[Continuing
my series of Christmas stories that I wrote as sermons for Christmas Eve
worship services… Since I intended to pull them into a book called The Years
of Christmas, the date for each was part of the title. Beware, this one is
long—4000 words instead of my usual 500 for this column.]
A HOOSIER CHRISTMAS--1954
John Robert McFarland
It was three on two. I was almost
good enough to be on the short side of an odd-man game, but not quite. It was
David and John and me against Philip and Kenny. We were beating them and
crowing about it.
"Aw, man...," they whined.
"This doesn't mean nothin'. It's only 'cause you've got three guys. Two on
two, we'd take you any day."
They had a lot of pride at stake. They
were twelve; John and I were just eleven, and David was only nine.
It would never have occurred to us
to leave one "man" out for a game so the sides were even. When you
played, you played with what you had--the kids, the weather, the court. Those
were just the variables; no one really cared about them. The game was the
thing. All you really needed was the ball.
We played in snow storms with
mittens on, in rain so hard we couldn't see the basket, in heat so intense we
couldn't grip the ball because of the sweat running down our arms. We played in
rutted hog lots, in garages so narrow that every shot was from the corner,
against barn sides that threatened a concussion every time you dared to drive
to the basket. We played with fathers, cousins, uncles, friends, strangers. We
played wearing stocking caps in winter, straw sombreros in summer, clodhopper
high-tops or pointed-toe "street" shoes or four-buckle galoshes or
P.F. Flyers. We played "horse" and "pig" and odds-and-evens
and shirts-and-skins. We played when the only others out were "mad dogs
and Englishmen," when the moon was high enough we could see the rim and
when it was so low we could judge if a ball were in or out only by the sound.
We played basketball. We were Hoosiers.
"Ha!" David grunted. "You
couldn't take us with a ten-foot pole and the Fort Wayne Zollner Pistons to
boot."
"When I get a ball to practice
with, then you'll wish you were in the morgue," I predicted.
I had two obsessions that year--the
morgue, which figured prominently in the radio mystery shows we listened to on
Sunday afternoons, and getting my own basketball.
I started a drive for the basket that ended
with the first bounce as the ball hit caromed wildly away. Kenny's barnyard was
never smooth enough to return a dribbled ball anywhere near the player who
tried it, and the early December freeze had hardened every rut and hoof-print
into concrete.
"Big talk," yelled Philip,
grabbing my boot-ball and heaving it in the general direction of the bank-board.
"You could practice all day and not hit the side of a barn with a
twelve-gauge shotgun."
"Yeah, you could practice all
day and still not be able to catch a cold."
We played basketball with our feet
and with our legs and with our hands, but especially with our mouths.
*********
I walked the two miles home from
Kenny's house. The dark was gathering earlier every night as we headed toward the
shortest day of the year. Normally the darkness hid a whole rag-tag army of
fears and dreads. They were accompanied by a sound-track of wind in dead
sassafras leaves and echoes of my own steps on the hard-frozen gravel. Tonight,
though, I wasn't even thinking about the anxieties that normally dogged my
steps in the dark. I felt good.
I had been on the winning side,
even if it had been three on two. Better yet, Christmas was coming, and I knew
I was going to get a basketball. Having your own basketball defeats a whole
host of fears.
*********
We didn't play basketball during
recess at school. Only the older boys got to do that. There were just two
baskets, and unless you were in the seventh grade you were never chosen for the
ten-on-ten melees that churned over the broken blacktop like a cat-and-dog
fight in the funny papers. We younger boys pitched washers and commented on how
poorly the chosen twenty played.
"Shit fire," exclaimed Kenny.
"If I couldn't shoot any better than that, I'd quit school and move to
Kentucky."
"Those guys don't know whether
to shoot or get off the pot," smirked Philip.
"They never even heard of
defense," muttered John.
"If I had my own ball, they'd
wish they were in the morgue," said I.
