Don’t Know Dew Ya

It's such a beautiful summer morning here on the back deck, my faithful black lab Suzy laying in the shade by my feet … always optimistic that I will get up and play.

But I don't – the coffee is just so good.

You can't forget beautiful days like this – temperature in the mid-seventies with a thread of coolness in the air.

And the smell of lilac wafting over the patio from the garden.

It makes you think back to beautiful summer days in the past.

I was nineteen in the late spring of 1981. I was a soccer play for the university, taking classes in a small Georgian village of Milledgeville. As rural a southern town as there was in the day. The buildings were all colonial style – likely there since the burning of Atlanta in the American Civil War.

I was fortunate at that time to be dating a very pretty girl who was a gymnast – and for a few months we kept company together. She was very southern, and I loved to listen to her special lilt in her drawl.

On one such beautiful summer's day Saturday morning, we went for a walk into town to find the local sporting goods store.

I forget now what it is that we were in need of, but it seemed pretty important at the time.

We thought we knew where the sporting goods store was. But as we walked up and down the main street, it became obvious we didn't have a clue where this place was.

A little boy came riding his bike down the street. I would say he was probably seven or eight years old. The bike was a rusted copper color – with a big banana seat and the handle bars and front wheel gave it that "chopper" look.

He was making motorcycle sounds with his mouth and making tire squealing sounds when he turned.

He was having a ball – all by his lonesome.

He noticed us, and as all little boys do when they see a pretty girl, he tried to pop a wheelie - to show off. But he lifted the front wheel too high, and his bike slipped right out from under him.

He landed on his butt. The bike rolled a good twenty feet further on its back wheel – hit the side brick of a storefront, and fell over on its side.

My girlfriend ran up to him, concerned as pretty girls are when little boys fall down. But the little boy would have none of it, and got to his feet and ran to his bike.

After we determined the little boy was alright, I asked him, "do you know where the sporting goods store is?"

No reply. The boy just looked at me.

My girlfriend bent down into that squatting position that pretty girls use when talking to little boys and asked in her sweetest southern drawl:

"Do you know where the sportin' good store is sweetheart", in that sing-song southern belle cadence - smiling at the little boy with her eyes.

The little boy simply looked at her – and then at me – and he said to me:

"don't know, dew ya!".

I shook my head and tried my hardest not to laugh.

The little boy had picked up his bike and straddled it to ride off.

I reached in my pocket and pulled out a dollar bill I had received as change for breakfast.

"What if I gave you a dollar, would you show us where the sporting good store is then?"

The little boy jammed his hand far down into his pocket of his very dirty blue jeans and pulled out his own dollar and held it up high for us both to see.

"I already gots one!" and he smiled at my pretty girlfriend and rode away.

I don't remember if we found that store that day or not. But that doesn't matter.

And the very pretty girl was not my girlfriend for long, as in University you know, you keep company with many people.

And I no longer live in Georgia, of course.

But thirty years later I still remember that little boy, his very country southern drawl, how much fun he was having and how embarrassed he was once his butt hit the cement. And his cute but indignant attitude he displayed afterwards.

I can still hear those two phrases quite clearly in my head.

"Don't know, dew ya!" and "I already gots one!" – as spoken in the country drawl of a little boy.

I wonder what ever happened to that little boy. Did he spend the dollar? What did he get? How many times later in that day did he crash that bike again.

What story did he tell his Ma and Pa when he got home? About the pretty girl who smiled at him, and the big ugly guy she was with?

Or were we completely forgotten once he rode away.

I loved most of the parts about living in the rural areas of Georgia. But as a University student, I didn't really appreciate it while it was there. I have used Google maps to go back and look at the main street of Milledgeville – but it, nor the campus of the University look anything as old and southern as it did back in 1981.

Is 1981 really so long ago?

I can still juggle a soccer ball on my feet – up to my knees – and catch it on the back of my neck. My little girls think it's so great. And they think I must have been the greatest soccer player in the world.

I don't exactly dissuade them from such a wonderful misconception either.

And every time somebody asks me – to this day – if I know where something or some place is – I look at them and smile and I say …

"Don't know, dew ya!"

Thank You Bill Huseby

I came home from work Thursday, and like most summer evenings, I grabbed my laptop and my radio and settled down to checking out the baseball stats for the evening. And while I do so, I flipped on the radio to listen to my favorite Detroit sports talk host and columnist – Pat Caputo.

