TOWN LIVING

Seattle, WA 10-30-2010; Beautiful weather this afternoon, mid 70's

We had to get up early this morning in order to be at U of W Medical Center by 7 am for an Ultrasound-Echocardiography. Very interessting procedure. You get to see how well every valve and section of your heart is working. The technician wouldn't let on if my results were good or bad, we'll find out from the Dr. on Wednesday when we have our next big consultation. After the Ultrasound, we went back to the Seattle Cancer Center Alliance for a chest X-Ray and a pulmonary function test. I passed that with flying colors, despite my childhood asthma and smoking cigarettes between the ages of 8-11. I was the original Bill Clinton and never inhaled which is probably why I never got hooked on nicotine like many of my siblings. One nurse asked me why I decided to quit smoking when I was 11. I told her that we moved to WA state and I thought it would be a good time to quit smoking and start a new life out west. It probably had more to do with there being an absence of Piggly-Wiggly supermarkets in the west and you couldn't get the five finger discount for the product as easily in WA state. Nurse Britta thought that was a pretty profound insight for an eleven year old, so I let her persist in that positive perspective. We went down to Kelso, WA to visit Hanna over the weekend and had a great time. Drove back to Seattle Sunday evening and got to bed early for a busy week.

Watford City, Mckenzie County, North Dakota

Pa, Danny, Ophie, and Tom joined Mom, Kathy and I in Watford City in the Fall of 1959. I was going into third grade and Miss Alexander was my teacher. Somehow the fact that my oldest brother Earl knew her or had even dated her in college came to my awareness and I'm not sure if that was an asset or a liability for my academic career. She was particularly kind to me, however. I think it all started on class picture day early in the school year when I showed up in the best outfil any little North Dakota Wrangler could find. My mother decked me out in a Howdy-Doudy cowboy matching pants and shirt outfit that she must have picked out of the missionary clothing barrell at some church bazaar. It was perfectly complimented with my regular high top work boots that probably Danny and Tommy had worn before I inherited them. I will tell you later about the first pair of shoes I ever received that weren't hand-me-downs in a subsequent notation. It was on the way to my brother Earl's wedding and I'll check with him about dates and location. Well, all the rest of the kids in the 3rd grade class picture looked just like late 1950s American kids should look like.All the boys except one ranchers kid had crew cuts and blue jeans.  The "Old Man" took no little pride in providing hair cuts for everyone in the family who couldn't escape the torture. Somewhere he had acquired a hair cutting tool that hadn't been sharpened since its purchase. It thinned your hair concurrently with cutting it. Maybe that's why some of the older boys went prematurely thin on top. Well, you wanted the pain to stop as quickly as possible, so we always ended up with "long" hair, looking like a refugee from some hollar in the Ozarks. I was put in the front row so my workboots couldn't be hidden and with 4 rolls of pantleg bulging over the top of the boots, I thought I was the cats meow. Nobody else had an outfit like mine and being a "farm kid", no one had the gumption to tell me the truth.I was the laughing stock of the 3rd grade. Ignorance is bliss, however, and Miss Alexander made sure I went home over the lunch hour and changed out of my special outfit so it wouldn't get soiled during recess or lunch time. I'm sure she knew the abuse I would have received on the playground wearing that costume. I also remember one day doing a math drill and I was the only student who got it finished in the allotted time. She kept everyone else in over recess to finish the assignment and I was the onlystudent allowed to go out with the rest of the elementary kids. When they blew the whistle to come back inside, the teachers would stand and we would line up behind them. I was the only one with Miss Alexander and I never forgot my affection for her.

