Throwing Rocks at the Sun – a Father’s Day Tribute

Editor’s Note: As Father’s Day approaches this month, OMP’s Dave Murphy recalls his childhood love of throwing things, one unforgettable baseball game with his dad, and front steps with perpetually peeling paint. If you have a story to tell, write it up and send it to me, [email protected]. Could be a treasured memory, a photo from an old photo album, or perhaps something that happened this week. -jb)

The wooden stairs to our front porch were always flaking dark-green paint like a dog that couldn’t stop shedding.

If I was seated on those steps, which was often when I was young, my fingers involuntarily picked at the chipping paint until Mom intervened. I wasn’t destructive — just too enticing of an opportunity for a fidgety kid.

Mom and Dad bought the house with the peeling porch steps in May of my seventh revolution around the sun. The house was nearly a hundred years old. It was one of those functional and boxy Midwestern vernaculars in need of significant attention. But it was a big improvement over the place we left, which was condemned by the city the moment we lugged the last of our possessions out the door.

Mom was humiliated by that condemned sign on the front door of the old house. She’d say, “I wish someone would bulldoze it instead of people seeing that sign and knowing we lived there for so long.”

When our family acquired the new-old place (or was it the old-new place?), painting both the interior and exterior were top priorities. Dad lived long enough to work on parts of the house, but he died in April, weeks after my ninth birthday, so he had less than two years in the new location. The porch steps were something he never got around to doing.

Mom and I applied coat after coat of paint to those steps. I don’t think anyone ever suggested that it might help to prime the wood first. No sooner would we put that green paint on the steps then it would start peeling again. And there I’d be, compulsively picking at the flakes. Mom would say, “David, you know I can’t afford the price of that paint! Even if it’s coming off, it’s doing some good while it’s there, so leave it be!”

But I was at it again on a late spring evening in 1968. I was eleven years old, two years removed from Dad’s death. I heard Mom inside the enclosed porch above and behind me. She saw me picking at the damn paint, but instead of correcting me, she said, “David, you’re supposed to be at the ballfield with Kevin and his dad. Why are you back so early?”

I didn’t know how to respond. Mom tried again. She was gentle, knowing something was awry. My eleven-year-old brain was in that vague and self-deceiving stage of not knowing what it didn’t know, so I blathered, “Baseball is stupid! I don’t want to play, so leave me alone!”

It was unusual for me to backtalk Mom. I instantly regretted my tone and tried to make it look like I was smoothing the paint back into place, not picking at it.

Mom rarely met a conversation she couldn’t extend, so I certainly expected to be corrected and grilled. Instead, the next thing I heard were footsteps as she retreated from the screen door through the porch and back into the house, leaving me alone on those steps.

I could throw. Hard.

I was a shy and reserved kid, but if I demonstrated abandon with anything, it was throwing. Especially after Dad’s death, if I was at Grandma Brosco’s small farm, I’d lose myself by throwing. I’d skip stones over the surface of the willow-enveloped pond behind the barn or hurl rocks at the sun. If the rock didn’t return to earth with a sound, then I assumed the gravitational pull of our star had taken it into a distant orbit. But more often than not, I did get confirmation of atmospheric reentry by hearing a gratifying plunk as the rock hit the stone-skipping pond.

Besides stone throwing, there were dozens of apple trees in Grandma’s yard. After the first autumn freeze, the unpicked fruit was mine to smash into tree trunks or any object that didn’t have a tax assessment on it. Stunted apples from the early and harsh winters in Northern Michigan stubbornly clung to tree limbs all the way into spring. As the snow finally receded, the critters most interested in the decaying fruit were birds, squirrels, and me. Few sounds are more pleasing to the ear of a boy than the explosive splat of a rotting apple as it impacts a utility pole.

And of course there were snowballs. November into April, there were endless icy orbs for flinging, not only around Grandma’s property, but anywhere I could get outside. If the snow wasn’t of packing quality, then there were options for any kid with a shred of inventiveness to find and shape frozen chunks of h2o so that they were worthy of hurling. Yes, drag coefficient was higher for non-spheroidal objects and demanded both greater pre-launch arm velocity and vector considerations. But if any non-liquid form of water was remotely deserving of being tossed, I sent it airborne.

My penchant for throwing had no malice to it. I have no memory of breaking things and hardly any recall of snowball fights. Nothing conspicuous or cruel. I wasn’t a social creature and throwing was mostly a solitary activity for me.

But that act of taking an object in my hand and giving it rapid or soaring flight through a power I possessed — defying gravity and so many other forces at work against mortals — satisfied as little else could during those times.

