Caramel Treat

…I loved caramels: butterscotch caramels to be exact.  Our family dentist loved that I loved caramels. Those small square caramels wrapped in a thin clear cellophane type wrapping made by Kraft foods.  Although calling a Kraft caramel food was a stretch by any measure and an insult to the accepted food group of the day.  These caramels could be had for a penny, a cent, and sometimes, if you were really lucky, three for a cent.  They were usually found in our local confectionary store beside those other dental worthy snacks called black balls.

Soft, chewy, sticky, gooey, teeth clinging caramels.  Light brown in colour, full of sugary sweetness.  Soft to the teeth, sooo gooey, as if its elasticity would somehow break down into its heavenly, savoury, parts.  I’d buy those things daily, usually in the morning on my way to school. Not to be too pretentious I’d buy them in lots of three, or six or nine. Enough of a fix to do me for the day.  Suck on them?  Sure. Chew on them?  Sure! It didn’t really matter to me as long as I got my caramel fix, but nurturing that taste for as long as possible was for me the real test of a real treat for a real caramel pro like me. Kraft, not lying on its caramel laurels, did come up with a darker chocolate coloured confectionary but I never really liked them as much as those original caramel coloured, caramel tasting, caramel treat. This was before the days of dental floss.  If you were unlucky enough to get a wad of caramel caught between your teeth you had two options.  Let it be and wait until your saliva churning enzymes slowly destroyed the texture and gooeyness of the caramel into its separate but equally sticky parts and savour the caramel sweetness and taste until it eventually disappears, or, and this was a really gross option, stick your finger into your mouth, find the offending wad and scrape it out with your finger being careful not to drool, or have a stream of caramel juice run down your chin.  Be careful not to slurp, which was a dead caramel sucking giveaway.  Suck your fingers dry.  This option is the most dangerous as it is a dead give away to the preying eyes of teachers, classmates and the like that you had contraband of some sort in your mouth during class.  A caramel craze of a ten year old?  Weird perhaps. I was scarred for life but then again this from a kid who used to buy a chocolate chip ice cream cone early mornings, before school, and lick that sucker dry in the dead of winter, when it was as cold as Sister Mary Bernice’s sense and sensibilities. Somewhat akin to laying one’s tongue on a cold winter’s day on cold metal.

Art O’Neill, the older gangly looking lad who shared an intimate experience with me and Sister Mary Bernice’s strap, had a younger brother named Gerard, my middle name’s namesake. Gerard was, like his older brother, somewhat thin and sickly but with a rapacious sense of mischief.  Incorrigible he was with a wicked devilish and warped sense of humour. Indeed, he possessed all of the pre requisites that came with attending a Catholic Separate School.   I can say that now but initially I didn’t think much at all about Gerard. He was one of eight children of the O’Neill’s clan.   A good Catholic Irish family: dirt poor, pious, strict, God fearing members of our parish and congregation.  Just like the rest of us but in varying degrees of dirt pooriness.   Real working class for sure: lower middle class but dirt poor only because of all of the good catholic mouths to feed. Post war baby boomers we were.  In those days procreation, to go forth and multiply, was code for Catholicism.  There was no need for a secret handshake. Anything over 2 kids was a dead giveaway…

Big Maxx

…Big Maxx’s uncoordinated approach to this game was something to see and experience. Maxx could not and would not stand appropriately in front of and to the side of the square. He would stand off to one side of course and slightly angled off to the left of the square so the pitcher could see his target but held his back against the backstop itself.  Somewhat like a rat caught in a corner with no avenue of escape.  And when the pitcher began his rotation, his motion toward the white chalked square, Maxx would begin to crouch, his whole body as tight as a tight spring and so tightly focused like a panther waiting to launch.  His eyes seemed to be on fire with facial features that were designed only for intimidation.  And if looks could kill, Big Maxx’s sneer could annihilate.

Maxx would position his body so as to present himself with a full frontal aspect to the pitcher. He held the bat in front of his mass, vertically; with just a slight back and forth motion, toward the pitcher.  Not your typical practice swing mind you but a slight to and fro rhythm.  As if to say to the pitcher: “okay asshole, give me all ya got. – if you dare”.  Without having to say a single word Maxx’s physical presence spoke volumes and to a young lad, a young pitcher like me, spelled B-U-L-L-Y.  It was bully-ish like behaviour for sure. Perhaps this was the reputation that Maxx inadvertently, but unintentionally, presented to the world around him.