Living in town had both its benefits and potential disasters. We were able to go to the movies whenever we could come up with 25cents and Mom would approve of the content. But, you became painfully aware of the vast social and economic chasms that separated us from many of our friends. During hunting season, for example, none of our friends had 4 deer carcasses hanging frozen outside their back doors. We thought nothing of going out with a hacksaw and hatchet after school and cutting off some venison steaks or ribs for supper. They were hung high enough so cats and dogs wouldn't bother them and with North Dakota weather, we had frozen meat for weeks, until it became even too much an eyesore for my folks to bear. You also could participate in afterschool activities and summer sports. Baseball was king and I was a prodigy among kids my own age. I had competed against my older brothers all of my life and I thought nothing of playing against boys 5-8 years older than myself. Playing against kids my own age was like taking candy from an infant and I got to pitch, play shortstop and hit cleanup immediately. My biggest frustration was that our catcher was so bad that he missed most of the 3rd strikes we got on the batters and, in those days, if 1st base was vacant, you could run and be safe, if you got there before the catcher could throw you out. In Little League today, 3rd strike and you're out, regardless of whether the catcher catches the ball or not. So, it was no surprise when my brother Tommy's coach asked if I would be willing to play on a team with kids who were 5 years older than myself. They were short players and some that they had were more of a liability than an asset, so I was drafted to play with Tom and his buddies. I worked my way into the starting lineup fairly soon that summer. I remember catching a certain homerun in center field on my birthday, June 30th. I just never gave up on that ball and I'll never forget the feel of it plopping into my mitt and the cheers of the crowd when I threw it back in. I can still hear Tom calling out from behind his catcher's mask, "Way to go, Rob, nice catch." The only downside to that feat of baseball acumen, was being threatened by the kid who had hit it with bodily harm if I ever showed my face in his home town. I wasn't worried, nobody would beat up a kid 5 years younger than them in public, not in North Dakota anyway. Near the end of the Season, we somehow managed to schedule a game against the All Star Team from Williston, North Dakota.

I remember an unusual amount of intensity surrounding practices before the "Big Game". Watford City was just another podunk town next to nowhere in the eyes of the kids from the Metropolis of Williston. They even had a professional baseball team called the Williston Oilers and we were to play the "Big Game" in Oiler Stadium in the afternoon prior to the Oilers own game. The trip to Williston went without incident until we had to cross the Wide Missouri River on a metal bridge that I was sure would collapse mid-stream. I held my breath and prayed real hard the entire way across. We made it! Arriving at Oiler Stadium, we began to warm up when we saw "HIM". He was 6 feet 6 inches tall, cocky and worst of all a leftie. We had heard about some Goliath of a kid through the small town baseball grapevine, but we all thought it was just small town gossip and typical exaggeration. It wasn't. He was everything people said about him, and more. He was their best  pitcher, at least the fastest throwing, and he took the mound the top of the first with an attitude of sublime confidence and boredom. This was going to be a joke in his eyes. Watford City of all places!. They even had a midget, me, on their team who was probably the batboy, how wrong he turned out to be. My brother Tom, being 5 years older than me, remembers every pitch, hit and play in detail. I will leave it to him to tell that version of the story. I'll just share my recollections which are much less detailed.

I'll never forget getting in the batter's box for the first time. It was like the movie "Simon Birch". I was probably around 4 feet tall and had a strike zone that looked like a matchbox to "Goliath". Like my biblical predecessor who faced the historical Goliath, I was all prayer and trust in the God of Israel to spare my life and bring us victory over the North Dakota version of the Phillistines, the Willistines. "Goliath" looked at me with derision and scorn. What was this runt doing playing on this team. Never having the best control of his pitches, it was inevitable that I got walked every time I went to bat. "Goliath" started losing his temper and his cockiness after my brother Tommy hit a home run off of him and the hicks from the sticks pulled ahead to stay. Somehow, we managed to hang on and win that game. Gyro Gertie finished them off in the ninth inning with his personal version of an unhittable sinker ball. Game over, time to celebrate and bask in the glory that a bunch of kids from nowhere beat the Williston All Stars; including "Goliath", Mr. Phil Jackson, himself, Mr. Everything to sports fans in Williston, in North Dakota, in Chicago and now Los Angeles. I'm sure he probably doesn't even remember that life changing day for a kid like me. I have followed his career and personal life ever since. He is both an amazing success and an openly flawed individual, like all the rest of us.I continue to pray for him. That the God of his Mother, will give him peace and joy.