Brother Coitus playing Rugby in Iraq.

Catcher's Cup. A Painful Lesson in Safety.

When I got to little league age (which was 9 years old) Dad said "Well, are you going to tryout for little league this year?" Dad always wanted me to play sports. Every sport. All of the time, all year long. The more contact the better. Mom wanted us to take lessons. Skiing lessons, swimming lessons, tennis lessons. Dad on the other hand wanted to raise sports-stars, and I was his first attempt.

"Naw... I want to play another year of PeeWee."

The PeeWee rules let you play until your tenth birthday, Little league lets kids start after their ninth birthday. I chose to play with my 3-year teammates for another challenging year on the "Fred’s Market Cougars."

I think I really hurt his feelings by not being ready to take on that challenge. Hell, I hadn't wanted to play ball in the first place, but Dad pressured me into it. In retrospect I'm glad he did. But at 9 there wasn't that much "retro" in my "spect." All I knew was that some of the guys in my class had skipped their last year of PeeWee to "go up" to little league. These guys were already a year older than me, and had skipped their last year, so some of them had been playing in the "bigs" for two years. All I knew was that they routinely kicked my ass in recess, and that no one routinely kicked my ass in PeeWee. Plus, there were little-kid scare stories of hazing (which wasn't in my vocabulary until MUCH later. I preferred the term "initiation") which was legendary among the wide eyed ranks of soon to be little leaguers like me. No thanks Dad o’ mine... I’m stayin' in PeeWee.

I don't even remember what happened that year in PeeWee. I vaguely recall that my 3-year teammates all went to Little-league without me.

I DO however recall my first year of Little league. I was the 38th string catcher, and I still believe that, the coach put me in the 38th string as a favor to Dad. You see, Dad had signed on as assistant-assistant-assistant coach. Sports careers are built on relationships. My first year of Little League was no different. Since I was a catcher, the Coach took me aside and asked if I'd ever caught before? I had, and I told him so. Then he asked "So you’ve got a cup?"

Well this confused me, because cups are pretty common...even in a small town. But while my family had LOTS of cups in the kitchen, none of them were uniquely mine, and what does this have to do with baseball anyway?

So I said "well, we have lots of cups at home."

"No, a CATCHER'S CUP."

I'm sure he read my blank look at this time. I’ll just bet that I looked like a confused dog... Head tilted to the right, ears up, eyes wide, brain working overtime, no results."

Look son, a catcher needs protection...uh, you know?"

Still blank. I'm lost in the kaleidoscopic array of predictable directions that this conversation has NOT gone. So I guess the answer to THAT question was "no."

The coach, again, correctly read that situation and drove the point home.

"A catcher needs a CUP. It's a protective device that fits inside a jock. It protects your testicles. You get the picture?"

Understanding was beginning to rear its ugly head. I think the Coach sensed this, but forged ahead anyway. Neither my ignorance, nor the coach’s obvious discomfort with this discussion was going to stop such a monumental safety issue from being resolved.

"Before you catch on this team again, I want you to have a cup. A young man could really get hurt out here, and I don’t want that happening to my players. One good foul-tip and you might never be able to have children."

I don’t know whether he was actually concerned, or whether he distrusted my skill at stopping pitched baseballs prior to contact with my crotch. "OK coach. Where do you get one of these.... cups?"

"I think that one of the stores downtown will have them. You just have to shop around ‘til you find one. Let me know when you buy one so I’ll know I can let you catch again."

"What do they look like?"

"Just ask the saleslady in the store... She’ll help you out."

Well, asking a sales lady for a "catcher’s cup" was absolutely the LAST thing on earth that I was ever going to do. I had a premonition of telling an ADULT that I needed a cup to put in my balls in, and getting called names like "dirty" until my parents arrived to cart me to the orphanage.

I examined my options: I couldn’t go back to PeeWee... Too old. I could quit baseball... Dad was one of my coaches though, so that’ll never happen. Thoughts of asking a blue-dye-rinse fat woman to help me with a catcher’s cup shot through my head. There’s only one thing to do. Ask Mom to go buy one.

