Too Much Tequila, Too Little Sunscreen

Bob, a crusty but erudite old liberal, lives along the Mexican border with his soul mate, Josefina Bernstein, PhD and his long-term guest they’ve aptly named Boner. Boner is a somewhat unique young man. He grins constantly, he only speaks Swahili and he has this curse or blessing, depending on how you look at it, he has a perpetual erection. They go about their lives harboring illegal immigrants, hosting drug traffickers and taking pot shots at the US Border Patrol’s spy drone when a drug trafficker abducts Josefina to carry his colleague’s backpack containing a fortune in narcotics. Bob, Boner and their drug-runner buddy, Chui, take off on their adventure to rescue Josefina and recover Chui’s lost loot. Their quest takes them deep into the drug underworld and to California where Boner’s unique attributes earn him instant stardom in the porno movie industry before heading south into Mexico and the warring drug cartels.

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Deming Writing Group Assignment

Prompt: You come across a pack of matches that sets off a series of uncanny events. Start your story with “My mother always told me not to play with fire.” End it with “And that’s how I ended up in the middle of nowhere — naked.”

My mother always told me not to play with fire, but I didn’t always listen to mom. She was full of all of the things I couldn’t or wasn’t supposed to do. But in this case she may have been right. Let me tell you what happened and you judge if dear old mom was on to something.

The power had gone out in our home again. My wife, Linda, broke out her candles and our battery-powered radio preparing for a quiet evening without TV. I tried lighting the candles with my propane gadget but I couldn’t get it to catch. I angrily heaved it into the trash, got my flashlight and started rummaging through the kitchen drawers, searching for matches. After five minutes or so of looking and swearing Linda remembered she had a pack of souvenir matches in one of her purses in the closet.

Do you know what going through old purses, in the dark, with a weak flashlight beam is like? Purses are like old shoes, only more so ― they don’t wear out. They just get replaced and stored, too old to be used again but too good to be thrown away. I found a paper clip, two buttons, one really old stick of Juicy Fruit, a rumpled grocery list, lots of wadded up tissues and a small key, but no matches. Finally after lots of cussing and slamming things around I opened her formal, little black handbag, the one she carries when she gets really dressed up. There was something in the bag that might be some sorta matches, but not like any I’d ever seen before. Didn’t she say they were a souvenir ― a souvenir of what I wondered, as I grabbed them and headed off into the dark to find Linda?

“Are these the matches you were talking about?” I said as I thrust out this mysterious package and fumbled with my flashlight.

“That looks like them.”

“They don’t look like real matches. Where did you get ‘em?”

“I never told you the story, but remember when we took that golf vacation to Vegas with our New Jersey friends, years ago. Well, the night you guys went to bed early ― to make your crack-of-dawn start time ― we had a girl’s night out. I was at a blackjack table while the other girls were playing the slots. An interesting and exotic looking man was sitting next to me smoking these strange cigarettes. He was foreign and rich, really rich by the looks of his clothes, jewelry and the huge pile of chips he kept restacking. The smoke was a nuisance but it had this very different and almost pleasing aroma. Kind of like some pipe tobaccos. He could tell that his smoke was getting to me so he turned and spoke for the first time. ‘May I offer you a very special treat,’ he said in his heavily accented English as he opened his ornate gold cigarette case.”

“Get to the punch line, will ya. It’s dark in here and my batteries are almost gone.”

“I told him I didn’t smoke but something about his pleasing manner and the aroma of his exotic tobacco made me want to try one. Or it could have been the four or five vodka tonics I had earlier or the grappa I was sipping now, but it was definitely something. Anyway, I took one, put it to my mouth and he lit it with his gold lighter. I took one drag and it was like ― like hard to describe. You know when you’re sitting in a dark movie theatre waiting for the film to start and POW the screen lights up. Well, it was kinda like that. I just sat there in shock watching my own private light show when the dealer asked me if I wanted a hit. I realized then that I hadn’t even looked at my cards.”

“This guy gave you drugs at a blackjack table in Vegas?”

“No it wasn’t a drug. It was something else. I don’t know what, but it was something else. I got up in this blissful sort of daze, raked in my few chips, and started to leave. This guy stood and as he offered me those matches he said something I’ll never understand or never forget. He said, ‘I’ll meet your there’.”

“I looked at the package he had given me in the elevator on the way back to our room.” Linda continues, much more animated now. “Something was printed on the cover but I couldn’t read it. I might have been Arabic, but I didn’t think so. What could have meant by, ‘I’ll meet you there’?”

“Hell if I know, but here goes,” I say as I yank this funny looking match from its gaudy package. I strike it like you would any other match; it flares and then explodes in a huge ball of colors and warmth. “And that’s how I ended up in the middle of nowhere ― naked.”