And when the pitcher finally found the nerve, wound up and fired that ball from about 45 feet way, Maxx in anticipation would turn, and run with the bat still vertical at what seemed like a gallop, toward the ball’s trajectory, but to an invisible spot that only he could fathom in his mind’s eye then swing that bat as bloody hard as he could muster with all of his massive might in a frame that convulsed in such physical rapture and tumultuousness.  The entire evolution was not unlike “Happy Gilmore’s” golf swing.  Most times Maxx missed and fell on his ass but when he connected, look out, that ball was gone or destroyed.  Indeed, I think one of his batted balls is still up there in orbit somewhere. 

We normally played for 2-3 hours then quit. Hot, thirsty, ready to cool off. Then of course came the requisite juvenile male banter:

“So, whatdaya want to do now? Oh, I dunno. Whatta you wanna do? I dunno whatta you wanna do? Oh, I dunno, whatta you wanna do” or something similarly profound, and on and on it went.

Good friends, good cheer and awfully good conversation among us.  You know, judging from Maxx’s and our own literary skills, his physical strength, his hand / eye coordination, his and our conversation skills and diction, boys really are different than girls.

Maxx and I hung out quite a bit for awhile. He was always good natured to me even with his brusque approach to life in general. 

“John”, he would say, “You are my best friend. Hope to all of good hope that we stay good friends, always.”

“Sure Maxx” I reassured him.

In those days all of your friends were your best friends at any given time or another.  You always had a best friend hanging around.  We had some good laughs me and Maxx. In later years I loved to go over to his house Saturday nights, especially during those cold winter months, for his dad had a secret stash of booze in his basement.  Secret, only to his dad of course, for we knew where it was.   

Maxx’s basement was great. His was one of the few finished basement that I knew of in those days.  Only rich people had finished basements, with a wet bar, with a TV room, with a pool table, with a toilet, in the basement for heaven sakes. That was so cool. O’Grunts had a finished basement as well but for good reason. They had eight kids – 7 boys and one girl, plus Mom and Dad.  All living under one roof.  In Maxx’s house there were only four: Mom, Dad, Maxx and his sister.

Do the math. A small post war bungalow, 3 bedrooms and one toilet, small kitchen, even smaller living room and a tiny dining room, with a piano thrown in for Chopin’s sake.  In addition to the normal 3 bedrooms on the main level, Sean’s house also had a bed in the laundry room, a bed in the play room, bunk beds in the furnace room, double bed in the back basement room, another bed in the cold storage room and one bed in the garage. It was great! But, I don’t know how they managed given that the kitchen didn’t have stainless steel appliances.  Mornings must have been chaos.

So Maxx and I would play pool and suck back on a couple of shots. No more. Too dangerous. We didn’t quite smoke yet but the smell would have been a cruel giveaway. Maxx always won. He was damn good at pool. Maxx could also be somewhat philosophical:

“Hey John, do you think I’m stupid?”

Where the hell did this come from?

“Nope, yellow in the corner.”

“Do the other guys at school think I’m dumb?”

“The ones that are still breathin?” I joked “Nope” I continued  “And if they did I doubt that they would ever say it to your face.”

“So, they do then?”

“Nooo, no,” I lied “Sure you have some quirks Maxx. But your English compositions are great.  Everyone cracks up.” and that was the truth.

“I know, but sometimes I just can’t seem to understand what’s going on. What I see and think sometimes comes out as what I think then see. You know what I mean? Things seem to be bass ackwards.  My dad says I should go to Trade School but I don’t want to go.  I have nightmares just thinking about it.  I’d miss my friends too much. I’d miss guys like you and O’Grunts” 

Damn Nuns I thought.

“Don’t worry Maxx, everything will be fine.” Now let’s play pool.