That evening I did just that. I told Mom I needed a catcher’s cup. She looked at me like I was crazy, then laughed at me. I had to convince her to ask Dad. All this ended with Mom buying me a strange, decidedly non-cup-looking-thing and my first jock strap. Of course, it was Mom's first jock strap too, and she got the wrong kind.

For those of you who are testicularly-challenged, there are special jocks made for catcher's cups. They have a pouch sewn into the front of the nad-pouch. My jock was the everyday economy version with just the web-pouch for my nads. Neither Mom nor I knew this, nor would we figure it out for a year or two.

Ever the trouper, I went upstairs, stripped off my shorts and put on my brand-new-what-the-hell-is-this-for jock. Then I stuffed the it-doesn’t-even-look-like-a-cup into the pouch. I let the wide elastic snap into place with a flourish, then immediately regretted it.

Now, for those of you who've never seen a catcher's cup, they are roughly the shape of the front half of a french bikini (yes, I know that I'm mixing gender stuff here...just stay with me) They are made out of some sort of nearly bulletproof plastic with foam rubber padding around the edge (which doesn't help). The whole thing is a neutral grey color with ventilator holes drilled through the front, sort of reminiscent of the holes you poke in the metal lid of a jar when you catch grasshoppers.

Those ventilator holes were the worst torture known to man... Or boy. Of course, had I been wearing the proper style of jock, I never would have noticed this. But I was blessed with a non-catcher’s-cup-wearing mom, so I discovered pain. And that pain was that special type of pain that lasted as long as I wore that cup. Worse yet, I knew what my baseball schedule was, so I had plenty of warning, and therefore anxiety in anticipation of having to wear that cup. I would rather have just been hit by a couple of foul-tips and had it over with, lack of future children notwithstanding.

Back during my Little League years (I don't mind saying) my pecker wasn't much in the size department. But just about all of the nerve endings in the world were packed into that little sucker. And, as physics would have it, my pecker had more strength than mass, so it sorta stuck out straight.

Straight into one of those sharp edged ventilator holes. So, If I wore my cup (which I'd just learned about yesterday) in a jock (which wasn’t made for the job) to avoid injury (which never happened in PeeWee) my pecker felt like someone was trying to split it like string-cheese.

OK...I'll buy that. All of those adults can't be wrong.

I wore it all that year.

Here's an Email From My Brother in Iraq. This is in response to the media over-reporting Tiller's murder, but under-reporting William Long's murder.

I love my country.

I was on vacation in Hawaii last week, walking through a mall will my family, when a band started playing the Star Spangled Banner. I, and my family, immediately turned to face the music, and put our hands over our hearts. Two people, walking behind me, slammed into me, almost knocking me down. They cursed at me and said things like, "watch where you are going" and "dumbass." Then they walked on, shaking their heads.

As the band played, I looked out the corner of my eye. We were the youngest people in the whole crowd that actually did the right thing. Most everyone standing up and paying respect were in their '60s or older. One man, probably a veteran, actually struggled to support himself with his arms on his wheelchair. He couldn't stand on his own feet, yet he still tried to rise.

Everyone else, from the age of about fifty on down, did not move a muscle. They talked on their cell-phones, sat in their chairs, and sipped their Starbucks. No one removed their hats.

I can't believe I've spent fifteen years of my life defending these assholes.

Kurt Scholz

___________________________________________________________________

Now this is your Intrepid Blogger talking:

Present-day Americans are idiots. There, I said it.

Americans are so accustomed to their life of affluence and leisure that they think it is owed to them. History and wisdom assure us that is not the case.

Nearly every day I'm blessed with the thought that I live in the greatest country in the world. I own my house. I own the land it sits on. I own the truck I drive to work, and I work at a company that is able to pay me well. I am truly blessed, I realize it, and in that realization is yet another blessing.