 

 

Don’t you hate it when you can’t get the price tag off of your new purchase? Does the inconsiderate jerk that’s too lazy to return his shopping cart or do the scum-bags who toss trash out of his car windows piss you off? How about the smokers who think the world is their ashtray? If mindlessly surfing through 400 channels of totally uninteresting TV or shopping at Wal-Mart gets under your skin. Then you’ll want to read Can’t Stop Ranting, a humorous look at a host of life’s inconveniences from the really big things like the war in Iraq to the trivial like pour-proof ketchup bottles.

 

 

A Collection of Short Stories

Bob demonstrates his storytelling skills in this collection of sixteen of his best short stories. Bob set his story Three for Dinner in Boston, where he lived for many years, because he couldn’t find a five-star French restaurant within hundreds miles of the Chihuahuan desert where he now lives, writes and sets most of his stories. He’s become an accomplished researcher seeking out interesting historical figures before he magically bends time and injects himself into the lives of these real but long-since-dead people. In Lottie Bob tells us of his love affair with the most colorful woman in the old West and in My Evening with the Family he describes his night with a group of hippies before they became infamous household names. And, don’t miss My Date with the Butcher, Bob’s story about his meeting with Pancho Villa’s most trusted lieutenant, General Pablo López the day before his execution in 1916.

 

 

The NFL football season kicks off in a few minutes and I can hardly wait. “Why is that?” you ask. “Aren’t they just a bunch of grossly oversized young men on steroids pushing each other around and knocking each other over in tight pants in front of thousands of screaming spectators? Is it their tight pants or is it the violent collisions and frequent injuries in their gladiator-like settings that interest you. Or could it be you enjoy football as an excuse for sitting on the sofa all day Sunday drinking beer, eating greasy finger food and switching back and forth between three TV channels rather than doing something meaningful like mowing the grass or cleaning the garage. Help me to understand your obsession with this game you call football, a game that has very little to do with the foot as far as I can tell. Oh, by the way when was the last time you actually played football?”

“When I was eighteen and I tried out for my Marine Corps base intramural league.”

“My point exactly. And, don’t you have to live in a city with a NFL team to experience that civic pride that comes from supporting the ‘home team?’ I can see Brazilians fanatically rooting for Brazil over Spain in World Cup soccer competition but does anybody really care how Cleveland does against St. Louis in Sunday’s football game?”

“I care . . . well not so much about Cleveland but I appreciate the complexity and the intricacies of football no matter who is playing.” I say in my defense.

“Bullshit! You know that there is a raging debate in psychology circles over whether a violent sport, like football, is correlated to the aggression in the people who enjoy watching and playing it.”

“Okay,” I say. “Let’s see if we can identify the ingredients of a typical football fan. You’ve hit on a couple, civic pride and aggression and I’ve added the complexity and intricacy of the game. What else can you think of?”

“First off I’d say excess testosterone but how about male bonding and membership in the macho world of the beer-swilling, sprawl-on-the-couch American male and while we’re at it there is probably something about subgroup membership going on here. If you are a Kansas City Chiefs fan you are a member of a very identifiable, spirited group that will welcome you regardless of who you are and what you actually bring to the group. And as a member of this tastelessly clad group you can share their passions, you can revel in their victories, suffer in their defeats and you can argue or lament endlessly on this player or that, the competency of the coaching staff or how they pissed away their first round draft choice on the no good bum from Florida State. Yeah, now that I think about it, this group identity and group membership thing may be the key reason you guys become fans. What team are you a fan of anyway?”

“I actually like all pro football but if I had to say one team . . . I’d say the Philadelphia Eagles.”

“And why is that? Have you thought out what ever it is about the Eagles that make them so special to you? Is it their funny green ― green for God’s sake ― color or is it those cool wings they have painted on their helmets or is it watching their grossly overweight coach pacing the sidelines trying his damndest not to trip on his headset cable?”

“Well, I actually lived in Philly and had season tickets to the Eagles.”

“Yeah but you’ve lived everywhere and I didn’t hear you say anything about the Broncos, the Chargers, the 49ers, the Pats, the Redskins or the Chiefs.”

“I like all of those teams . . . well, maybe not the Redskins or the 49ers so much but I’m Okay with the Broncos, the Pats and the Chiefs.”

“So you’re an Eagles fan . . . I guess that’s Okay. They’ve got an ex-con for a quarterback, this very good kid, DeSean Jackson, ― and what kind of name is DeSean, anyway ― for a wide receiver and some really ugly black uniforms but thank God they finally got rid of McNabb. The Eagles may be in contention this year if they can keep Michael Vick healthy and develop a running game.”

Just then we hear Hank Williams Jr. yell from the television, “Are you ready for some football?”