Of course, none of these comments
were stated loudly enough that they could be heard either by Mrs. Mason, as she
made her rounds of the playground, or by the seventh grade boys as they
profaned the art and drama of basketball.
Since sixth graders and lesser life
forms could not play at school, and since I did not have my own ball, I could
participate in the magic only by going to the home of one of my friends when I
knew they were getting a game up. That was not easily done. We lived in the
country and did not have a car. Sometimes, if my father did not need the horse
for farm work, I could borrow a saddle from Mr. Heathman, our closest neighbor,
and ride "Old Prince" to where the action was. Old Prince, however,
was almost always hitched to a wagon or rake or cultivator or plow. So, I
walked--a mile or two or three.
********
Being the newest kid on Jimmy Bigham's bus
route, I got the seat over the hole in the floor, which corresponded with the
window that was stuck in the half-open position in the winter and the
half-closed position in the spring and fall. It was a great air-conditioning
system, except that in hot weather the air was laden with dust, and in the
winter it circulated a chill breeze that was often laced with slush. From that
strange vantage point I watched them, the boys and their basketballs. It seemed
that every boy in the county had a basketball of his own. That is, every boy in
the county but me. They would be shooting baskets when the bus pulled up in the
morning. Some of them even had backboards that existed for the sole purpose of
basketball, rather than doubling as the side of a barn. That was impressive! When
Jimmy gave his impatient two hoots on the horn, they knew they had been seen
and could now casually toss the ball aside, letting it lie there and wait until
the bus returned them in the evening. Then I would look back and watch them as
they scored two or six or even ten points against some imaginary foe before the
bus had even pulled out of sight.
"If I had a ball of my own,
you'd wish you were in the morgue," I would grumble at them, but to
myself.
How could they be so cavalier about
those balls, I wondered, just leaving them outside all day like that? Probably even left them out all night, to be
sure there would be no hold-up in the morning when it came time to shoot again.
Certainly wouldn't want to be caught with no ball to shoot when the school bus
was coming. If I had a ball of my own, I'd take care of it, and I certainly
wouldn't show off with it, not me! I'd practice and practice, in secret, and
then suddenly I would appear on the scene, shooting shots that no one had ever
seen before, becoming a star before they even knew I had a ball. Ah, but first
I had to get my hands on one of those "marvelous, magical spheroids"
for myself.
We actually talked like that, even
when we played.
********
"Toss me the spheroid,"
Philip would yell.
"If you want the golden globe,
learn to rebound," came Kenny's retort.
"Intercept that
projectile," John would instruct me.
"If I had a rounded ellipsoid
of my own, you'd wish you were in the morgue," I said.
We had little idea what those words
meant, except for "globe," but we learned them because we were avid
readers of "The Great Scism," [Dan Scism] who wrote the sports column
to which we were addicted. [We had learned about The Great Scism of 1054 in
history class, so naturally…] For some reason, the sports writers in our time
and place felt it was a loss of face to refer to "the old pig
bladder," as a ball. They would try anything to avoid calling the
"mystical balloon" by its given name. Reading them gave us a
well-rounded education. We learned history, mythology, folklore, music,
astronomy, science, Bible--all from the pages of the sports section. Furthermore,
we thought those were the words that normal people used about basketball, so we
spoke them as we played, dribbling the "majestic moon" through hog
manure, shooting the "amazing atom" at the side of a barn. Needless
to say, we also learned the allure of alliteration.
My entire vocabulary was shaped by
the ethos of basketball. I recall listening to Paul Burns, the local postmaster
and a lay minister, preach one Sunday morning in the Forsythe Methodist Church.
"Lord, have mercy on me, a sinner," was his text. I heard it as
"Lord, have mercy on me, a center." I listened carefully to the
sermon but could not figure out why centers were more in need of mercy than
guards and forwards. This was especially disturbing since I was growing fast
and assumed I would be a center.
To me, they were all wonderful
words, because they all meant basketball. I ran them over in my head in the
hard cold of that dark December evening, savoring them as I walked home, for I
knew, as sure as I could be, that I was going to get a basketball from Uncle
Ted and Aunt Nora for Christmas.