The nuns at school and Mom labeled me “backwards,” not intellectually I hope, although maybe. My interpretation of their branding was literal in that I went backwards anytime someone spoke to me. It was also common to hear, “He turns ten shades of red if someone so much as looks at him.” The words were spoken as if I wasn’t there. The characterizations didn’t produce change.

But I could throw. Hard.

My period of reclusive throwing began when several of us were recalibrating after losses and overwhelming change.

Dad collapsed of a heart attack in front of me when I was home sick from school. His death hours later was the fourth family casualty in a matter of months. Not only was everyone reeling from the fatalities, but it was a point in time when others were moving elsewhere so the attrition of family was vast.

In terms of the deaths, first came Uncle Pat, Dad’s brother who lived a couple blocks away. Uncle Pat visited frequently. Not only was he suddenly gone from our lives, but his wife and daughter moved within months of his death.

Next came Mom’s father, Grandpa Brosco. Mom didn’t get along well with her mother, but she thought her father walked on water. I spent significant time with Grandpa. Dad worked a couple of jobs and always the late shift. Mom worked full-time, too. I was introduced to my future throwing grounds near the pond and apple trees by following my grandfather and doing chores with him. Grandpa’s death was a devastating loss to all who knew him.

Shortly after Grandpa’s passing, one of Mom’s sisters was diagnosed with cancer and died within months. Aunt Rita had six kids my age and younger. Mom was distraught and talked about adopting one or more of Rita’s children.

Dad’s death may have been the most shocking of all, coming less than two months after Rita’s. It ended Mom’s thoughts of adoption.

As the deaths mounted, so did the living departures. Mom had several much younger siblings, and they exited our waning factory town to find work elsewhere. I had two brothers, ten and eleven years older than me. One joined the army and volunteered for Vietnam, arriving precisely as the Tet Offensive began, making all of 1968 particularly tense and lonely. My other brother moved hundreds of miles away to find steady employment. We had cousins on Dad’s side of the family the same ages as my brothers and nearly all of them moved.

Our home — once an absolutely uproarious gathering place with my parents, brothers, their friends, and so many visiting relatives — went pensively silent.

When I was home alone in those first years after Dad’s death, Mom insisted that I stay locked in the house. She couldn’t handle another loss, so my safety meant no freedom. I gained weight and retreated even deeper into my natural introversion. Sending me out to Grandma’s was a way to break the monotony. But Grandma was deeply depressed, and Mom wasn’t all that trusting of her mother. I was advised to stay outside as much as possible.

So, I threw. Hard.

Friendships come and go when we’re young. At some point a boy named Kevin became sociable with me. I was flattered because he was a year older and had a cool big brother named Eugene who was kind to me. Whenever I’d go to Kevin’s house a few blocks away, Eugene took time to ask questions and talk. He was still in school, perhaps five years older than me. I certainly didn’t have the self-awareness to identify the sudden void of male figures in my life, but Eugene was part of the appeal to the friendship with Kevin.

I’m not certain why Kevin became friendly, but I associate it with throwing. At school recess, several grades of boys often played a game of pop-up without the bat. We didn’t have enough control of where a batted ball would go and the school playground doubled as the church parking lot, so we had to take care not to smash stained glass windows. Instead of batting the rubber ball in the air, we’d throw it.

I was embarrassingly lousy at catching and never could accumulate enough points to win a game of pop-up, which was how you earned a coveted turn at throwing the ball. But kids even several grades ahead of me knew how high I could heave an object, so they’d give me their points and I’d get a turn.

Trust me, it had nothing to do with kindness. The best catcher on the playground mocked my inability to hold onto a ball and suggested that the fat I carried around my middle was the problem. But he’d win and give me his points because my throws made the game more challenging and exciting. I hurled the ball so high that kids were afraid to get under it to make a catch, and that included my tormentor. As always, my target was the sun. I’d hear “oohs” as the ball would leave my hand and diminish to a distant fleck in the sky.

As my reputation for throwing grew, it seems that’s when Kevin took more of an interest in me. At some point he mentioned that little league baseball would start soon, and I should join him for tryouts. Despite the implied social nature of a team, I’d have an opportunity to throw.

Kevin said he was getting a new glove, and I’d need one. I asked Mom but she was justifiably suspicious since I’d shown no interest in baseball to date, plus our budget was so tight, she challenged anything but the most needed purchases. She went to the cubbyhole at the basement landing where we kept junk that had gone out of use. She found an old, yellow-brown mitt that one of my brothers used in high school. It was way oversized for my age and the stitching was loose, but Kevin told me it was the coolest glove he’d ever seen.

Kevin and I played catch several times before he announced the season was beginning. I didn’t feel remotely prepared, but he made the arrangements with Mom, and it was determined that I’d go to Kevin’s house a few blocks away so his father could take us to the baseball field.