“I’m ready!” I yell as I race to the sofa sloshing my beer and leaving a trail of potato chips on the carpet.

October 17, 1963
Another spectacular sunset paints the sky in warm pastels as the sun plays peek-a-boo through a stately row of quaking eucalyptus trees. These haunting giants dwarf the groves of orange trees they protect from the winter winds. The perfectly shaped and neatly arranged orange trees seem to display their overly laden branches with the almost human-like traits of vanity and pride. As I pass through mile after mile of these beautifully groomed and so valiantly sheltered groves I wonder why all of this repetition doesn’t seem monotonous. Maybe we can appreciate and actually love sameness when it’s presented this beautifully.

July 12, 2010
I remember this road from an old map I’ve kept over the years. I can’t wait to travel this leaf strewn country lane once more and see how time has treated the many orange groves that gave Orange County its name. Today the road of my memories resembles any of the thousands of other busy suburban streets that pass though endless arrays of housing developments, strip malls and shopping centers. I frantically search for any signs of the past, the groves, the eucalyptus windbreaks, the beauty but its all gone, everything is gone. “Wait I see something, look over there … there’s … there’s one old eucalyptus tree that actually survived.” I look again. “Look,” I yell. “Look that tattered old tree is weeping.”

At recent meeting of a mixed bag of 30 people or so the woman in charge thought we should all introduce ourselves as a way of breaking the ice and getting the meeting started. One at a time the attendees stood recited their names and gave a brief bio. The morning was full of, “Hello I’m Joe Blow and I am the regional director of such and such,” until we got to this one woman who went on and on about some insignificant little job that she had had with IBM. She was clearly proud of this dumb little job and to hear her exaggerate the importance, in pain-staking detail, of every aspect of this really unimportant job you would have thought that she ran the whole damn company. I thought yuck and then I felt sorry for this insecure little nothing that had to lie and embellish her bio just to boost her own ego in a failed and sorry attempt to impress a bunch of strangers.

She got me thinking about lying. Little lies like she just told accomplish exactly the opposite of what she was trying to do. We think less of her even though she tried so hard to impress us. It’s like when someone asks, “How much do you weigh?” and you answer, “170, not more than 175,” or when your doctor asks, “How many drinks do you have a day?” and you answer, “Only two glasses of red wine a day just like they recommend.” These little lies or fibs don’t cut it. Everybody knows you’re lying and they think less of you for doing so. If you’d have answered 195 pushing 200 and four to eight glasses depending on the evening you’d have made a far better impression. But big lies have the opposite effect if the person you’re telling them to thinks you’re lying and if you make them outlandish and funny. Knowing this I stood up and said:

Hello I’m Bob Rockwell and I…
I graduated from Harvard early so I could participate in the 1964 Olympics
I won three gold medals at the XVIII Olympiad in Tokyo
I am a decorated Viet Nam war hero
I starred in seven porno movies
I invented Teflon
I slept with Bo Derek when she was just a 9 1/2
I swam the English Channel with a butterfly stroke
I turned down the Publisher’s Clearing House Sweepstakes prize
I won the America’s Cup with a boat of my own design
I beat Minnesota Fats at a game of 9-ball
I am a member of the Deming Writing Group
And I am also a storyteller who is known to embellish the facts a little for a good story.

I sat down to utter silence then laughter and finally applause. See it worked, my big lies told them that I was a creative and witty guy, a guy with enough self esteem to pull this off without having said a meaningful word about myself. They thought more of me than if I would have told them the truth and a lot more of me than they did of the woman who told all of those little lies. Think about this.

Once in a while we experience an extraordinary event which seems to etch a permanent spot in our memory and become an integral part of who we are. These are the speed bumps along the road of life that add a bit of excitement, and often terror, to our otherwise hum-drum lives. Here are a couple of mine:

Down the chutes
The TWA jumbo jet took off from Los Angeles out over the Pacific before making a sweeping turn for Boston. We were almost at altitude when the passengers on the left side on the plane all crowded around their windows and starting shouting. Our outboard engine was on fire. Ugly gray smoke was bellowing from the engine back over the wing. A first class passenger mentioned the smoke to a stewardess who had just come into the aisle. She bent down to the window for a peek stood up with a look of total panic on her face and started screaming, “We’re all gonna die, we’re all gonna die,” as she ran down the aisle. Soon an announcement on the intercom drowned out this hysterical stewardess. We would be returning to LAX and we were to stay in our seats until we were told otherwise.

We landed at faster than normal speed and screamed down the runway past the terminals and came to an abrupt halt at the very far end of the runway, near the sand dune barriers. The stewardess on the PA system had a line that went something like this: “As soon as we come to complete stop please file in an orderly fashion to the emergency exit nearest you. Do not open the overhead compartments or take any of your possessions with you as you exit the plane.” She gave that little speech over and over and with each retelling she would scream a little louder and deliver it in an even higher pitch just as the honk – honk – honk, abandon ship alarm sounded. Soon she was shrieking her shrill gibberish at full volume ― her shrieking was more irritating than that honk – honk – honk. The noise was effective; it made you want to get off the plane even faster.