********
They knew what I wanted. It was no
secret. They had asked, and I had told them. They had no children of their own
and were marvelous about giving their nieces and nephews what we asked for. Besides
that, they owned a general store, which meant that whatever we wanted was
probably in stock. The only possible glitch was that I had reached the age of
"practical gifts," underwear and flannel shirts and blue jeans and
four-buckle galoshes. Those they had in great supply in the long, glass-fronted
cases in the dry goods section of the store. Not being parents, however, they
were likely to give a practical gift or two to appease our parents and then go
ahead and give us what we asked for as well. They were the relatives of every
child's dream. My brother and sisters and cousins and I were blessed not only
with Uncle Ted and Aunt Nora, but with dozens--literally--of grandparents and
aunts and uncles whose generosity was just like theirs.
Uncle Ted and Aunt Nora, however,
were the ones I was counting on for the basketball.
Most of the relatives sent their
gifts or brought them by in the days before Christmas. They were piled under
the Christmas tree, awaiting the grand opening on Christmas morning. Uncle Ted
and Aunt Nora lived only a few miles away, however, so they liked to bring
their gifts by in person, to share in the excitement as we ripped open the
packages while our mother tried to get us to slit the paper neatly so it could
be folded and stored and used again next year. Ours was not their only stop, so
we were never sure exactly when they would come.
So it was early afternoon on that
particular Christmas day before they arrived. I was already dressed in a
practical gift or two and just hanging around in the front yard, in the
uncommonly warm winter sun, waiting for them. I could hear their blue Ford, the
one with the trunk big enough to hold gifts for all the basketball players in
Gibson County, before I could see it. When it topped the rise in the road, it
was all I could do to keep from jumping up and down. They pulled into the
driveway, and as they got out of the car, they were right in line with the new
iron rim my father had made and mounted on the side of our barn. It was a
perfect picture for Christmas day.
By the time they got the trunk open,
the rest of the family was there, and we all helped carry in the wondrous array
of happy packages. Mother was sure they must be tired by now and should have
some coffee and Christmas treats before anything else, but Uncle Ted and Aunt
Nora knew that they were not there to drink coffee, at least not yet. They
started handing out packages, and we children opened them as fast as we got
them. Although Uncle Ted had been a high school basketball star himself, in the
days when he was the high point man in games that ended in scores of six to
four, they had no idea how much having my own basketball meant to me. Consequently
there was no special drama as they presented that particular square box to me;
it was just one in a line of presents they were handing out.
I suppose that was what saved me. They
were still handing out gifts, and everyone else was opening gifts, each person
concentrating on his or her task.
I ripped the paper from the box and
saw the picture and the word, in bold black letters on an orange background. No
mistaking what this was! It did not say "stupendous spheroid," but
that was all right. It said basketball; that was good enough. I gently lifted
up the hinged lid of the box and looked down at what lay in a bed of thin
tissue papers. My wish had come true. I had a basketball.
It was not, however, the basketball
I had pictured. All the boys I knew had vulcanized rubber basketballs with
pebble grains and deep, black lines between the sections. They were a bright
reddish-brown in color. They were easy to grip. They bounced high and true, at
least on a smooth surface. But the ball in the box before me was an
old-fashioned basketball, with a big, black bladder, and an inch-long inflating
stem sticking out, and thin, light tan sections sewn together with white
thread, so that some of the sections were depressed and some were upraised; it
looked like a crazy-quilt. It was a basketball for little kids, or old men,
maybe.
I hoped my face did not betray my
disappointment. I don't think anyone noticed. There were still more presents to
open. I set the ball aside and opened up packages of underwear and socks. I was
happy to see them. They gave me something to do while I tried to make sense out
of what had happened. I had received the gift that I wanted more than anything
in the world, but it was not what I wanted. What was I going to do now?