I went to Kevin’s place as planned. His brother Eugene was there and greeted me kindly as usual. But Kevin’s dad didn’t seem happy to see me. Then again, his dad never seemed happy about anything. I’m sure he’d put in a long day at work and would have preferred sitting back in his chair after supper. Instead, Kevin was bouncing around, eager to go, and he’d dragged me into the picture. Maybe there were fees to pay, and Mom didn’t know to send money with me. Whatever the case, I felt like a nuisance.

I remember Kevin putting a brand-new baseball mitt on his hand. It was a rich tan color like a newborn fawn without camouflaging spots. Kevin’s dad asked his son if he’d oiled the glove. Kevin socked the mitt and replied that he had. “Oil a glove?” I had no clue that the things needed lubricating. As old as mine was, it must have needed the transmission rebuilt and a front-end alignment, but I’d done nothing with it. I looked at the big yellow claw attached to my hand and turned the ten shades of red that Mom and the nuns talked about.

Then Kevin’s dad began the process of putting on his leg. The prosthetic wasn’t at all like the high-tech ones we see today, but more resembled a stiff manikin-like appendage. Kevin’s father produced such a pained look as he struggled with straps and buckles to get the thing on. The baseball field wasn’t more than a couple blocks from Kevin’s house, but his dad said we were driving.

We parked and headed over to where kids, fathers, and coaches were gathered. Everyone was optimistically yacking it up with a dozen balls in the air at once. My gut was turning inside out. I’d seen some of those present, but never made eye contact or spoken to most. Every kid, even those younger than me, clearly had played the sport before.

Fathers were calling out terms I’d never heard, and their boys were responding with different tosses or movements. The Detroit Tigers were a hot topic because they were a serious threat to win the World Series for the first time in decades. Everyone had a favorite player, but I didn’t know a single name. And the blasted subject of oiling gloves kept coming up. The yellow alien organism on my hand seemed to be growing and I was sure everyone was staring at it.

Things really became uncomfortable when orders were given to spread way out in pairs of father-son so the coaches could make their way around to observe.

Surprisingly, Kevin’s dad shouted something to draw attention, then went into an exaggeratedly huge and stiff wind-up before making a toss that generated the intended laughter from the fathers and sons. Kevin caught his dad’s lob and snapped a quick return throw. Game on for everyone.

Fathers and sons talked it up as they ripped throw after throw, back and forth in a well-understood ritual. The air was filled with the popping sounds of balls smacking oiled mitts. There was such remarkable ease to it all.

I watched, anxiety building, but about what, I wasn’t mature enough to define.

Kevin was a perceptive kid and figured things out quickly. He called me to join in, explaining that his dad would take turns throwing to me and then Kevin. It was a good solution. A thoughtful solution. But I froze.

I kept staring at the fathers, focused on their own boys. At least that was my interpretation. If I haven’t been clear, I was a social incompetent, probably misreading everything. Maybe every father and kid there would have graciously helped if I’d given them the opportunity. I didn’t know. My perception was reality and I felt uniquely alone.

I’m sure it took no more than a couple of throws, then as Kevin called me again to join in, I took one last look at the fathers and sons, turned, and sprinted away. I ran nonstop the four or five blocks back to our house.

That’s when Mom found me on the front steps criminally peeling paint.

The mind of an eleven-year-old is nearly impenetrable, even to the eleven-year-old owner of said mind. How could I explain what had happened?

Mom did nothing wrong. In that era, there were no mothers at baseball fields, and she had no interest in sports other than helping her boys to play if that’s what they wanted.

A friend extended to me, recognizing that my interest in throwing might lend itself to a sport. He praised my ancient baseball glove. He pretty much arranged for me to try out and involved his own dad. His big brother was always kind. No one at the ballfield was mean or inappropriate.

What had just happened? What was there to explain when Mom asked what was wrong? So, I told her I hated baseball. And I did. I continued to hate it for years to come.

As Mom left the porch that evening, giving us some space — the space we so often needed for months and years during that time of death and adjustment — I’m not sure what I was thinking about on those porch steps with the perpetually flaking green paint. But one particular experience had the greatest probability of occupying my mind.

Before my father died a couple springs earlier, I can’t say that we were exceptionally close. As mentioned, he worked several jobs including frequent night shifts, so he was often sleeping during the day if he was around. I came along late in his life, and he’d had a rough time of it. Orphaned at an early age, kicked around among family that didn’t want him, school dropout, drinking issues (according to Mom’s complaints before and after his death), laborer in a dying factory town, and disabled with his own deformed leg, I was the afterthought progeny that arrived when his energy was depleted and his expiration date near.

He and I only played a form of baseball one time that I can remember, and I was perhaps five or six years old when it happened. Still, I have such a vivid recall of the occasion, maybe because I have so few memories of him that what remains is disproportionately weighted with meaning.