The stewardesses had opened all of the emergency exits on the starboard side and began exiting passengers. My buddy and I raced to the rear-most exit only to find the stewardess spread eagle forming an X with her body to bar access to her open door. I peeked out past her and saw that the chute never inflated. It just hung there flapping in the wind some fifty feet over the concrete. I was afraid that the pushing and shoving of the mob would push her out the open doorway but she held on.

We filed in a half-assed orderly fashion to the emergency exit over the wing but no one was using that exit either. I leaned out over the side of the plane to see about a dozen passengers stranded on the wing some twenty feet above the tarmac. The second part of their chute, the dog leg, hadn’t inflated leaving them stranded on the wing of a burning airplane.

Finally I elbowed my way to a forward exit with a working chute. The stewardess asked me to see what I could do with the pile of people at the bottom of the chute as she handed me a young girl. I grabbed this four or five year-old girl who was being crushed in the crowd and down we went together just like we were on a slide in the park. The slide was steep enough so you’d have to run a couple steps on the ground because of your forward momentum. That was not to be, I landed with my heels squarely in the chest of this older lady and we fell into a pile of eight or so people. I let go of the girl and told her to run over to a crowd forming some fifty feet away. And wouldn’t you know, assholes were tossing their brief cases and baggage down the slide ahead of them and the bags were bouncing off the people in the piles on the ground.

I jumped up and started yanking people to their feet and soon had my pile cleared. My associate cleared the pile on the other side and we stood at the end of the slide and helped the descending evacuates to their feet and helped them to step away from the slide. The course slide material sent the ladies’ dresses up over their heads so we saw what all of the women were wearing that day. Some weren’t wearing anything at all but that’s a story for another day.

The fire crews had the fire out and the last folks down the slides were the flight crew including that brave stewardess who blocked her faulty exit with her body. Ambulances were treating those chafed and bleeding from the friction of slides and those who had hit the concrete or banged into other passengers. About half of the passengers required medical care of some kind in what should have been a model evacuation. I just stood and watched the action craving one of the cigarettes I left on board.

Later a fleet of buses came and took us to a large airport hotel where we were ushered into a ballroom hastily configured with open bars and lots of free booze.

But … but there’s too much wind
We were at jump altitude for me, a student skydiver. My plan was to exit at 7500 feet, freefall a mile in 30 seconds before deploying my main parachute at 2500 feet and then maneuver my canopy to get as close to the drop zone marker as I could. Our drop zone was a plowed field with a small white disk in the center with white panels radiating outward to form a large white X easily seen from the air.

Student skydivers are those with less than 20 jumps in their log books and are prohibited from jumping in winds greater than 10 miles an hour for all of the reasons you’ll read about in a bit. Experienced jumpers can use their own discretion in the wind but generally advised not to jump in winds over 20 miles per hour.

I’m sitting on the floor of our jump plane, a Cessna with all but the pilot’s seat removed along with the passenger-side door. I had my feet on the outside step hanging on to the struts as I leaned out to get a good view of the ground. We had dropped a marker on a previous pass over the drop zone and it was my job to judge the distance past the marker that we should exit. This was heavy stuff so I took my one-thousand-and-one, one-thousand-and-two responsibility seriously. As I was counting the ground crew removed half of the drop-zone X indicating that students are banned from jumping because of wind. I turned to tell my jump buddy and instructor, Dave, but he didn’t seem phased. Dave was somewhat of a celebrity at drop zones with his over 500 jumps and having won the third place medal in the last national championships. When I looked down again I saw that they had removed the second half of the X indicating winds of over 20 miles an hour. I was ready to crawl back into the cabin when Dave gave me a big shove sending me into freefall.

I stabilized myself in the free-fall frog position and looked around. Dave had followed me out and was above me a hundred feet or so. He went into a dive and came down and tapped me on the helmet as he raced past me. I checked my altimeter because you don’t want to pull your rip cord when someone’s above you for obvious reasons. I looked around but couldn’t see Dave anywhere and I was nearing 2500 feet, the mandatory opening altitude. I pulled my ripcord, my chute deployed and I swung down into a parachute landing position. Everything seemed normal or just like it had in all of my previous 12 jumps. What’s up with these high wind warnings?