Each of us got to hold up our gifts
and thank Uncle Ted and Aunt Nora for them. I was truly thankful. They were
good people, as good as any I would ever know, and they had done me the honor
of listening to my desire and doing their best to fulfill it. They had probably
been tremendously pleased that they had something on their shelves that I
wanted, probably felt that it had been waiting there for a long time just for
me, and they were glad to give it. I was glad to have it, too, because it was a
symbol of their love and a symbol of belonging to this big, generous family
that made me feel at home in a world that often tried to make poor kids feel
out of place. But it wasn't the "magical moon" of the sports columns.
"Well, if you'll excuse me, I'd
like to go outside to play with my new basketball," I said.
Everyone smiled. On snowy Christmas
days, kids were supposed to go outside to play with new sleds. On sunny
Christmas days, they were supposed to go outside to play with new basketballs. I
needed to do the proper thing for the day. I hoped no one could notice my lack
of enthusiasm.
I went to the barnyard. I threw the
ball up toward the rim. The light breeze caught it and veered it off toward the
chicken house. I ran after it, picked it up, and started to dribble back toward
the barn. On the first bounce the ball hit with the long inflating valve down
and bounced crazily away toward the coal shed. I tried again, being sure the
valve was up. The ball hit the ground flush and bounced back up about six
inches. I couldn't shoot it and I couldn't dribble it.
"If I had a real ball," I
said to it, squeezing it as hard as I could, "you'd be in the
morgue."
********
On January 2 we went back to school.
On the school bus John and Kenny and Philip and David asked me where I'd been
during Christmas vacation, why I hadn't come around with my new ball so we
could all play together. I told them I had been too busy to play basketball,
farm work and all that.
"Ha," said Philip. "I'll
bet he's practicing by himself so he'll get good and put us all in the
morgue!"
They all laughed. Right then I would
have loved to see them in the morgue; it could have saved me a lot of embarrassment.
I smiled weakly, trying to indicate that he was right. Better to lie to my
friends, I thought, than to try to explain about the basketball that was not a
basketball. It would have been disloyal to my family to disparage the gift I
had received, but I could not bring myself to let anyone else see that
"gruesome globe."
Nonetheless, it was all I had, so
after school, when the bus had disappeared over the hill where dead sassafras
leaves shook listlessly in the winter wind, I would take the ball out of its
box, carefully kept out of sight beneath my bed, and I would go out to the
barnyard and heave it toward the rim on the barn.
I never learned to drive to the
basket, because I could never dribble with that ball. I could not shoot a
normal push shot from outside, because the ball was so light that the wind
would carry it away. (Only an occasional "freak" from New York shot
the new-fangled "jump" shot. "The Great Scism" and other
sports writers assured one and all that it would never have a place in the game
because a shooter had to have at least one foot on the floor to be able to
control the flight of the ball.) Instead I developed a two-handed
"set" shot that was pulled back behind my head and then hurled on a
line directly at the backboard just above the rim, as hard as I could throw it.
The force of the throw and the low trajectory combined to defeat the wind. I
couldn't even lay it in, because the barn side was too rough for the light
ball, and it would carom off in any odd direction.
Other than my "throw"
shot, about all I could do with that ball was stand with my back to the basket
and twirl for a one step "curl" shot or twist around for a hook shot.
I learned to vary the arc on the hook according to the wind. When the wind was
strong I shot a line drive that barely cleared the rim. When the wind was gentle,
I faded away and arched the ball high. I learned to shoot those shots with
either hand. It wasn't really that difficult; the ball was light enough and
small enough that I could grip it easily.
I never had another ball of my own, until
I was seventy years old, and I never let anyone else see that Christmas
basketball. I continued to walk to the homes of my friends for games. When I
reached seventh grade, I got to use the balls on the playground and in the gym.
I was never the great player I dreamed of becoming. My skills were too limited.
More importantly, my confidence was limited. When I was a teen-ager, however,
and later in college, there were games when I dazzled the opposition with an
array of hook shots and an indefensible overhead throw shot.