Dad came home with a wiffle ball and bat. Why did he do that out of nowhere? Probably because Mom was bugging him again to be “more of a father” to me. Once stirred to action, Dad could be a force of nature, although like nature, he might only be highly active for a few hours.

After buying the wiffle ball and bat, he organized a game with several neighbor kids and fathers. It was in a vacant lot behind a collapsing store next to our soon-to-be condemned home.

Dad was a loud and colorful guy. People liked him and he could tell a story. He was never seen without a Lucky cigarette dangling from the corner of his mouth. He could talk up a storm with that Lucky bouncing around between his lips, tantalizing observers as to when it might fall. But Dad rarely lost a Lucky.

Once the game began, I struck out in my first at bats and felt foolish. The game was organized for me, but I couldn’t come close to hitting the ball. I had no sense of timing or even location. Dad was the pitcher, and all the other kids could get a hit or at least make contact. But I couldn’t.

My next at bat came. I swung and missed a couple times. Dad moved closer. A slow, underhand toss. Another whiff of the air. Dad was trying his best to hit my bat with the ball, but I swung like a blindfolded piñata player.

I should have been out. But Dad realized that he’d made some sort of mistake in how he was throwing the ball. Whatever the rule was that he invoked, the other kids didn’t understand but every father absolutely did. On perhaps his third or fourth or fifth pitch to me after I’d already struck out, I hammered the wiffle ball back at him. He was probably within ten feet of me by that point. It hit him in his gut and the ball bounced away.

I was stunned that I’d made contact. The other fathers urged me to run to first base. The impact of the wiffle ball apparently caused Dad to fall down and the cigarette that never left his lips actually dropped to the soil. The fathers laughed. I ran to second as Dad struggled to first find his Lucky, then the ball. The man had his priorities.

The kids yelled at him to hurry as I rounded second. But clearly, I hit the plastic ball with holes in it so hard that it dazed Dad’s brain by way of his intestinal organs. He pawed at the ground, trying to get the ball as I rounded third. The other fathers roared with laughter. Dad yelled encouragement to me, a bent Lucky back dangling from his lips, as he also tried to get me out. I scored. The only home run of the night.

A near riot broke out. Dad’s incompetence caused kids to throw their gloves on the ground. The fathers could hardly remain upright. Dad played dual roles, cheering the loudest and boasting of my incredible power and speed while muttering threats that he’d get me for hitting him so hard with the ball.

It’s the only time we played baseball.

By my late twenties, my wife’s brother had seen me skip rocks on flat water a few times. Bob asked me to show him what distance I could throw and gave me other challenges. He was entertained by what my arm could do. On a visit to Bob’s home near the Cincinnati area, he took us to an amusement park where he knew about a radar speed gun to measure how fast people could toss a ball.

Bob told the person in charge of the booth that he was paying. “Give him all the throws he wants,” Bob said.

The guy manning the speed gun cautioned, “This thing clocks people really slow. We had a pitcher from the Cincinnati Reds in here yesterday and he was furious. He throws in the nineties but couldn’t get it out of the low eighties. So I’m telling you to adjust up by at least five miles an hour or more.”

My first throw was in the low eighties. I gradually made the speed gun hit the mid and then upper eighties. My shoulder ached from throwing too hard without a proper warmup, but the booth operator said, “Did you hear what I said? The Reds’ pitcher couldn’t do that!”

There’s no boastful intention to that story. Countless people threw much harder than me regardless of how the speed gun might or might not have needed to be adjusted. Plus, there are plenty of people who can throw hard but never learn to pitch.

Throwing is throwing but pitching is skill and mastery and intention. I never harnessed anything productive out of my arm, unless throwing while recalibrating in life counts for something. And my shoulder felt like it was ready to fall off after trying to impress Bob. The speed gun did nothing but confirm what a lot of people can do, which is to hurt themselves attempting stupid things.

Still, there probably was a time when I could throw harder than most.

This isn’t going to digress into some lamenting fantasy of what could have been.

But from a safe distance of more than half of a century, I’m reasonably sure of several things:

Making paint stick to porch steps without priming is hard.

Being a kid is hard.

Being a parent is hard.

Life is hard. Damn hard.

I could throw hard, but I never learned to pitch.

But my father? He could pitch despite never throwing hard. It only happened once, but that man deserved to be in the Hall of Fame for the way he pitched to his son.

– Dave Murphy

Also Read…

A Tribute to Big George Foreman, That 1968 Fight with Jonas Cepulis, and a Beloved Brother in Vietnam

Christmas Eve Reflections: Cornelia, Quiet Shoveling and Treasuring Our Days