As I descended to a few hundred feet above ground I began to oscillate and swing in a big arch. It was like I was the ball at the bottom a huge pendulum swinging in this wide pattern. I was afraid that I would swing so far up that my chute would lose its air and collapse leaving me to fall the rest of the way to the ground. Nope, that didn’t happen but I hit the ground on a downward oscillation went to my knees and thought that that was as easy a landing as I’d ever had. Before I could do anything I continued my oscillation past 180 degrees and headed back up to about 20 or 30 feet when my parachute touched ground and deflated. I was head down and feet up and long way from terra firma and my parachute was already on the ground in a heap of silk.

I fell 25 feet or so and landed on my left shoulder and my helmet. The impact had shoved my helmet down over my eyes so that I couldn’t see a thing and knocked the wind out of me. I couldn’t move. I didn’t know if I’d broken my neck or my back or what. I lay there paralyzed and blind when the wind inflated my parachute and started dragging me across the desert through cactus, bushes and rock piles. I couldn’t move. I knew that I had to release one of the risers at my shoulders to collapse my chute but I couldn’t move. I struggled and struggled and finally got it. My chute collapsed and I lay there still in the sand with this big chunk of silk flapping in the wind.

It seemed like hours before Dave and some guy with a jeep came and gathered up my chute and lifted me into the back bench seat of the jeep. I laid there staring at the sky as we bumped our way over open desert to the skydiving shack. What had I broken?

After five beers and a complete inventory of my body parts and finding nothing broken I stood for the first time and found I was about a foot shorter and waddled like a stooped over, little old man.

And the captain…
Our TWA flight had just departed Boston’s Logan airport headed for San Francisco. We were climbing a slow steady climb and were almost at cruising altitude when our plane rolled sharply to the left and began falling from the sky. A stewardess standing in the aisle flew into a passenger’s lap while her drink cart crashed into the seats spewing its contents. We were losing altitude fast. I looked around but couldn’t tell how high we were or how much altitude we had to lose.

I immediately thought that we had lost a control surface probably an aileron. There was total silence as we all hung from our seatbelts on our left sides as the plane continued to fall. We were going to crash.

I was waiting for my life to pass before me when the plane suddenly swung around to a normal level position. There was total silence on the plane. We all listened to the engines hum searching for some clue as to what had just gone on. Without ceremony the cockpit door opened and a pilot and a stewardess dragged out another older unconscious pilot and laid him in the center aisle of first class. The stewardess ran to the forward PA system and screamed into the mike, “Is there a doctor on board? Is there a doctor on board?”

Two guys and one lady in my section jumped up and joined what must have been another doctor from first class. They all dropped to their knees and frantically started doing whatever it is they do in situations like this.

We all leaned into the aisle as the plane continued to climb. Finally the copilot came on the PA system and announced that we would be returning to Boston because of a medical emergency.

We landed in Boston and came to a stop away from the terminal and were met by one of those mobile boarding ramp/elevator thingies. They opened the forward passenger door and an EMT crew came in with a stretcher and soon removed the unconscious pilot.

After 30 minutes or so a voice came on the intercom and announced that we were waiting for a new captain who should be there any minute. Two hours later we taxied and took off a second time for San Francisco.

After we reached altitude and had a couple of drinks a stewardess sat down with me and emotionally told this story. She said between gasps. “We were at a little over 25,000 feet and climbing. The captain was at the controls when he suddenly jerked back and froze in a trance-like pose with his arms extended firmly grasping and turning wheel counterclockwise. The copilot tried with all of his strength to right the plane from his controls but the captain was frozen in that position. The third pilot, the flight engineer, struggled to free the captain’s grip from the wheel while the copilot fought to right the plane. After some time and an almost total loss of altitude they freed the captain from the controls and with the help of a stewardess dragged the captain from his seat. The doctors on board administered CPR and pounded on his chest assuming he had had a heart attack.” She didn’t think the captain was alive when they removed him from the plane.

Then she got to the scary part. “We were lucky that we were high enough for the other two pilots to wrestle the controls away from the captain. If his heart attack would have occurred a few minutes earlier at a lower attitude we would have gone down.”

She was biting her lip to hold back her tears until I pulled her to me. She sobbed as we hugged.

“Dear God thank you for taking the time to hear me today. I know I don’t speak to you as often as I should … but I try … and you know all of the stuff I’ve got going on.”

“First, I want thank your for my health. As you know I’ll turn 70 in a few months and I want to thank you for all of the days you’ve given me but I’ve got a couple of questions. Not complaints mind you, just a couple of questions.”

“Before I begin I want to tell you that it looks like I dealt with that cardiovascular curve ball you threw me a couple of years back. A skilled cardiologist using angioplasty and a hand full of stents was able to open up that artery that I so ignorantly let get clogged. Now here’s my first question: Why didn’t you let me learn the evils of smoking and eating all of those cheeseburgers sooner when you’d given me inherently high cholesterol levels to begin with? I’m not complaining, I’m just asking, and while I’m at it I can’t help but wonder why you didn’t teach my dear departed mother ― oh and before I forget, Hi Mom! ― about these things when she was doing her best to feed me what she thought was a healthy diet ― a diet of red meat, fatty diary products and all of that gravy … oh her gravy?”