Caputo – or "The Book" as he is better known inspired me to start this blog. I read his daily and comment on it almost every time he puts a new post up. And I think we have kind of become buds of sorts. I do know I would love to have a beer with the guy if the opportunity ever presented itself. A link to Pat's blog is on the left column as "Open Book".

Thursday, Brandon Inge – third basemen for my beloved Tigers – was voted on to the roster of the 2009 All Star team. He was voted in by "the final vote" – screwy system where fans can vote online as many times as they want for the player they want to get in. I had spent the last four evenings at home – tied to the laptop – plugging in votes for Inge. I must have voted a kajillion times.

I figure Inge owes me big time.

So I was happy for Inge. He is one of my favorite players – if not my favorite player – on the Tigers.

And I am not alone. Even though Inge career average is .238, he is a spectacular third baseman. But This year – Inge is hitting in the .280s.

Now this drives The Book nuts. He sees Inge as a mediocre player that fans like me put on a pedestal for no reason. Last year, when the Tigers pitching was so awful, he sarcastically said "hey .. maybe Inge can pitch, and son-of-gun his phone lines lit up with callers thinking the Third basemen who was then catching – could also pitch.

So on this great evening, The Book had started his show congratulating Inge – but before he took a breath he went on to say that by the end of the season, Inges average would be down to .242. I took exception to the back handed compliment and typed a text message in and sent it to the show – basically saying that it wasn't right to degrade a Tiger on the night he gets voted to the all star team.

Then, as I sat to listen to the radio to see if The Book would respond to my text – I checked my email.

That's when I read the email from Robb Irby – Bill Huseby had passed away after a battle with cancer.

Bill had lived two doors over from us when I was a kid living in Lawrenceville, Georgia. His name is kind of sprinkled through various posts on Head Stuffing when I remember my teen age years living on Plantation Court.

In my book, Bill was one of the coolest guys I ever knew. Sorry to use the word cool, but it meant something when I was a kid. And I valued Bill's opinion very much.

I jumped over to Facebook on my laptop – to see what my old Berkmar high school friends from the Class of 1980 were saying. Bruce Thompson had a post stating that we should appreciate our time while we were here, and Tommy Wester posted another tribute to Bill, announcing his passing and honoring him. And the list of classmates adding to the tribute were growing.

I wanted to post something to, but I had only known Bill for the five years we lived in Georgia. The last time I saw anybody there was 1980.

Then I heard the Book on the radio behind me

".. and I have a text message from Fred Brill in Windsor … "he started .. The Books temper starting to flare .. and he read my text in a sarcastically loud way ..

But I was thinking about Bill.

"Fred … Fred! C'mon now Fred ….", finished The Book, and he went to commercial. My favorite sports writer had just yelled at me so the whole town of Detroit could hear. But I didn't care. "Bill wouldn't have cared", I thought. "Bill would have thought it was funny", and I started to laugh to myself as I pictured the Bill I remembered from my youth.

So I started to write my comment into Tommy's tribute for Bill. I don't remember what I wrote – but I remember it was from the heart. I remember stating that Bill and the rest of the guys from the neighborhood were a part of me and were a big part of who I am today.

They are.

And then I sat back and remembered Bill.

I remembered playing football in Bill's back yard shortly after moving to Georgia from Minnesota and trying to fit in. And Bill and the guys welcomed me easily. And how much I appreciated that.

Bill was a leader in that group. And some of the Leadership traits that I have today I adopted from Bill, like how to diffuse a bad situation with humor. And how not to be scared of anybody – even another kids Mom or Dad.

Bill stood up for himself.

I remembered Bill on his Yamaha motorcycle – riding through the woods across the street. Popping wheelies – making jumps – and making it all look easy. And I remembered seeing a picture on Classmates.com Bill had posted of him and his son riding – Bill in what looked like the same riding suit – and you knew it was Bill because it was that same posture – the same silhouette of the guy. That was Bill alright.

I remembered playing pick up basketball in the Livesay's driveway. Bill was the first of us to get a summer and after school job at a car dealership on Peachtree Boulevard.

The other guys in that group were Robby Irby, Mike and Ronnie Lafever, Ken and Chris Stillwell, and John Bartles. The girls in the neighborhood were very pretty – very nice,and just as important and close in our group. Girls like Donna and Debbie Rice, Debbie Smith, Tracy Tomblin, Amy Livesay and Shelly Guyton.