He never brought that up again, at least to me.  Yeah, Big Maxx was somewhat of a lout. He had his problems but was a good guy. I liked him a lot.  Nevertheless we drifted apart after a few years primarily because of his tendency to repeatedly repeat grades. Then one day, I noticed that he wasn’t around at school anymore. And after about a week of looking out for him I finally worked up the courage and asked Ms McFayden – our resident chain smoker – if she knew where Paul was.  Courage, because deep down inside I kinda sensed that I knew his fate but I was afraid to hear the obvious.

“Paul’s gone to Trade School!” she announced.

“Damn.” I cried. 

No, Maxx was no bully.  The real bullies at that school were the Nuns and the Priests.

I lost track of Big Maxx after that. I did run into him years later though.  He was indeed dyslexic and once that condition became clear to him he excelled, scholastically and practically.  On completion of trade school he took an apprenticeship in plumbing. In five years he became a journeyman and did exceedingly well. He went back to night school, earned an undergraduate degree in business then opened his own plumbing business.  He then went on the get an MBA and is beginning to expand his business into a franchise based organization.  All is well with Big Maxx except, as he told me, he still cannot write a flowery English composition…

Home Run Derby

…Speaking of bullies, we had our fair share. Then again, in those days, being a bully or finding oneself at the receiving end of bully behaviour was a fact of life and par for the course.  One just had to get used to it.  Big Maxx was seen to be a bully. But once you got to know him better you, as I did, would realize that his bullishness was a front for a very innocent, simple minded lad. He was big for his age. a six foot, two hundred pound ten year old. I kid you not. He had a deep, throaty, husky voice: a grown man’s voice. Perhaps Big Maxx was, in essence, well ahead of his time and reached puberty at age 5. And his brain hadn’t caught up.  Perhaps Big Maxx knew full well that his true nature would probably find himself at the receiving end of ridicule.  Perhaps Big Maxx was a lot smarter than we realized. Perhaps he was into needlepoint, or crochet. Who knew? Yes, he did have a very difficult time writing those floral sickening English compositions that our English teacher foisted upon us from time to time.  Memorable themes such as: “The Best Sunset You Ever Experienced Last Summer.”  As in describe it!

The girls in our class thrived on this stuff. Maxx? His composition would be aptly titled: The Best-est Sunset I Never Experienced – Ever! And while “Fig” Newton, the tall blond Amazon of a 10 year old girl, who sat the back of the room by the window, would receive accolades from the teacher for her heavenly, descriptive, but eye rolling, lyrical prose, Big Maxx was receiving gut wrenching guffaws. Yikes! Looking back at that I am sure Big Maxx’s stature was such that the electrodes and electrolytes in his 10 year old brainbox had somewhat of a difficult time in the formulation of a thought, a word, or a sentence then transmitting said thoughts into words, sentences, paragraphs that made any sense at all except for him for it was a long way down from his brain to his fingers. Yes, the fingers that ultimately controlled the stylus: that ultimately transcribed his thoughts, his words, his sentences, his paragraphs onto paper.  But he did get a lot of laughs from us: flora for fauna or fauna for flora; paucity for plethora or plethora for paucity, Romulus for Remus, Remus for Romulus and so on and so forth, and forth so and on so.  Perhaps Big Maxx was dyslexic.  

Yes, we would have a good laugh at Big Maxx’s expense, collectively of course, for there was safety in numbers.  For no one, and I mean no one, would ever think of making fun of Big Maxx to his face.  Then again it may be that Big Maxx was a great deal smarter than most of us in that class. More subtle perhaps, stealth-like, in his own personal objection of having to write such poetic drivel. Yes perhaps Maxx, rather than provoke the teacher’s wrath in refusing to cow tow to a ridiculous assignment, he did what he knew best.  Write the God damn composition, but in his own style to appease the teacher into believing or thinking just how dumb he was – or not.

Yet he was such a good sport and a good friend to me: very strong and very athletic in a clumsy, disjointed kind of way.  We used to play home run derby in the park that backed onto his backyard on those hot dusty summer afternoons in the early sixties – some of the hottest afternoons on record I believe.  Hot and humid, hot and sweaty, hot and stinking hot, but we didn’t care. How hot was it?  It was so hot that you could read the front page of the newspaper from the ink transferred on to your forearm after carrying it over your arm for a few minutes.  Even today, during those hot, muggy days of August, a month that my wife dreaded, I thrived on.  Perhaps those days reminded me of my youth, and those seemingly endless days of summer fun playing games such as home run derby on a hot summer’s afternoon.

