Chili and a hamburger. Maybe a malted milk shake. Then my dad who also stopped for lunch would ask to play catch with a baseball in the back parking lot. What are you going to do? So I’d humor him. I’d wear the catcher mitt and he’d pitch, lefthanded. I think he thought he was Warren Spahn or today, Randy Johnson. He held very little back and the ball would explode into my catchers mitt. Then I’d hear, I’ll throw it softer so that you can handle the pitches. My response “bring it old man”! For 15-20 minutes he would get rid of all his hotilities by firing that ball at me. Then it was back to school. My hand would swell to twice normal size from handling his pitches but I would never tell him or let him see me sweat. God, he could throw that ball.
We did golf together. He wasn’t as much into scoring as he was into busting a long ball. I was beating his ass by the end. There were a couple of times that mom walked the course with us. She must have really like being with me. Well on the 9th hole at Crystal Lake, Shelby had walked down the fairway with me after teeing off. My dad had muffed one and we were along ways away from him. He hit the ball at Shelby and you guessed it, he hit your mother. I know she rubbed it off but there was a little moisture in both eyes. I know he thought I was too young to have a steady girl friend, but hitting her with a golf ball? Bucky really felt bad.
Bucky got tickets to a Milwaukee Braves game against the Dodgers in 1957 in Milwaukee. It was April. He couldn’t go to the game so he filled the tank with gas, gave me the black and white Dodge to use, and brother Jack and I went to an afternoon baseball game. I think Warren Spahn pitched a two hitter. The Principal at Plymouth High School found out we skipped classes to go to the baseball game. Jack and I were called to the office and I remember the Principal, Big John Richards was going to severly discipline both Jack and I. I don’t remember if he threatened suspension. We told Bucky about it and he got on the phone and called Big John. Now remember my dad on been on the school board several times so he knew how things worked. He read Big John the riot act. He had made the decision about what was best for his kids and there was no way discipline was going to be imposed. Big John backed down. Go dad.
The last one I’ll leave you with is during one of his unemployment stints, as a family we were down to white bread and peanut butter. It was summer time. The Andrews kids always played summer baseball at the park (it was supervised). I didn’t have a glove, but I alternated with someone else. I know it bugged my dad that his oldest kid didn’t have a glove. Unbeknownst to the family, he had owned four cemetary lots in Plymouth that Chalk had bought for our family. Well he sold the lots for cash and I remember coming home from the park one noon and there was a “used” baseball glove waiting for me. The son of a gun had found a way to get me the glove. I didn’t appreciate the sacrifice he made at that time but I do now. Special!
If anything, the little boy in Bucky kept coming out. I wasn’t always sure who was the parent and who was the child. I do know he was my dad.
Love,
Your Dad