“Okay, here’s my next question. How many times did you get up to pee last night? I counted four times for me. Was this what you had in mind when you created us? The reason I’m asking is because when I saw my urologist about this and after he performed all of the routine tests ― and while I’m at it, you could have put our prostates in a more accessible place, but I don’t mean to complain ― you know what he told me. My prostate looks normal and is about the right size ― and here’s the key words ― for a man your age. When I hear ‘for a man your age’ it tells me that you designed in this feature or is this your idea of some sort of planned obsolescence. What were you thinking?”

“While we’re at it do you have something in store for me at some ungodly ― oops, I shouldn’t use that word ― outrageously early hour in the morning. You must, because you got me up at 4:45 again this morning just to say this little prayer. I’m not complaining, mind you, I’m just curious about what I should be doing at this early hour. I haven’t been able to figure it out, it’s still dark, the paper’s not here yet, there’s nothing on TV and NPR hasn’t even begun their day yet. I’ve got it; you must be telling me to buy a farm. Don’t farmers get up really early to feed their chickens? And, why dear God, do chickens have to eat so early?”

“My next question is about the hearing loss you’ve given me to endure. What did you have in mind when you took my hearing: to give me a little more peace and solitude, or to give me the ability to sleep on noisy airplanes, or maybe to help me cope with overly talkative older women. It must have been something like that, I’m sure? But my real question is, given my hearing loss, why, why dear God, did you let me marry such a soft-spoken woman? I haven’t heard a word she’s said in the last twenty years. Psst, was that part of your plan?”

“Okay, I’m up to the question that has been eating at me for years. First off, you made us in your likeness, right? And although I’m almost 70 you’re older than … than … I can’t think of anything clever because you’re older than everything. That’s it, since you’re older than everything and I was made in your likeness what’s up with this paunch, this spare tire, this beer belly, that you’ve so graciously bestowed on most of us older guys and how do you cope with yours? Do you find it difficult to keep your pants up when you’re not wearing robes and do find yourself ‘sucking it in’ when you see some hot babe and are you embarrassed to take your shirt off in front of a young and fit angel? Again, I’m not complaining I was just wondering if this paunch was part of some bigger plan that I’m not aware of.”

“Well that’s it for this morning; please look after my loved ones. You might keep a special eye on my grandson in New York City and oh yeah, thanks for giving my granddaughter a spot on the all star team and thanks for getting Linda through her surgery and healing her shoulder … now if you’d just do something about my …”

“Ah … excuse me sir, I … ah … don’t mean to pry but is that a World Series championship ring on your hand?” inquired the passenger sitting to my right in the over-crowded coach section of a United flight to Philadelphia.

I put down the L.A. Times sports section and turned as best I could in my uncomfortably small seat to see the smiling face of a clean-cut young man; I’d guess to be a college student.

“Yeah, how’d you tell, it’s so old and worn?” I answer.

“It’s the shape and the diamond in the center that are the give aways. I’ve never seen a class ring with a diamond in it, not one that big anyway.”

As I place my hand on the armrest the solitaire diamond reflects the sun in bright near blinding flashes. I turn my hand to stop the glare.

“Does that say Brooklyn there over the setting,” he asks as he points to my ring just above the diamond.

“Yep, sure does. It says Brooklyn – World Champions around the top here. See, it has a globe, Dodgers and 1955 cast on this side,” I say as I turn the ring on my finger. “And a baseball and the famous Brooklyn B on this side.”

“Wow, what a keepsake. Is it yours? Did you earn it … er … I mean did you play for the ‘55 Brooklyn Dodgers?”

“Well, kind of … yes, it’s mine and I did earn it but it’s a long story.”

“I’d love to hear it, I’m John Roberts by the way,” he says as he sticks out his hand.

“I’m Bob Rockwell and I’m glad to meet you John.”

We shake hands and I say, “Are you sure you want to hear this old and long story? I’m afraid it may bore you.”

“Absolutely, I’m a big time Dodger fan and I didn’t know there were any of the old The Boys of Summer left.” He says referring to Roger Kahn’s thirty year old best selling memoir about the Dodgers of the Jackie Robinson years.

“Well, you see Roger never mentioned me in his famous book but I was there on October 4th, 1955 when the Dodgers won the series.”

“I don’t mean to be rude but how come I’ve never heard of you. I don’t remember ever seeing Rockwell on a Dodger’s roster.”

“After you hear my story … ah … then you’ll know why.”

“Can I get you gentlemen something to drink?” asks the stewardess from her cart in the aisle.