To play this game, all one needed was a bat, a rubber ball, some chalk, and three players. Oh and a concrete or a brick wall as a backstop.  One player at bat, one player pitching and another player in the field was all it took. Usually me, Big Maxx and O’Grunts, as his house also backed on to the park.  My house was about a half mile down the road.  But no matter as I lived in that park from dawn to dusk or until the street lights began to flicker.  Jimmy-mum never came to play with us as he preferred to look at, read up on, and study muscle cars.  He did not have an athletic bone in his entire body.

The backdrop for our game came courtesy of the Protestant school, which also ran adjacent to the park, but on opposite sides from the houses.  It was straight to hell for all of us.  Those damn pesky black spots. We didn’t care. After all, what was for? Without us those darn black and whites would be out of their ecclesiastical type of jobs. Like the good Catholics that we were we had to keep those priests and nuns employed after all was said and done.  Otherwise, they might have to get a real job. And, I must confess, which I did every week, we did an excellent job of it.

With the chalk, a 2 foot square was etched out on the brick or concrete backstop. That was the strike zone, which was situated about knee to chest high of the average 10 year old.  The batter had to have some trust in the pitcher if told that the pitch was a strike per se. And three strikes yer out. No walks allowed. That would have been difficult to process with just three players. Then rotate: pitcher to bat, batter to the outfield, outfielder to pitcher, and so on and forth so.  You get the pitcher.  Strike out or hit the ball and if you did it had to be in the air because where the ball landed determined a single, a double, a triple or a home run.  Grounders didn’t count, hence the name of the game.  But only home runs counted for points…

Bull Dogs

…Then there was the game of all games: British Bulldog.  I think every school on the planet that was tied to the commonwealth played British Bulldog. It didn’t matter if you could even spell it or pronounce it or even read it, especially in countries such as India, or Pakistan, Bangladesh.  Oh you say British Bulldog you say. Okay. Let’s play you British Maha-raj-dog you!

This game could be brutal. I truly believe it was the foundation that made the British Empire great or the modern day commonwealth common. If you were weak kneed, fragile, timid, shy, look out.  This was one game where anyone’s, everyone’s disposition or nature, weak or strong, somehow manifested itself in very short order. If you were scared you might as well be wearing a sign that said: “I am scared shitless.”  Okay, let’s go after him. He’ll be the last one standing. It was an unwritten rule. This game was so profound. It provoked the leaders from the followers, the bullies from the bullied, the weak from the strong and the popular from the dispossessed. Too bad! That’s the way it was and was the life of a male elementary student at a Catholic School.  Meanwhile the girls were playing May-pole. Or Hop Scotch! Sounds like fun to me!

How did this game go?

Get as many guys as you could muster in the centre of the schoolyard by yelling out British Bulldog.  Volunteer immediately to be one of the Bulls, that is, one of the guys in the middle of the schoolyard facing about one thousand of your closest friends who are lining up against a fence at one end of the yard. The aim here was that once the alarm was sounded by the Bull one had to run across the open yard enmass to the other side of the field without being caught by one of the Bulls waiting in the centre of the field of play, of course. Caught? No tackled was more like it. Today I believe they might call this “Capture the Flag” but for us it was a tad more brutal and Neanderthal than waving some shitty piece of pink or blue ribbon. Tackled, yes, but in those days the schoolyard at that time of the year, again late winter or early spring, was covered with course green-brown grass sprinkled here and there with rock hard but soon to be well textured mushy, smelly dog turds.  That was the whole point of the game though: to scare the beejeezus out of some of the so called geeks of the school.  Once you were tackled you joined your tackle-er and became one of the Bulldogs in the centre of the field.  The last one standing was the so called winner of the game.  In reality, and by our rules, the last one standing was the biggest loser.

