Storytime Tapestry Newsletter

The newsletter devoted to spreading love and cultural awareness throughout the world.

Special Treat – submitted by David Wainland

Sept 27, 2006

My latest in my Quiet Dreaming anthology

SPALDEEN AND ME

(Quiet Dreaming)

By David Wainland

            My life as an only child ended with the birth of my brother Jerry in 1945 and in 1948, the arrival of my sister Laurie further complicated it. I surrendered half my bed to Jerry and now shared the bedroom with my newest sibling, but refused to give up my position as the one and only child. My folks had spoiled me and I resented the intrusion. Unfortunately, they did not go along with my way of thinking.

            Laurie was the baby and they treated her that way. Jerry, at three, not only slept in my bed, he wore my old clothes and inherited my toys.  Somewhere, somehow, the resentment of this, my personal sibling rivalry, began to change my personality. I became withdrawn, sullen and even developed a bedwetting problem. 

            Dad, not an athlete himself, found it difficult to teach me sports and then in 1947, he fell off the back of a truck severely injuring his hip. After that, my mother took over all the child-rearing duties. As a result, I never developed into a ball player and watched my two closest friends, Michael and Ira, mature in ways I did not.

            In 1949, the Spalding Company introduced a new ball, a pink rubber high-bouncer and it quickly became the weapon of choice for New York kids. A myriad of games quickly grew up around this unique rubber toy. Girls bounced it over, under and their legs chanting, “A, my name is Alice my husband’s name is Al…”

Young city males quickly adopted this fifteen-cent wonder for their street games, sports like stickball, stoopball, boxball, hit the penny and my favorite, punchball.

As a child, I lacked the inborn qualities that made for a good athlete and the training not supplied by my now bed-ridden father. I was clumsy, uncoordinated and lacking in self-confidence.

When the neighborhood boys would choose-up sides for anyone of the above games, invariably they picked me last, or not at all. I couldn’t run, catch or hit. Oh, once in a while I would get lucky and tag the ball for a wobbly infield hit or manage to shag a drive if it did not go too deep. Anything over my head was gone and if I had to throw somebody out, they were as good as safe.  As I grew older, I became the designated catcher, stuck behind the plate where I could do less damage then in the field.

They built the school I attended, P.S. 28, in the late eighteen hundreds and for all its history, it lacked decent sport facilities. We played on the cracked grey concrete of the schoolyard. Lunchtimes, when the weather appeared decent, a quick punch ball game was organized.  There were three bases and a home plate painted on the ground. Because of abbreviated game times we played two outs and the side was retired. The game lasted until the bell rang and then we formed our lines and marched back to class.

This particular day, in the spring of 1951, I guess I was eleven and in the sixth grade, the teams came up uneven and they needed me to play. I agreed, but not without that familiar tightening in my chest and the nauseating fear of embarrassment.

There is no pitcher in schoolyard punchball. You bounce the “Spaldeen,” a Bronx colloquialism, in front of you and you get two swipes with a clenched fist. It was even possible to strike yourself out. Something, to my shame, I often experienced.

My first swing swished, hit nothing but air and I could feel the contempt rolling in from deep in the field. Shaking, I dropped the ball once again and watched as it bounced and angled away from me. I scuttled over, picked up the sphere, drew in my stomach, bit my tongue and bounced again.

Whap! My knuckles connected perfectly. Even I knew it to be a solid hit. The ball sailed out, out, over the opposing team, and above the six-foot blue painted line on the school wall. Then it collided with the bricks and bounced harmlessly away from the nearest fielder.

A “Homerun,” the first of my life, and I slowly trod the bases basking in my glory, my face locked in a silly grin while both my friends and foes stared unbelievingly.  Something happened that day that I didn’t realize until much later. In that brief moment, my brain somehow absorbed all the information necessary to hit the ball. Miracle of miracles, with that one swing I learned how to hit.

In the future, the Spaldeen and I would become one.

From that day on, I could not only hit the darn thing I could bang it out of the playground almost at will.

It did wonders for my damaged self-image. I still could not catch nor run, but they never chose me last again.

David Wainland

David@davidwainland.com