I order two scotches and a glass of ice while John has a beer.

“My story starts in St. Paul, Minnesota. I was playing first base for the St. Paul Saints, a triple A club in the Dodger farm system back in the old American Association. We had just ended an awful season at 75 and 78 and were humiliated when our cross-town rivals, the Minneapolis Millers, won the championship. I had had a good season, batting 343 with 26 home runs and a slug of RBIs but I hadn’t heard a peep out of the Dodgers. Our manager at the time, Max Macon told me to hang tough and he assured me that Walter Alston, the Dodger manager and the owner, Walter O’Malley, knew how well I played that season.”

“Did you know Alston or O’Malley?”

“No not then, they never talked to us peons in the minors. We only heard from them through our manager. Anyway, our season was over and I had just started my day job as a heavy equipment operator for a local construction company. I didn’t have the time to listen to day games on the radio but I followed the Dodgers in the newspaper. The Dodgers had one hell of a season, finishing 13 ½ games ahead of Milwaukee and 18 ½ games ahead of their archrivals, the Giants and ending with a 98 and 55 record. The Yanks finished 96 and 58 in a much tighter race, just 3 games ahead of Cleveland setting up the fifth meeting between these two teams in the last 8 years. The Yankees had beaten the Dodgers in all of their previous series including the ’53 series where the Yanks took it 4 games to 2.”

I paused to get my thoughts together even though I’ve told this story hundreds of times.

“I was having dinner at home after a leisurely Sunday afternoon when the phone rang. It was Sunday, September 25, 1955 a little after six my time and I was half way through Linda’s usual Sunday night fare, spaghetti and meatballs. I remember the call as if it were yesterday. It was a long distance call from New York … from Walter Alston the Dodger manager. He wanted me in New York as fast as I could get there. Gil Hodges, the Dodger’s starting first baseman had thrown his arm out and was iffy for the series. Walt wanted me there as backup, just in case. The series was to start in three days.”

“Wow, you were finally going to be a Dodger and in a world series to boot. I’ll bet you were thrilled.”

“Thrilled was not the half of it; I was going to join my heroes, Jackie Robinson, Duke Snyder, Gil Hodges and the gang. Well you know that lineup they had back then, they were all super stars … and I was going to play with them … well maybe not play with them but at least I’d be in the dugout with ’em.”

I took another drink of my scotch and continued. “I caught the first train headed east that Monday morning. I changed trains at the old LaSalle Street Station in Chicago and boarded the 20th Century Limited for my 16 hour trip to Grand Central Station in New York. I sent a wire to Walter and told him of my arrival time the following day.”

“It’s hard to imagine a world without air travel. Did it really take 16 hours to get from Chicago to New York?”

“Yeah, and that was on an express or as they called it … a limited, for limited stops. I was so excited and nervous that I didn’t sleep a bit that night on the train. I was going to New York for the first time and put on a Dodger uniform just like Duke, Jackie and Pee Wee.”

“I was so excited that I was the first person off the train as we pulled into Grand Central Station. Jake Pilter, one of Alston’s coaches was there to meet me and he drove me over to Brooklyn in his car. It didn’t feel right in Manhattan, the heart of Yankee country, but as soon as we crossed the bridge and headed for Flatbush and Ebbets Field I knew I was coming home.”

“Jake checked me into the Bossert Hotel over on Montague in Brooklyn Heights and told me to take the rest off the day off and see the city but to get to bed early. He would pick me up at 7 o’clock in the morning for our bus ride over to Yankee Stadium, and game one of the World Series.”

“Wasn’t the Hotel Bossert where the Dodgers had their big victory party after winning the series?”

“Yeah, you sure know your history ― and what a party it was but that comes later in my story. Jake picked me up and when I saw Ebbets Field for the first time I felt more like some hick fan from Nebraska than a real Dodger. He showed me to a locker with my name on it and when I opened it I found my gray, away uniform with the number 16 and nothing else. I got dressed and stood in front of the mirror waiting for the team to show up. No one did, finally Jake came running into the locker room and told me to hurry and join the team out on the bus. I climbed aboard the Greyhound bus in my new Dodger uniform only to see that everyone else was dressed in their civvies.”

“What did they all say when you got on the bus in your uniform.”

“There were lots of laughing and snickering until Walter stood up and introduced me as ‘Beltin’ Bob’ from St. Paul and that I was here at his request as backup for the Hodges at first base. He also told them I’d hit 343 this past season.”

“Bob, I don’t mean any disrespect but how come I’ve never heard of you?”

“Because the Dodgers/Yankee series was the end of my baseball career. After the series I went back to St. Paul and my construction job. I was plowing snow with a little D3 on a miserable day in January and that damn Cat rolled sideways down this bank throwing me off and breaking my right arm in three places. I never played ball again.”