This was definitely the preferred game for bullies in that it was an unwritten rule that the geekiest or so called weakest looking nerdy guy in the school would be the very last one up against the fence. His poor, pathetic perspective of his seemingly small nerdy world would be facing down 1,000 of his closest bully Bulldogs standing in the centre of the field waiting unabashedly to rein down pure unadulterated, pre-adolescent terror on the poor lad. Fun? You bet! A tad mean and ruthless? Perhaps! Definitely. But it was a sure fire way to grow up.

Why would some seventy pound weakling agree to participate in such madness? Simple.  At the beginning of the game there was strength in numbers so one geek would feel somewhat safe and have a somewhat secure but false sense of belonging standing there against the fence at the beginning of this melee, with 1,000 of his so called geek buddies.  Unbeknownst to him though it was the unwritten but agreed upon rule by all of the bully Bulldogs that the designated target would be allowed to run free and easy, again and again, bypassing the awaiting but increasingly growing horde of bullies who would manifest themselves into becoming this vast conflagration of idiots bent upon the realization that this was going to be the very worst day in the poor lad’s short life.

Interestingly, while some of the remnants, or targets, realizing what was about to occur in very short order, might turn and run toward one of the school’s doors. Those that did stick it out found out, somewhat ironically, and to their astonished astonishment and amazing amazement, that they earned the respect of some of the biggest bullies, louts in the school. They unwittingly demonstrated that they had the courage, the backbone, the stupidity to stick it out, get a little bruised perhaps, and wear that badge of honourable dog shit that every British Bulldogger wears on their sleeves. Interestingly, soon after, they relished the thought of becoming a Bulldog themselves: one of the guys, louts, idiots, Bulldogs, in eying down some other poor sod that had the misfortune of becoming a target. There must be some psychological determinant to explain away this form of activity, group think, mob behaviour, or stupidity with security in numbers. How else can one explain how a horde of 600 Bulldogs ran across this field of death with idiots to the right of them, idiots to the left of them, and so ran the 600 idiots (apology to Tennyson)…

Angelic Rocket

…Then there was Jim Reynolds: a tall athletic young man who was very fond of Our Lady of Peace. I say this as he repeatedly repeated the higher grades of the Catholic elementary system, grades six through eight, a plethora of times.  In grade seven, when I first ran into him, I do believe he was sixteen.  He must have been for he smoked and drove a 56 Ford to school. That was cool: to park his beater with the grownups, the teachers, in the school parking lot.  We knew he was a smoker for he always rolled his cigarettes up tight in his short sleeved white tee during the warmer spring weather. Buckingham’s, non filters, seem to come to mind as the cigarette of choice for all young punks at the time. Of course no one seemed to care or to matter in those unregulated second hand smoke days at our school.

A smallish baseball diamond was situated in one of the back corners of our school yard. During the late winter, early spring months, when the last vestiges of snow had all but disappeared and the ground was suddenly covered with trash and rock hard dog shit, we would pull out our bats and balls and set up a game. Teams were not a problem for we played “an up or out” rotational system of play. Somewhat like the Navy’s promotional and downsizing scheme, but I digress. One could remain at bat so long as one did not strike, fly or be thrown out.  You had to be a good hitter to remain at bat. Once you were thrown out or struck out you were in the field and would remain out there until another batter suffered the same fate. Then rotate positions. The only exception to all of this was that if someone caught the ball in the air they would immediately go to bat and the batter would take their place.  

Jim Reynolds may not have been too smart but he was tough. Street tough. And could he ever hit a softball. When Jim came to bat it was pure delight.  He could hit, man he could hit: towering, out of sight fly balls that seemed to go on forever.  No one could match his skill or catch his fly balls.  If you were on base ahead of Jim you were safe by default as a home run was coming in very short order.  I always tried to be on base just before he came up to bat.  

He was a sight to behold.  Standing there full of confidence, a smirk or smear on his face, his lips sometime adorned with a smoke out of the corner of his mouth.  Of course he had to do this by stealth such that he wasn’t noticed by any of the lay teachers. Not the black and whites mind you for they refused to come out during recess, lunch time, before or after school.  I think that this was the only time they could catch a few puffs of their own without being seen by the prying eyes of us turds – as they sometimes called us.  They were probably at prayer but I doubt it.