I remembered one day my Dad took a whole bunch of us to a ball diamond he found buried way back in isolated spot – and he got us playing ball. Each of these guys played little league – and some on the high school team. My Dad could always find something to teach a kid about baseball – but when Bill went to the plate – Dad just sat and watched – Bill didn't need any help. He had it right,

When I left to go to University, I fell into another real good bunch of guys. And I fit in really well with those guys. But only because Bill and the guys from Plantation Woods taught me how to be a guy.

Later on that night I sent a twitter message to the Book – in an attempt to make peace with him – about a quote from the movie Bull Durham about the difference between hitting .250 and .300. I thought it an appropriate and humorous attempt to explain Inge's batting average:

"You know what the difference is between hitting .250 and hitting .300? I got it figured out."

"Twenty-five hits a year in 500 at bats is 50 points. Okay? There's six months in a season, that's about twenty five weeks--you get one extra flare a week--just one--a gork, a ground ball with eyes, a dying quail-- just one more dying quail a week and you're in Yankee Stadium!"

The Book tweeted me back to let me know he read my text on the air – and that he agreed the quote was appropriate. I knew it was ok because he used "LMBFAO" in the tweet.

And maybe it's appropriate in life too.

Because being friends with Bill Huseby and the guys from Plantation Woods was a lucky break for me – a break that changed me.

My groundball with eyes.

Twenty nine years later – I still remember that break. And I still appreciate Bill's and the rest of the guys generosity to let me be one of them – even if only for five years.

Rest in peace Bill. And thank you.

Now Yer Messin With A …

Amazing how music finds memories in the very back recesses of your brain.

It happened to me just today.

I left the office today and marched across the parking lot to my little Sebring. It was a beautiful afternoon of full sun, so I rolled down all the windows and opened the moon roof all the way for that convertible effect.

Detroit has a great radio station, 94.7 that plays classic rock just like the play list that my favorite station in Atlanta, 96 Rock, used to play when I was a teenager in Lawrenceville, Georgia.

It was one of the best things about moving to Windsor from London. A 94.7 made me feel like a kid back in Atlanta again. To me, it's a great radio station.

As I pulled on to the expressway, an old song came on that brought back memories like only music can do.

Even songs you don't like, but still remember, will bring back great memories.

This was an old song by a band called Nazareth. In all it's crudity. The song is called "Sum ub ah Bich" (or something that might sound like that anyway…).

So at the now graying age of forty six, I turned it up real loud, put on my sunglasses and reclined the seat of the car back a bit.

"Now yer messin' with a … son of a …"

And my mind went back to when my family first moved to Georgia in 1975.

At that time we were living in Apple Valley Minnesota. South of Saint Paul – Minneapolis – just outside another small town called Rosemount.

Minnesota was – at least to me as a boy of twelve or thirteen – a very sterile and clean environment. Everyplace was well groomed. Gardens and the greenest of grass. And the people in Minnesota were very … well .. I guess "proper" is the best term that comes to mind. Boring – but sterile and proper.

My Dad received notice in the summer of 1974 that he could choose the transfer of his choice to become a regional manager for 3M company's business products division. The choices were San Diego California, and Atlanta Georgia.

Dad chose Atlanta.

Mom and Dad took a trip together to go look for our new house. And they found one in a little town I have written here about before, Lawrenceville. It was a nice subdivision, with a community co-op style club around the corner called Plantation Swim and Racket Club – or PSRC for short.

When we arrived, the culture shock was immense.

We were Canadians living in the United States as green-card-carrying landed immigrants. And in Michigan, where we lived when I was a little boy in elementary school, and then Minnesota, where we lived when I was in middle school (grades seven and eight), we fit right in. Minnesotans could easily be confused for Canadians – at least I think so.

But Georgia – well that's a whole different bowl of peach cobbler. A completely new slice of pecan pie.

The food was different. The attitudes were different. The rules were a lot more relaxed. And well, the pattern of speech was different.

I remember sitting in my very first class in the eighth grade – a trailer – a busted down trailer – with graffiti on the desks and walls – dirty and smelly – waiting amongst this strange trailer full of southern kids – all talking like a completely different language. It was English – but damned if I knew what they were saying.

"That thar's the new kid, I dun wonder where he come from?" said a pretty little girl a couple of seats ahead of me.

"Don't know, but he's kind-a funny lookin."