“Oh Bob, I’m so sorry. I … ah … interrupted you … you were about to tell me about Yankee Stadium.”

I took another gulp of my scotch and closed my eyes. I could still see the old Yankee Stadium … the way it looked that day in ’55 when we pulled up and parked in the lot across the street from the players’ entrance.

“In those days players had to walk from the parking lot across Ruppert Place past the press gate and hundreds of screaming kids and autograph seekers to their own private entrance. I was surprised that there where so many fans out so early but I couldn’t tell by their yelling if they were Yankee or Dodger fans. New York fans all seemed to yell either way.”

“You’ve got to tell me what it was like to be down on the field in Yankee Stadium with all of those ghosts; the ghosts of the Babe, the Yankee Clipper and oh yeah, the Georgia Peach.”

“I was only out on the field for the formal introductions, the warm up exercises and batting practice but I can tell you that the 56,000 fans were screaming like they’d just seen the ghost of somebody.”

“Did you get to play in those two opening games?”

“No, I wore out a little section of the bench but I was so excited seeing my first World Series from the best seat in the house that I didn’t care whether I played or not. Sure, I’d a liked to have hit one out of the park and won the game for the Dodgers but that was not to be. We took an early 2-0 lead in the second inning of the opener when Furillo homered and Jackie hit a triple but the Yankees came right back at us. Snider homered in the third giving us the lead again until the Yankees took a 4-3 lead in the forth and never looked back. They beat us 6 to 5 but … but let me tell you about the most exciting play of the game and maybe in all of baseball. I can still see it like it was last week.”

“You’re going to tell me about Jackie stealing home in the eighth inning aren’t you.”

“Kid, you sure know your baseball. No one before or since could make that sprint from third to home like Jackie could. Anyway, it’s the top to the eighth, we’re down 3 to 6, we’ve got one out with Furillo on third and Jackie on second. Furillo tags up and scores on Zimmer’s long fly to center field and Jackie easily moves to third. Whitey Ford, the Yankee southpaw ace and starter is still in there. Whitey winds up with his back to third base and releases the low inside fastball that Yogi Berra had just called as Jackie races towards home. Berra, knowing Jackie is coming, moves a step toward the plate to meet Jackie just as Jackie begins his slide. There’s a big cloud of dust and total silence for what seemed like minutes … finally the umpire raises his arms wide indicating safe. The crowd goes bonkers; Jackie had just stolen home against two Yankee hall-of-famers in front of 56,000 of their most loyal fans. That was our Jackie.”

“Wow, and you were there.”

“Just a couple of feet away; the visitors’ dugout is on the third base side and I was standing at the rail; I could actually feel the wind on my face as Jackie ran by.”

“Yogi insists to this day that Jackie was out.”

“Yeah, but he was safe and the call still stands. It must be the most watched and re-watched play in baseball.”

“You guys lost the first two didn’t you?”

“Yeah we lost the first two in New York and then won the next three back in Brooklyn but the Yankee tied the series in game six at Yankee Stadium by beating us 5 to 1. We were all fired up for the seventh and final game at Yankee Stadium even though we haven’t won a game there in this series. The house that Ruth built was rockin’ with 62,465 fired-up fans for game seven, many having made the trek over from Brooklyn.”

“A seventh game in a World Series; it doesn’t get any better than that.”

“You’re right but they’re especially great when you win. Okay, here’s the scene, we’re ahead 2 to 0 and as we we’re taking the field in the bottom of the ninth Alston looked at me and yells, ‘Rockwell in for Hodges.’ It was totally unexpected and I ran half way to first base before I realized I had left my mitt in the dugout. I ran back, got my mitt and assumed my position as the Dodger first baseman in game seven of the World Series. Their lead-off guy, Skowron grounded out and I fielded my first big-league ball. Cerv was up next and flew out. I didn’t want this inning to end … one more out and I was Bob Rockwell, the St. Paul construction worker again. Rookie Howard, the first Negro to play for the Yankees was up next. Johnny Podres, our ace threw a change up and Howard hit a line drive to our shortstop, Pee Wee Reese. Pee Wee fielded it easily and fired it over to me. I leaned to my left, stretched and caught the final out of game seven of the 1955 World Series.”

Authors note: Everything in my story is true and taken as recorded from numerous publications including The Boys of Summer by Roger Kahn, Brooklyn Remembered, The 1955 Days of the Dodgers by Maury Allen and Great Time Coming, The life of Jackie Robinson by David Falkner except I where I imposed myself into the story. My apologies to the historians and the decedents and many fans of the late, great Gil Hodges, I faked Gil’s injury so that I could take his place in the lineup for that final half inning of game 7 of the 1955 World Series.

Bob Rockwell