I buy fresh food at any of several grocery stores. I have money for gasoline, so I don't have to walk. I have money for my guitars, guns, and other recreation. I hunt managed populations of game species. I worship my God in the church that I choose, and in a way that I believe is right. I watch one of my televisions, and hear editorial comments openly critical of government policies. I read newspapers without having the "Glorious Workers' Revolution" style propaganda shoved down my throat. I'm secure in the knowledge that if a policeman beats or kills me, I probably had it coming. I'm comforted by the fact that the state is restrained from throwing me into prison or taking my property unless they can convince 12 people to agree that I broke some law that we all know about. I listen to country music one day, and classic rock the next because our economy is robust enough to support the cost of advertisment, and I'm never subjected to patriotic marching music interspersed with a government spokesman telling me lies. I'm not afraid to tell people who my ancestors are, what God I worship, where I live, or what country I'm from.

All of these things are my everday reality because I am an American living in the U.S. of A.

God COULD'VE decided to make me a 13 year-0ld prostitute in Calcutta, HIV postive, orphaned with 8 younger siblings. I don't have to make the choice of turning out my even-younger sister (which would surely be a death-sentence for her) because I don't bring in enough money to feed my family.

He COULD'VE decided that I should be a child-soldier in west Africa. Or maybe a mutilated beggar in the UAE. Possibly a horny and gullible young Muslim in Jordan with enough driving hatred for infidels to wear a "suicide vest" into a cafe and push the button. He might've decided that it suited his purpose to make me any of 5 billion citizens of other countries. But he didn't.

He blessed me with a life shaped by a country, family and culture that far too many of us take for granted.

For the record, there is no free lunch. We live in the land of plenty because our ancestors all got off their butts, came here, and busted their backs to build a country that would provide the life and lifestyle that the U.S.A. provides.

Is it perfect? Nope. It seems like Black folks, and Indians have a pretty good point about past abuse... But if they ever want to get past those events, either individually or collectively, and embrace the future rather than the past, the atmosphere is more supportive here than in other places. Very few of us will get through life without (many) disappointments. However, this country provides VASTLY less painful disappointments than the alternatives.

Dissidents, revolutionaries, soldiers, and our forebears toiled to provide this alternative to the rest of the world.

That effort, for the last few centuries, put forth by better men than you (or me) is certainly worth one-and-a-half minutes of respect and reflection before a first-pitch or a kick-off.

If standing and removing your hat (or saluting) is just too much effort and life-interruption for you, then you can't possibly include yourself among the people who have made this country the blessing it is.

Kurt, you've said a mouthful.

And to the guy in the wheelchair who tried to rise-- Well, there are still heroes.

Just Another Redneck Rolling Kennel From Wyoming.

Click the photo to enlarge.

Para-sheeting, Brad Gets Stuck, Karl Gets Cussed-Out. Names have been changed in this one too.

One beautiful summer day when I was about 11 years old the Behr family came over for an afternoon of socializing. The parents: Dave and Brenda brought the two boys: Brad and Kyle.

We had already bought the winter's hay supply and had it stacked in four huge haystacks out by the barn.

Now for you city-folk, haystacks are not big piles of hay like you see in cartoons. They are comprised of bales that are mechanically stacked by machines specifically designed for the task. The problem with these machines is that the stacks that they produce are not always very structurally sound. In other words, as soon as the guy driving the stacker backs up and dumps the load of bales against the previous load, the bales can settle and the whole thing gets to be pretty fragile.

Walking on a poorly stacked haystack is kind of like walking next to the edge of a glacier. You probably will be alright if your luck holds, but that sucker could fall at any minute.

The several years previous to that summer we had really solidly stacked haystacks, so we boys trusted haystacks. But Dad and Dave Behr didn't.So they told us to stay out of the haystack because it wasn't safe.

But since A: they couldn't possibly be serious, B: we knew haystacks better than Dad or Dave (when was the last time THEY spent any time playing in a haystack...Sheesh) and, C: they didn't really sound like they meant it when they told us to stay out of the stacks, we boys headed immediately for the haystacks to play cops and robbers.