I guess I was pretty funny looking to them. I had a short haircut my Mom would approve of, I was short, and pudgy. I was also very pale in comparison to southerners. I was just new from Minnesota – and Minnesota wasn't really a sun tanning paradise.

"Hey kid, where y'all from?"

"I'm sorry, what did you say?" I replied.

I thought I had landed in Mayberry. I thought "all these kids couldn't really talk this way, could they?"

In came the teacher. Mrs Blylock.

"Thank God", I thought. "She'll tell these kids to stop faking their Gomer Pyle accents."

"Mornin' y'all", said Mrs. Blylock. "How was y'alls summer?"

"Oh my God", I thought, "This is real. Holy cow these people really are serious".

Every single syllable word was spread out to become two or three syllables. The pitch of their voices went up and down in a sing song manner as they practically sang their words. I wish I could write music to express it to you more effectively.

But as time went on, I adapted.

I learned that y'all meant you. And all y'all meant everyone present. I learned that yonder meant someplace over there – or thar . And dun (done) didn't mean something you completed, but just simply added action to the sentence. You didn't just do something. You dun did it.

Then I was assimilated.

And that year of eighth grade at Lilburn Middle School went along quite nice. There were big kids in my class that I looked up to, like Kirk Ewing and Damon Huston. On our street it was Bill Huseby and Mike Lefevbre. The cool guys. The big guys. The guys who weren't scared to fight. Not bully's. They were all pretty damned good guys.

After eighth grade was over, and summer was kicking in, I started playing baseball in Lawrenceville's little league and swimming for the local club PSRC. I was pretty good at both. And I also hit a growth spurt. I grew somewhere between six inches and a foot in a single month.

And now I was as big as the guys I looked up to.

And I learned what confidence felt like.

But now to get back to the point about a song bringing back memories … It was the first day of high school at Berkmar High. Waiting for the bus with my now neighborhood buddies. And the bus pulled up to let us on.

As I got on the bus, an old dilapidated version of a bus with those big green seats with the springs shot out and rips bandaged up with silver duct tape, there was something weird. The driver was a hippy looking girl probably in her early twenties. And she had … an eight track tape player … in the bus? And it was playing Rock music. Pretty heavy music.

And as I sat down in my seat, the music blared …

"Now yer messin with a … son of a …."

"So this is high school.." I thought as I sat with my buddies. "This is pretty cool".

And when I got to school, my new found height, my athletic build, and the muscles in my arms – not to mention my deep tan, was noticed. The guys I used to look up to came up to me to say "hey" – southern for hi.

And I said "hey, how y'all doin?"

And I was converted.

And on the way home from school, the hippy chick bus driver was playing her eight track tape again. And I remember thinking to myself as I sat next to a pretty neighborhood girl …

"Now yer messin with a son of a …"

You Just Can’t Say That Anymore

I was reading a book this morning.

In this electronic age of the internet, book reading is becoming a lost past time, unless you are my wife – drilling through volumes of romantic novel drivel in a single afternoon.

I was reading a collection of writings by my all time favorite writer - Lewis Grizzard. Lewis was the sports editor and weekly columnist for the Atlanta Journal. In University I would buy the paper every Thursday only to read Mr. Grizzards column.

It struck me this morning, as I read one of his stories, that I envied him for his free and easy way of describing a person, condition, or situation. There were no holds barred. He could call things as he saw them.

In one particular passage, he is describing his honeymoon night with his beautiful new second wife. They had travelled four hours by car to Savannah Georgia after being married that afternoon by a Texaco gas station attendant that his brother Ludlow had hired to pretend to be a minister.

Once at the train station, the newlyweds are told they had no reservations for a sleeper car on the Amtrack to Orlando, Florida. And in typical Grizzard fashion, Lewis informs the frail elderly train attendant that unless a correction was made, he would "come behind the glass, and punch you and hit you, and pull off your raccoon hair toupee and tell everyone that you are a bedwetting communist homosexual …".

And … well ... you just can't say that kind of thing anymore.

If you did, the National Organization of Bedwetting Communists would complain about being called homosexuals.

Not that there is anything wrong with that. No, not at all. Some of my best friends …

But in this electronic age of posting immediate news and celebrity humiliation video, it ironically goes against the grain to call anything as you really see it.

Now at some point in our lives, we have all had the occasion where we have woken up on a soggy mattress and maybe even had our sheets hung out to dry for all to see. And it is not unheard of to have considered the position of Karl Marx and wondered if it weren't for the fact that power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely, that in some conditions communism might actually be a feasible means of governing.

