Things

Three things happened to me over the summer between my fifth and sixth grade years. It is funny how three minor events could blend together to change my life in ways I would never expect. Coming into that summer I hadn’t been successful about much of anything except swimming. I was pretty much considered to be a momma’s boy that no one took seriously. It was clear I wasn’t very smart and was mostly a follower. That was all to change.

Fankhauser’s Dairy was having a great baseball season. We were pretty much riding on the pitching of Bill Griest. He was “packin’ lightning” as they used to say. Dad said Bill came from a long line of great pitchers. Dad had stories of when Bill’s uncle played for the team in Trenton. I was a mediocre second baseman and I seldom got a hit in games. That summer we won our division and were in a play off with the other division winning team. All of my friends said we would get clobbered.

The game stayed tight down to the last inning. At that point we were tied 8 to 8. We held the other team to one run in the top of the inning. We managed to load the bases and the batter before me drove in one run to tie the game again. The man running to second was our second out of the inning. So with two outs and a runner on first and third I stepped up to the plate not realizing the magnitude of what was about to happen. The coach said, “walk!” A big hitter followed me in the batting order.

The first pitch was ball and I let it go by. The second was a strike and I swung. Nothing but air. I stood for the third pitch and the umpire said strike two. Desperately not wanting to strike out and lose the game and the championship for my team I swung at the fourth pitch. My Dad said it was a hard drive right between first and second base. I didn’t see it, of course, cause I was running to first.

I was mobbed at first base. It was pandemonium! The team was screaming and jumping all over me! The fans were yelling and there were people all over the field. I asked someone what happened and above the din I heard him say we had won the game. I was a hero for driving in the winning run.

We went on to play the All Star team and again my friends were sure we would get beat. Although, I didn’t do anything of note in that game we clobbered the All Stars and I played with a new confidence. That was the first.

In May of that year the second thing happened. I had seen the advertisements in comic books for bodybuilding and told my Dad I wanted some weights for weigh lifting. We had no money for that but he suggested I make my own. He helped me with the first part. We filled a large coffee can with cement and propped a pipe upright in the center. After it hardened in that can I filled a second can and stuck the other end of the pipe in the wet concrete. When it hardened I had my barbell.

I don’t know how heavy it was but would guess it to be between twenty and thirty pounds. I lifted that bar bell almost every day that summer. I didn’t know anything about what I was doing but would usually lift until I couldn’t do it anymore and then do it again in a little while. I got so I could lift that bar bell over my head 50 or 60 times without stopping. So between swimming and the weigh lifting I got plenty of exercise that summer.

In August the boys from my class got together one Saturday morning. We were walking around filling in each other on all we had done that summer. Of the group, only a couple knew about my baseball success. So when I told about it some thought I was just bragging. They hadn’t yet figured out I was the new confident Perry. We wandered up towards town and ended up in Danny Welcher’s back yard. His house was in the alley behind what is now Home Furniture. There in the back yard was Danny’s brother’s weight set. It included a bench and all of the weights for a perfect set up.

There were all kinds of badgering about who was strong and who wasn’t. Danny loaded the bar with a twenty-pound weight on each end. The bar, itself, weighed about 20 pounds so the total was probably around 60 pounds. Each person took a turn at lifting the bar doing a bench press. Everyone expected Danny to do it but he screamed and had us lift it off his chest. No one could budge it. I was last to try and everyone scoffed believing if they couldn’t do it I never could. We were all surprised when I lifted it off my chest with ease once, twice, and then three times. I set the bar on the rack and got up. That was the third thing!

None of this really changed anyone else but it changed me. Confidence can be a good thing and sometimes a not so good thing. I’ll tell you more about that another time.