So here was Jim. His whole frame permeated confidence, self assuredness with an air of arrogance: shuffling his feet like a rabid dog marking his territory after a good piss. The pitcher, watching him suspiciously as he readied his throw, knowing full well what the outcome was going to be and everyone else for that matter.  Yet Jim, for all his size, and swagger and confidence was not a bully: a show-off perhaps but no bully. We all appreciated that.  For he could have easily kicked the living shit out of any one of us if he so pleased for he looked the part.  He was the “James Dean” of Our Lady of Peace. Slicked back brill ” a little dab will do ya” creamed hair, with a trace of growth above the upper lip, muscles bulging beneath his body shaped white tee.  Blue jeans of course, with the bottom cuffs turned up about 2 inches, showing his bright white socks, as was the style in those days.  He was cool, he knew it, and we all marvelled at that, but in a good way. All of us thought that above all else when we reached the age of sixteen that we would all look as cool as Jim but with hope upon hope to be in a higher grade perhaps.

The ball is ultimately pitched by the pitcher.  It comes his way, straight across the plate. As if on cue Jim swings the bat with somewhat of a floral motion, picture perfect, as if in animation, stepping into the ball with his arms outstretched, his elbows locked, with his eyes focused entirely on the seams of the ball as it comes into his sights. “Whack,” ball upon bat, in the sweet spot, Jim’s cheeks and belly wobble like hard jelly as if his whole body’s energy force is transmitted down that bat and into the ball itself.  The pregnant pause as Jim looks up to the heavens, arms outstretched as if giving lordly thanks and praise, dropping the bat to begin his cool saunter toward first base.  He doesn’t have to run hard for he knows, yes he knows, that that ball is gone.  Like God’s angelic rocket, or a holy ghost of a hit, it soars to the heavens above Our Lady of Peace’s schoolyard.  And we, with our innocence and heavenly gaze, are entirely awestruck and enthralled at the power and the sheer majesty of it all as the ball rises up and into the blue cloudless sky.  A pure white stitched canvass ball set against the backdrop of an apostolic blue, like Christ’s resurrection, rising then arcing its way across the heavens then down and out and through a second floor window of our school.

Ooops! 

It was like this all the time. The nuns tried their best to curtail Jim’s prowess. Perhaps that’s why they were praying during recess, but to no avail. They would have loved to expel him but his parents were church stalwarts and sat in the front pew at the 1015 high mass. They were quite rich, quite influential and quite demanding. I am told that his mother was the civilian equivalent to Sister Mary Bernice. I would have loved to have seen that.  It wasn’t long though before Jim did leave us. Trade school we were told. Trade school! That prison and so called parallel universe of Catholic elementary school life. Trade School! Failure in the eyes of the church. Trade School! We all shuddered at the thought. Trade School! Say your prayers every night. If you don’t you might just find yourself at Trade School.  Of course, the female equivalent was Secretarial School, or worse, in later years, Home Economics, code for getting yourself knocked up!  The rest of us, if we were good, worked hard, and said our prayers every night, would be blessed in more ways than one could possibly imagine at the time at the local Catholic private high school for boys. Generalists! Arts and Science! If we graduated from the local Catholic high school for boys we could aspire to be “Jacks of all Trades,” “Masters of Fuck-all” And for all of my efforts I became a real “Jack Tar”, although I wanted to be a proctologist.  Somewhat like a plumber.   Perhaps Trade School would have been a good fit for me after all.

I missed Jim after he left. When he was with us he sat in the back of our class. I can still see him sitting there in the tiny desk, his legs sprawled out, arms folded across his chest, with his Elvis like sneer snickering at no one in particular.  He always had a cig ready to go behind his left ear. He was so cool, and quite funny. Like a class clown.  Indeed he intimidated the teacher and swore like a trooper but he was very, very friendly to us.

Jim did leave a legacy of sorts. All the windows of our school that were facing the schoolyard were fitted out with metal screens. Even today, some fifty years later, those same screens adorn the windows at Our Lady of Peace School.  Someone, not completely in the know, might surmise that vandals, petty criminal activity perhaps, presented a causal relationship to those metal screens.  They would be wrong of course for  whenever I look at the school today with their relative protective screened window coverings – for I knew the truth – I would nostalgically think of Jim and his baseball prowess…