After a few hours of this, Brad and I got a great idea. We would parachute off of the top of a haystack. They are about twenty feet tall.

But we didn't have a parachute. Come to think of it, the only experience we had with parachutes was those little army-parachute-action-figures that came from the dime-store. You remember those don't you? You folded up the chute, threw the army-man as high as you could, then the chute didn't open and Sgt. Plastic frapped in to the DZ every time.

Minor details like that can't hold up a redneck kid's plans. We'd simply have to make a field-expedient parachute. No sweat...Mom had dozens of bedsheets.

So we ran back into the house to get a sheet. While we were raiding the linen closet Mom asked "Hey, what are you boys up to?"

I answered "We're gonna parachute off the haystack."

Now Dad yelled from the kitchen: "I thought I told you boys to stay out of the haystacks."

Blank looks and silence all around. We hadn't lost any TV privileges yet today, and if we didn't say anything stupid our luck might hold. And tonight was "Six Million Dollar Man" night. I silently stuffed a sheet under my shirt (as if that would fool anyone) and we quickly exited the house single-file.

Besides, Dad still didn't sound serious, and we still had better judgement about haystacks than he did. Silly adults...We scampered out the door with our bed sheet.

Scampering is an underrated art only practiced by preteen boys who are just about to get in trouble. Have you ever noticed that action-heroes in books and movies never scamper? Just kids. It’s a rule.

When we got out to the haystacks, Brad and I climbed to the top of the most stable of the bunch. This stack had one end that was stair-stepped. There was a little plateau about four bales wide about ten feet off of the ground. The stack next to our chosen "Kitty Hawk" jump site had kind of settled into our stack so there was a cravasse between the two stacks that got narrower as it got closer to the ground.

After climbing to the top of the haystack, Brad and I each grabbed an end of the para-sheet. But we discovered that the sheet was longer than the haystack's width. We had to face each other with our heels hanging into space twenty feet off the ground while hanging onto the corners of a bedsheet for balance.

The plan was that we'd say "one, two, three, go..." and step sideways off of the end of the haystack.

We were nobody's fools...No sir. We had a plan. We were determined to jump from the top of the haystack to the landing ten feet below us. Once we had proven our plan, we'd jump off the whole stack. If the plan didn't work, no sweat...It was only ten feet. We routinely jumped that far anyway.

So we counted off "One...Two...Three...GO!" And off into space we went.

Now, I've got to tell you-- All these years later I still remember how long it took to fall those ten feet. Not because we settled gently and gracefully to the ground, but because immediately after stepping into space I realized that the para-sheet wasn't slowing us down AT ALL. In fact, it seem to have been pulling us earthward. This was a big surprise to me, and I wondered why.

Lots of thoughts went through my head during what must have been about one and a half seconds, but most of my thoughts were about was where my feet were going to land on the little plateau. When I jumped I made sure I was aiming for the bales below. If I missed that bale it was another ten feet to the ground. So I remember looking down between my black Pro Keds at the edge of the bale below.

I'm sure Brad was having similar thoughts too. But his aim sucked.

In the split second before we landed the para-sheet actually caught enough air that it seemed like it would pull my arms out of the sockets.

I realized that this para-sheet stuff might actually work.

Then I smacked into the edge of the bale below with ten feet worth of thirty-two feet per second (squared) inertia. The next thing I knew, the bedsheet was yanked out of my hands. I saw it slither off to where Brad was supposed to be (but wasn't), and then snake out of sight into the cravasse between the two haystacks.

I also remember Brad screaming like a girl.

Kurt, Kyle and I all rushed over and looked into the cravasse. All we could see was the bottoms of Brad's tennis shoes and our para-sheet. They were both located directly above the source of the muffled screaming.

Brad had landed wrong, twisted his ankle, collapsed on our landing pad and fallen head-first into the cravasse.

No sweat, we'll just dig him out. We pulled enough bales out of the way that we could reach Brad's feet, but he was sort of stuck.I say "sort of" because he wasn't really stuck, but it caused him a lot of pain when we pulled because when he wedged himself into that tight spot his body pushed all of the stems in the bales down. Now we were pulling against those stems, so he had thousands of "broom straws" poking him as we pulled on him.

