A Couple of Stories From My Past

In order to bring a few of you up to speed, I've decided to start writing down some of the stories that I've personally told on myself. These are stories from when I was in Junior High and High School. Some are common, some are unusual, most are funny...or I'll do my best to make them so. They won't be in any particular order and they may not be consecutive. But it helps to get some things out in the open. Some things that might have been painful at the time, but can now be looked back upon with a smile or even a laugh. F'rinstance...

The Private History of a Baseball Tryout That Failed

When I was in school, I wasn't encouraged to "go out" for any athletics. Between my natural born clumsiness and my parents fear that I would screw my bad leg up even worse, I was not "allowed" to participate in contact sports, such as football. I was, however, grudgingly allowed to play "sandlot baseball". This is where you just get a bunch of kids together and they take turns "playing baseball" but are, in reality, simply trying to see how close they can pitch to the batter without actually hitting him (or in some cases, her).

Actually, I had a good arm. I could throw a ball quite well and fairly accurately...at long distances. But I couldn't hit worth a damn. I had no "depth perception" and was just as likely to swing well before the ball crossed the plate as I was after it was already in the catcher’s glove. On the rare occasions that I actually GOT a hit, it was usually only a single. On the upside, it did prove to me that there WAS such a thing as Divine Intervention, because there was no way I could hit a ball without it.

My sophomore year, I was playing with the gang and got hit with a wild pitch. It hit me right below the left kneecap and right on the tendon. My leg did what any leg would do under the circumstances...it folded under me and I went down like a bag of rocks. All I remember thinking was, "How in the hell do I explain to the Old Man how I broke my leg?" As luck would have it, it wasn't broken but it did hurt for several days afterward.

The following year, having obviously NOT learned my lesson, I was again hanging out by the baseball field. Tryouts were going on and I was standing in the "pasture" that was well beyond the outfield, probably a good 600 feet from the backstop. I saw a kid hit a ball and watched as it sailed way up into the sky, hit its apex and came down onto the grass a few feet away. I walked over and picked up the shiny, white ball and looked toward the infield. The kid on the mound was yelling, "Hey! Can you bring that back here so we can practice?"

Now, I'll admit here and now...I was a lazy assed kid. I wasn't about to "walk" that far for a lousy baseball. The pitcher was standing there, waiting. So, I simply threw the ball back. I missed the pitcher but the ball DID make it to the catcher, albeit the ball was almost in the dirt when it got there. I saw the coach and he was looking from the catcher, back to me and back. Finally, he yells, "C'mere, Johnny!"

Grumbling about the walk, I went over to where the coach was. "Can you ALWAYS throw like that?" He asked. I replied that I could but that I couldn't hit well. He said, "I can teach you that. Hunker down here behind the plate for me."

"Great", I thought, "I couldn't 'hunker down' if you held a gun to my head...", but I did the best I could. The batter came up and on the first pitch, bunts the ball. I hear the coach yell out, "Catcher's ball! GET IT!" I got it. Then he yells, "Throw to first!"

Here is where the coach learned that 90 feet was too close for me to get a proper feel...at least under pressure...of the ball. I made a beautiful throw to first base. Unfortunately, I threw the ball too low...and hit the base runner in the back of the head.

He was "out" three feet before he got to the base. I don't mean "tagged out", I mean "out" as in, "Cold-as-a-wedge out".

He never knew what hit him. Unfortunately, the coach did, as well as the rest of the players. Once it was established that I hadn't killed the poor kid, the coach took me aside and suggested I might do something different for the team...such as "water boy"

Warning: Contents Under Pressure!


Now that I've told you about how I thoroughly embarrassed myself on the baseball field, let me share a story with you of how my mother accidentally caused me to embarrass myself while I was at school. I know you're thinking, "How can he blame his MOTHER for something that happened at school!?" Trust me. I CAN and you will too once I explain what happened.

I was in the 8th grade. The same was true back in the Dark Ages of my educational past just as it is now...kids at that age eat a lot of junk food. I was no exception. My parents, having both come of age during the 1930's, were Firm Believers of the efficacy of "Home Remedies"...such as warm olive oil dropped in the ear for an earache, dissolving an aspirin on a tooth for a toothache (a particularly vile remedy) and Mineral Oil or Milk of Magnesia as a "Spring Tonic" (i.e. "laxative").

Unbeknownst to me, mom had slipped some mineral oil into my orange juice at breakfast one morning. Mineral Oil is odorless, tasteless and is uncommonly good for many uses...including use as a "Spring Tonic". After I ate breakfast and headed out the door to the bus stop, Mom stopped me and gave me a dose of Phillips Milk of Magnesia. It seems she had forgotten about the mineral oil....or that was what she later claimed. Since I didn't KNOW about the oil, I willingly took the Milk o' Mag.

Flash forward to 2nd hour...about ....10 a.m.

I'm in my Oklahoma History class when a "pain" hits me. I raised my hand (as was the custom) and asked to be excused. The teacher, Mr. Larremore, shook his head and went on with his lecture. The "pain" hit me again. I knew things were imminent and stood up and said I was sorry but I HAD to go and hurried out the door.

I learned a Valuable Lesson that day: If you fear that you are about to suffer from Explosive Diarrhea, DO NOT RUN to the bathroom! Why? Because if you DO you won't NEED to "go" once you get there! You will have learned, as I did, that all this does is encourage the diarrhea to turn out and see what all the excitement is.

So...I sat in the boys restroom. And I waited. I cleaned myself up as best I could, but I didn't leave the bathroom. There was NO WAY I was leaving that bathroom. After about 15 minutes, my teacher came looking for me. I wasn't that hard to find because (as I later discovered) I had left a trail on my frantic but futile journey. When he came in and realized what had happened, he left and got the Principal...who was also the track coach. To their credit, neither of them laughed...at least not in my presence. However, during the interval between the Principal going and getting me two pairs of sweats so I could go to the gym, shower off and change clothes, the bell rang for class change.

This has since been remedied but is also the basis for my dislike of restroom stalls with no doors on them. As I sat and waited, my male classmates came in to see what was going on. One of them asked me what happened and I replied, "Too...much...pressure!" This caused great hilarity to my classmates and by the end of the school day, EVERYONE knew. And when I say everyone, I mean EVERYONE!! Kellyville was a small school with grades K through 12 all on one campus at that time. I had 5 and 6 year olds running by me on the playground, holding their noses (even though I was clean) and ....Upper Classmen and women offering me rolls of TP as I'd walk down the hall. Teachers even asked me if I needed to "go" if I so much as shifted position in my seat.

It was embarrassing as hell at the time, but I noticed something unusual later that same week. I had left a "Legacy". The building I had classes in had hardwood floors that were laid down in the 1930's. They had been waxed and varnished many times over the years, with each layer of wax and varnish stacking up like rings on a tree. The "trail" that I had left behind me in my mad rush to the restroom had resulted in having left a permanent trail that is, as far as I know, still there. What ever was in me had eaten through the generations of varnish and wax right down to the bare wood by the time it was cleaned up by the janitor...which was done within 10 to 15 minutes of my accident. Unless the floor has been replaced or sanded since I graduated in 1980, that trail is still there.

When I got home at the end of what had to be THE Longest Day of my Life, I told my folks what had happened in school that day. Dad laughed. Mom was appropriately apologetic and I was scarred for life. But that's what being a pre-teen is all about, right? And besides, who else can say they left such a unique mark on the (literal) Halls of Learning?