"Where in the world did you
learn to shoot like that?" people asked me. I never said.
Twenty-six years later I was doing
graduate work at the University of Iowa. It was the last day before Christmas
break and I was in the field house "shooting around" with a friend. We
weren't working hard at it; after all, we were approaching forty years of age. Only
a few others were working out. Most students were getting ready to go home for
the break. A few players from the university basketball team were there,
however, out on the main floor, scrimmaging on their own.
"Hey," they yelled at Fred
and me. "We need two more guys. Come on over."
"Good grief," I muttered
to Fred. "That's suicide. Look at the size of those guys! We'd better just
stay right here."
"Aw, come on," he said. "How
often do we get to play on the big floor?"
One thing about basketball players:
they never lose the lust for the big floor. We went.
I was assigned to play opposite a
young man I had only seen on television before. He was a product of inner-city playgrounds,
so fast he could "turn out the light and be in bed before it was
dark." He stood six inches above my six feet and one. He had the widest,
happiest grin I think I have ever seen, and it got even wider as he looked at
me.
I was "shirts" and he was
"skins," which made him even more intimidating. Muscles rippled on
him like waves on a tawny sand beach.
The shirts had the ball out first. Instinctively
I set up just to the right of the basket. Some foolhardy guard threaded a
needle pass between somebody's legs and it hit me in the hands. My only thought
was to get rid of that "specious spheroid" as quickly as possible. I
twisted right and hooked. Swish! Everybody stood around for a moment; it had
happened so fast, and it was so unexpected...
Then the skins had the ball and my
man drove for the basket. I lunged, thinking I might at least be able to tackle
him. He was too fast; I couldn't even get the back of his pants as he went by.
Our turn. I set up again. This time
I hooked left. He was caught defending on the wrong side. Swish!
Everything I shot went in. No shot was like
the one before it. I couldn't stop him, but he couldn't stop me. Back and forth
we ran. I went outside and hurled my overhead shot. I went inside and hooked
with either hand from either side. He drove around me or shot his jump shot
over me. The other players set picks for us and fed us the ball. It was
one-on-one with a supporting cast.
"Give me that rotund orb,"
I shouted at my fellow shirts.
"Man, you talk weird,"
came the voice from over my shoulder. I
could not see him, but I knew he was grinning.
"Look out when I get that
bulbous roundel," I exulted, "or you'll wish you were in the
morgue."
I could feel it! This time I didn't
even bother to look at the basket. I just flipped it over my head. Swish!
"Man, you are too old for
this," he teased. "You gonna be in the morgue from a heart attack.
You from a different century!"
"You should be ashamed, letting
an old guy score on you," I shot back. "I don't even have a
scholarship."
"Can't give scholarships to
guys over a hundred," he informed me.
I was pleased to see that the game
was still played with the mouth.
At fifty to fifty the game was
called. It was time for Christmas break. We staggered to the drinking fountain.
He held the pedal down while I put
my head under the stream and drank. Then I held it down for him. He drank as I
gasped. Finally, we just stood there, on either side of the fountain, heads
down, fists grasping the legs of our shorts, searching for oxygen.
By the time I thought I might live
through it after all, he looked up and grinned and said, "Man, you're the
baddest dude I ever saw. Where'd you learn those moves, anyway?"
"Indiana," I gasped.
"I should have known it! You
played at IU!"
He said it as though it were an
accusation of unfair competition, as though I had pulled a fast one.
"No," I said, my heart
rate slowing down to about 300. "Not on the IU team. That's just how I
learned when I was a kid."
"Man, you must have been some
bad kid."
"You ever get a basketball for
Christmas?" I asked him.
"Sure," he replied. "Played
with it all the time."
"Must have been the wrong
kind," I said. "You gotta have a really bad ball to learn to play
where I come from."
"Yeah," he grinned.
"A bad ball. I gotta get me one of those."
"Do that," I told him, “or
you'll wish you were in the morgue."
Then we went home for Christmas.
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