Well, he couldn't stay there forever, so we pulled him against the stems by yanking on his twisted ankle. He wasn't amused.

Everyone but Brad was a little amused though.

When we finally pulled him out, Brad really was complaining about his ankle. I'd heard his complaints before though. Brad would always have an imaginary injury during play, complain and cry about how life-threatening it was for a couple of minutes, limp around for a couple more minutes, get some sympathy or rest, then forget all about it.

But this time he wanted to talk to Dad...after all, Dad's a doctor. Just the attention that Brad needed after being poked and scratched a zillion times by hay stems.

So we helped Brad into the house so he could see Dad, who promptly asked how Brad had hurt himself.

I cheerfully told him that we were parachuting off of the haystack. I didn't feel any sense of dread at this revelation, since I STILL knew more about haystacks than Dad, and two or three more jumps from a higher altitude and we'll have this para-sheet thing perfected. Dad would be so proud. I was bubbly at the thought of inviting the parents to witness our perfected para-sheeting technique later that afternoon.

Oh boy did the fecal material ever hit the fan. Brad's ankle was completely forgotten about (even by Brad who had become surprisingly quiet, given the gravity of his injury).

My brother Kurt became invisible. This was an amazing gift that he typically used when we had been caught doing something stupid. He figured that if I was the only kid present, then I got all of Dad’s attention. So *POOF*, Kurt disappeared.

And Brad’s brother Kyle was no where to be found at the first sign of trouble. He was the youngest and smallest, so he must’ve snuck out between someone’s feet.

I’ll leave out the colorful bawling-out session. I spent the rest of that beautiful, sunny afternoon in my boring ol’ room (where there were no haystacks, surprisingly enough), Brad's ankle would have to heal on its own, without further medical treatment. Shucks, it was pretty much healed after Dad's lecture anyway. I always though Dad should use profane outbursts in his practice based on this single incident. Brad’s recovery was nothing short of a medical miracle.

Later I found out that Dad agreed with me about bawling-out his patients, but always felt more constrained at the office than he did at home. Something about professionalism, ethics, and swearing an oath at some guy named Hypocrates. Unfortunately his patients were robbed of the chance to miraculously heal. On the other hand, he didn’t lose patients (get it?).

We almost invented para-sheeting that day. It ended up more like hay-diving, which has wisely been completely dismissed as an olympic event.

Maybe I started a personal voyage that day. Later in life I found myself doing lots of parachuting while being cussed at. I got cussed at before jumps. I got cussed at after jumps. I even remember a couple of times getting cussed at DURING jumps (I have a scar on my hand that I got while being cussed at, so I've got proof). Yep. Lots of jumping, and LOTS of cussing.

Some people are gluttons for punishment. Oink.

Dad managed our herd of cattle so that the calves were born in the late winter.

Almost the whole herd would have their calves during the same month. This was accomplished using injections the year before to "synchronize" the cows' estrus cycles. Since they all went into heat on the same day, they all got artificially inseminated on the same day at the ABS breeder's ranch up the road. The end result was that they delivered in a short window of time.

Since they delivered late in the winter or the early spring before the grass started growing, we were still feeding them hay.

When I got old enough to drive, Kurt and I did much of the hay-hauling and herd-watching that Dad had previously done. I would have been about 18 and Kurt would have been 15 one winter when we had a particularly memorable night.

Kurt and I loaded the truck with bales of hay one stormy night and headed to the farm. When we got there we discovered that one of the cows was in labor. Usually cows are better at delivering their calves than you are, so you just wait and watch in case she needs a hand.

We dumped all of the hay and watched the cow in labor for an hour or so. She wasn't getting much accomplished in the calving department. So we decided to help her a little.

Sometimes its easy to help out a cow. You just sneak up from the back, slip a set of chains over the calf's hooves (which ought to be sticking out by now) and apply gentle pressure to get the calf moving.