And that would just plain upset the homosexuals. Not to mention the political right.

But we are not allowed to talk about such things now.

Nobody likes to be offended. Not the bedwetters. Not the communists. And certainly not the homosexuals.

And far be it from me to ever cross any of those lines.

Some of my best friends were bedwetters, and others I know are actually former communists. And for all the homosexuals I have known, there have only been a few I didn't like, and the reason was not their choice of alternative lifestyles.

They were just not very nice.

It's probably a blessing to Mr. Grizzard that he passed before seeing the content of the internet be so controversial, yet the language that we use be so dumbed down as to be sure we don't offend.

But I do not have the luxury of writing in a time of such a more simpler age.

So I make my solemn promise to you all that I will do my best to not offend anyone by the postings on my blog. And I will do my part to stand up for the rights of all readers.

Even bedwetting communist homosexuals.

This post is dedicated to the memory of Lewis Grizzard – former columnist and sports editor of the Atlanta Journal.

My Little Mazda Mizer 808

I believe I had a mullet in the first half of the 1980s.

Up until when the Coast Guard shaved my head. But then they sent me home for being a Canadian. They actually accused me of trying to fool them.

I had as bare a scalp as I ever did. And I learned that I am not a man who looks good with a shaved head. I truly look like a pin head. The head of a pin. It took six months for my hair to grow back to even a punker cut.

But I digress.

Passing into adulthood in the Southeastern states of the U.S.; well, I was assimilated.

I had long hair halfway down my back. But it was cut over top of my ears. I pushed the hair on my forehead straight back.

I’m pretty sure that is what they call a mullet.

But we didn’t call it that back then.

I don’t think we called it anything?

I had a Mazda Mizer – an 808 – it was a four-cylinder two-door Datsun look-alike – it was the first Mazda sold in North America. It was a four-on-the-floor standard.

And it was a great little car.

I got it in high school, my Dad did help me buy it from a nurse. It had an AM Radio and 8-Track cassette player.

It was silver – and the hot Georgia sun had oxidized the paint so bad that I took it to Earl Schrieb’s and had them paint it metallic powder blue. They didn’t even take the old decal pinstripes off – they just painted right over them. So I repainted the pinstripes myself.

And you could tell.

The interior was black vinyl seats – splitting from the sun. and black rubber floor. The dash was all black. And when I would climb in that car in the summer – after lifeguarding – those seats burned. So the seats were usually covered by beach towels. And a trip to a carpet store for black remnants let me carpet my little car in black shag.

I took off my old gas pedal and put a chrome bare foot pedal down there.

My 8-track cassette case held the following jewels

• Styx – Grand Illusion
• Queen – News to the World
• SuperTramp – Breakfast in America
• Steve Miller – Fly like an eagle.
• Johnny Cash Live at San Quinton
  
• The Best of Hank Williams (not Jr.)
• Lynard Skynards Greatest Hits
• Frampton Comes Alive
• And a bootleg copy I got in Windsor on a summer vacation of the Best of The Beatles.

Pretty eclectic, eh?

I had no air-conditioning in that car. You wanted air conditioning? You drove a little faster with the windows rolled down.

And the faster you drove with the windows down, the louder you had to turn up the stereo.

That AM radio was quickly replaced with a Pioneer AM/FM radio. Cassettes had just come out – but had not yet caught on. We had no boom-boxes – no super-woofers. But we had four good speakers. And 96 Rock in Atlanta sounded great.

I drove that car through the remainder of my time in Georgia – through University – while we lived in Baton Rouge Louisiana.

For a brief time – one semester – I would drive into New Orleans from Baton Rouge everyday to attend courses. This meant driving on I-10 over all the bayou. On one day – coming home from New Orleans – my engine seized up.

I didn’t take care of that great little car. I didn’t bother to check the oil. And so it gave up on me.

I got out of my little car – lifted the smoking hood, and started walking the 20 mile bridge over the bayou. There were four lanes of expressway. Shortly along came two Coast Guard officers who stopped to help me; a man and a woman.

They were extremely kind, generous, and persons a mullet headed clod like me could look up to. They left an impression.

I wound up selling my Mazda Mizer 808 to the garage that towed it away for me. I couldn’t afford to fix it.

And that next February, in 1983, I joined the United States Coast Guard myself.

And that was the last I ever saw of my mullet.

But the next car I bought was a Mazda 626. That car I drove to Canada.