Other times it is more difficult. You don't do such a good job of sneaking up on the cow and she gets up and runs off. When this happens the cow is spooked and alert, and won't settle down and start straining for another half-hour or so. Then you have to pull the sneaky-act again.

This would prove to be one of the tough times. I must have spooked that cow 4 or 5 times, with the resultant waiting periods in between each attempt. It was getting late, almost midnight, when we decided to run her into a corral and pull the calf.

So we chased a pissed-off pregnant cow all over that field, through the herd, in the dark, during a snow storm. It sounds easier than it was.

Finally, when we got her into the corral she still wouldn't settle down. We decided that the right course of action would be to rope her, knock her down, and pull the calf.

Well that's when the fun started. I roped her and wrapped the rope around a post in the corral. Kurt's job was to push her toward the post so I could tighten the rope. There was no way that we were going to PULL her toward that post. Nope. A 1500 pound pissed off Simmental cow is just a little bit stronger than a teenage boy (or two).

Oh hell, she kicked and snorted and threw her head. It took us quite awhile to get the rope short enough to restrict her movement.

We finally got the chains on the calf's hooves and pulled, but that was a big (BIG!), stuck calf. We had to use the calf-puller.

Now, at this point you're probably thinking that a calf-puller is some sort of medical instrument-looking item that you can carry around in your glove compartment. Its not.

A calf puller is a about six feet long and weighs about forty pounds. Picture an upper-case letter "Y" six feet long made of steel. Now picture a hand-operated winch bolted to it with a big hook on it. That's a calf puller.

The way you use it goes something like this: first, you put a chain (which looks like a choke chain for a big dog) on the calf's hooves, then you put the top of the "y" against the cow's butt, then you attach the cable from the winch to the chains. When you crank on the winch it pulls on the calf. Simple, huh?

Well, we did all that, and the calf was born. It was alive, which was kind of a shock to me given the length and trauma of it’s mom's labor. But the calf was alive, mom was alive, Kurt and I were still alive and it was 3 o'clock in the morning, so the cow decided to reject her calf just to spite us. Cows are vindictive like that.

Kurt and I tried to figure out how to get milk out of mom and into junior when all mom wanted to do was kick.

Out came the rope again.

We roped her and after what seemed like forever the calf was full of warm milk on a decidedly cold night. At least the storm had let up, leaving about a foot of show in its wake.

We let mom off of the rope, and she finally accepted the calf. We stayed around a little while just to make sure that junior was gonna survive.

Now it was about 6 o'clock in the morning. That was the first time that I ever stayed up all night. I'm pretty sure it was Kurt's first all-nighter too, and we were bushed.

Don't get me wrong. I was kind of proud to have helped out (although my meddling may have been the problem in the first place). I thought it was kind of cool to have stayed up all night. I had a good time with Kurt, who was a trooper the whole time.

But we were tired. Bushed. All in.

What do you think a couple of hicks do when they are that tired on a school day? Well, they go to the store and get a Pepsi, that's what.

Nutritious breakfast of calf-pullin' knuckleheads the world over.

We had to drive through town to get to the only store open at that time of day. We weren't talking much just then. I was just trying to stay awake long enough to get to the store. It was going to take something pretty drastic to catch our attention right then.

And right then something pretty drastic happened.

Some idiot was setting up a yard sale in a foot of snow on a Friday morning next to the road we were driving down. What kind of fool sets a yard sale up after a snowstorm at 6 o'clock on a
weekday?

Now I wonder about this. At the time all of these questions eluded me.

Kurt and I tiredly turned our heads looking at the junk in the yard as we drove by. Then, in unison, about 14 seconds later we both turned toward each other and said "Hey! That was an AR-15!"

I had been in love with the AR-15 in one of the local gun shops for years. That rifle stayed in there for so long that I thought it might still be there on the day I could afford it.

Then it disappeared. Heavy sigh.

I still couldn't afford it though, so there was no reason to turn around and go back to the idiot's yard sale.

We just kept heading for the store. Talking about how cool it would be to have an AR-15. We talked about it and talked about it, and when we turned toward home we made sure that the idiot's yard sale was along our route.

We stopped and talked to the idiot, who turned out not to be such an idiot after all. He talked Kurt and I (mostly Kurt) out of 400 dollars. Who's the idiot?

This is one of those times that Kurt smelled a rat. Big sucker. Huge.

When we got back to the house we scrounged 400 bucks between us and went back for the rifle. By the time we got back home, everyone was sitting down to breakfast. Kurt and I walked in with this really dangerous looking rifle, which immediately resulted in quizzing about where we got it etc.

Just think what Mom and Dad had going through their heads...The boys are gone all night, and come in at seven o'clock on a school day carrying a military-looking weapon that we've never seen before. What, as good parents, should we think about all of this?

Kurt and I really didn't care. We went upstairs and collapsed in bed and slept for most of the day.

A Fight, Some Spliff, and a Lesson for Super-Coach

I guess I was about 15 the first time I got stoned.

It was after Babe Ruth baseball practice. I had just whupped a kid that picked a fight with me.

As luck would have it, I kicked his butt at baseball practice in front of "SuperCoach."

SuperCoach was new to town, and had a son who was a year younger than me, but was a MUCH better athlete. But this kid was an arrogant, worthless punk. You know the type. All ability, no drive. Folks, this kid was an asshole.

He emulated his SuperCoach father evidently. Example: After the kid I was fighting and I had beat each other all over the spectator area of the baseball field, and into the outfield (and the sprinklers were going full-blast in the outfield...making a pretty comedy-filled spectacle for the peanut gallery), SuperCoach marched over, broke us up and demanded to know why we were fighting.

Well, the obvious reason was that we were 15 year old boys, and didn't like each other. Not one bit. But I didn't think that it was any of Super Coach's business. And I told him so. He wasn't amused.

I wasn't much amused either. The testosterone was really flowin'... I felt like a million bucks at that point, was pissed off, and was ready to keep fighting. I had that "bring 'em all on!" attitude going.

We all glared at each other for awhile...and then separated off to different parts of the field to go through the requisite "When he said....I shoulda said..." thought processes.

After practice (I stunk during practice. I was a little preoccupied) a buddy of mine took me out in the country to another buddy's house and we all got silly smoking cheap Colombian Gold out of laboratory equipment they stole from the high school. I specifically recall blowing smoke into a cat's face to get him stoned. The cat would get right up into my face and inhale deeply.

I thought the whole episode was really cool. So I got some seeds from one of my friends and decided to open "Karl's Dope Farm."

At first I planted the seeds out in a pasture. But Dad turned some cows into that pasture and they ate the dope down to the ground.

Back to my buddies for some more seeds.

This time I got a whole film canister full of them. I also got a lot of advice.

"You have to germinate 'em first."

"What does that mean...germinate?"

"You know...put the seeds between two paper towels soaked in water for a few days. The seeds will sprout, so then you plant 'em. They won't grow unless you do that."

"Whaddya mean, they won't grow? Are you telling me that marijuana plants have been solely dependent, throughout history, on south american indians germinating them between two wet Bounty paper towels?"

"Uh, you've got a point....But I heard you gotta germinate 'em first."

I shined the "germinate 'em first" plan on, but I still needed a completely cow-free zone to plant my cash-crop.

Then the perfect idea struck me. I'd simply plant them in the attic in used 5 gallon ice cream buckets (we had about a million of them...Dad's a big fan of Lucerne Neopolitan).

The attic was perfect. It had fantastic light coming in four sets of gable windows, it was oppressively hot and humid, and we never turned cows into the attic to graze.

So I filled about 10 buckets full of Dad's "super-fertile-zucchini-growing" garden soil, and schlepped them through the house to the attic and planted my seeds.

WHOA Nellie! They grew like... well, like weeds. It was a veritable dope jungle up there inside of a few weeks. I hauled gallons of water up there, one bucket at a time, up the step-ladder in my walk-in closet, through the little 1 by 2 foot hole in the ceiling (that I probably couldn't squeeze through now if my life depended on it), across the ceiling joists to my crop.

Well, it had to happen-- Mom caught me.

She remembers it differently, but she asked how come the ceiling had new cracks in it and specifically asked me if I had been messing around in the attic.

I said that I had, and when she asked what I was doing up there, I told her "growin' dope."

I was so proud of what a green thumb I had, that I wanted someone to know, even if I got in trouble.

So she asked if any of the other kids knew about it. I told her that I didn't want them to know.

She told me to keep it quiet and take it easy on the ceiling.S

o, that was cool! It was OK with my parents if I grew dope in the attic.

Karl's dope farm REALLY got serious after that. I started using "Miracle Grow" to increase my yield. Hell, it seemed like the movie "Little Shop of Horrors",. Every time I went into the attic, the plants were bigger and healthier.

Then, one day, Mom was coming in the driveway and looked up into one of the gable windows and saw a plant sticking up and a bottle of Miracle Grow. She decided that I was being too tacky about my farm at that point, and told me to move the plants into my room. By this time I had reduced the plants until there was only one plant per bucket. So I brought my remaining plants into my bedroom. They were about 3 feet tall at this time, and ready to bud.

They promptly died. One and all. It was a massacre. So much for my farm. I lost my farm in the late seventies along with all of the other farmers. Crop failure, you know. Very sad.

So, I picked them, dried them and stripped the leaves into a trash bag. The whole crop yielded about a tenth of an ounce. I smoked it all at one time. Got incredibly stoned, and fell out of the pickup into a gravel parking-lot on my head while two girls from school rifled my pockets for whatever I had been smoking. I couldn't stop laughing.... 'cause it was all gone.

But back to the sad-but-true saga of SuperCoach...Later that year (after I fell on my head) the Babe Ruth coaches all met to elect the all-star baseball team. I did a pretty good job pitching that year, and wasn't too bad a hitter, so they all voted for me as a first-string pitcher.

Well...all the coaches except one.

My coach (who was only nineteen years old at the time, and a pretty good guy) asked me "Jeez, what did you do to piss SuperCoach off? That guy went on for half an hour about how he wasn't going to coach all-stars if you were on his team, and what a crappy attitude you had, and how you’re the problem with America."

I told him about the fight earlier in the season. He laughed, I laughed, after all...what did it matter? I was on the team, SuperCoach notwithstanding.

Later that evening, I told Dad about my conversation with my baseball coach. I was just trying to make conversation, but Dad really took the whole episode seriously. He marched upstairs, picked up the phone and dialed SuperCoach.

It turned out, unbeknownst to me, that SuperCoach's worthless kid had been caught by the police for vandalizing an abandoned house on our farm. He and his buddies had broken all of the windows out, and managed to get caught.

The police called Dad to ask if he wanted to press charges. Dad, being a Little League coach, said that if the vandals all volunteered to work one Saturday at fixing up the Little League field he wouldn't press charges.

They all showed up that Saturday and worked all day. All except one...Super Coach's worthless, arrogant, punk kid. Dad didn't pursue the issue.

So, Dad got SuperCoach on the phone, and I was sitting there listening when he said "I understand that you have some criticism of my son. Why don’t you tell me about that?"

Then he politely listened to SuperCoach tell all about what a lousy attitude I had. It took about 5 minutes. I caught bits and snatches of SuperCoach's speech. It was highly critical, and pretty earthy. I also saw my dad hold his tongue during this whole conversation.

When SuperCoach was completely done with running me down with his laundry list of reasons that made me a poor choice for the all-star team, Dad calmly explained about the vandalism of our property at the hands of Super Coach's worthless kid, the promise to help with the Little League field, and SuperCoach's punk-son's subsequent shirking.

Dad said "I don't mind that you have a low opinion of my son. But I just wanted to let you know what a jewel you've raised." Then Dad signed off and hung up the phone.

SuperCoach and I got along all right after that. I think we both had a greater appreciation of the other.