Our teacher handed back our stories today we had written for our big monthly writing assignment for April. The story I had written was called “Enroute to Ekoe”, and it was about a very large pretend island I made up that got captured by the Japanese before World War Two and became a military base for them during the war. It had five smaller “satellite” islands around it. My story was about the initial “campaign” to capture the small islands around the big island before we invaded it.
Even though I had to do it for school, I had actually liked doing it. Most of the OTHER assignments I had to do at home for school, I really didn’t like doing. If they were easy, they still took time that I would rather spend playing, with my friends, in the park, with David, or just by myself. And if they were hard, I’d just keep thinking I had to do it, but not doing it yet, until it got to be the last minute and I HAD to do it. I just HATED that feeling, like grownups, in this case my teacher, were in charge of my life.
Our teacher had pieces of different colored construction paper on the walls of our classroom, one for each one of us. Each one was divided up with sections for “English”, “Math”, “Science” and “Social Studies”, which was the word she used instead of “History”. She would put a gold star on it for each big assignment we turned in in each one of those areas. So for the English area, one star for each SRA reading program color level we completed, or each book we read and did a book report on. For Math, Science, Social Studies, one star for each chapter we finished in our textbook and passed the chapter test. But we could get DOUBLE stars if we read a book that was about math, science or social studies and did a book report on it, one in the English area and one for the other area.
So I liked reading books about all the wars, the Revolutionary War, the Civil War, World War One and World War Two. I’d heard about that new Vietnam War but I didn’t see any books on that one. I tried to pick books, either from our school library or the regular library, that weren’t as long, so I could do more book reports and get more stars, for both English AND Social Studies. I had a LOT in both areas, almost as many as Abby, but Beth Westman had the most. But I at least had the most of all the boys in my class. Billy said I was “trying too hard to be the teacher’s pet”. His piece of paper didn’t have that many stars.
Just as I used to like to pretend play the war stuff with my soldiers, or with my friends in the park at my old house, I thought it would be neat to write about pretend war stuff now, since I could give my teacher what I wrote and she’d give me stars for it. I could get up to three stars for a made up story, depending on how long it was. Mike, Andy and Arthur didn’t really like playing war stuff, but my old friends Paul and Jake did, and also my new younger friend Vincent, who lived on my street.
So I thought up my own story about the war in the Pacific against the Japanese called “Enroute to Ekoe”, about this really big pretend island in the Coral Sea, “Ekoe”, with five smaller islands around it. Chapter one was called “Ekoe in the 1930s”, and I told about how it had regular “Ekonian” people living on it, but not many other people knew about it until 4,200 Japanese marines invaded it in 1933. The Ekonian’s fought bravely against them, but the Japanese with all their rifles and cannons were too much for them, and defeated the inhabitants at a battle along the Agagi river in the western part of the island. Soon it became a major Japanese base.
My first chapter continued with the discovery of iron and petroleum on the island in 1937, along with building a dam on the Agagi river for generating electricity to run factories that built lots of ocean liners and transports to bring people and equipment to this vast island.
I even made a map showing the big main island, plus the five smaller “satellite” islands around it, “Wiva”, “Yayi”, “Rance”, “Sari”, and “Soui". I did one of those maps like I’d seen in our big “Atlas” book that shows you all the “terrain”, like mountains, rivers and swamps, but also where the various “resources” were, the iron, petroleum, coconut groves and “heavy vegetation”. Mom even helped me do one of those “scale” bars, that showed you how far 50, 100, 150 and 200 miles were, and that “½ inch = 50 miles”.
Soon most of the satellite islands around the big island were inhabited by Ekonians too. I described the size and shape of each island, and what kind of vegetation it had. Yahi island, was called Ekoe’s “grain yard”, because most of the food for Ekoe was grown there. The rest of the food came from Wiva island, which had rice paddies and coconut trees. All of the Rance island was like a giant seaweed farm, because every time a big storm came the island was covered by waves, so no one could live there. The smallest island, Soui, was just a big hunk of rock, with lots of underground caves, which were storage areas for Ekoe’s food.
In chapter two, when Pearl Harbor was attacked, and America went to war with Japan, all the population of Ekoe were evacuated and 20,000 Japanese soldiers came. The ocean liners and transports that Ekoe had made were converted into warships, including one light aircraft carrier. The preparations for war were tremendous, including gun emplacements on the beaches and a network of pillboxes blasted away out of the mountain rock, turning Ekoe into a huge fortress. A large airfield was built on the island surrounded by batteries of anti-aircraft guns. All the small islands around Ekoe were given troops and gun emplacements to defend them too.
In chapter three, “Approach to Ekoe”, on February 7, 1943 an American force based in the Solomon Islands headed for Ekoe, consisting of the carrier Saratoga, nine cruisers, fifteen destroyers and twenty-three transports, loaded with 25,000 marines and 1,000 tons of equipment. The Americans planned to attack Wiva island first, but soon a “Tokyo Express”, a Japanese fleet, arrived and there was a major sea battle with lots of ships sunk before the Japanese fleet retreated. Then all the dive bombers on the Saratoga bombed the island and pretty much destroyed it, so only a company of soldiers was sent ashore to defeat the few remaining Japanese soldiers. The American fleet headed for its next target, Yayi, which they knew would require more of a full scale invasion.
In chapter four, “Offensive Against Yayi”, General David Zale was put in charge of 10,000 marines that landed in “LCI”s (Landing Craft Infantry). I used my brother’s name as the general. The “Leathernecks”, which is the nickname for marines, initially met little resistance and were lulled to daydreaming by sunny skies, drooping palms and warm breezes. But as the Japanese mortar fire began to zero in on them they finally awakened. Most of the Marines would never go back to their dreams of paradise because the fighting would stay rough the rest of the way, particularly in the mountains where the main Japanese resistance was dug in. The Marines reorganized in the foothills and began to plan for the assault of the mountain stronghold.
In chapter five, “Pulverizing the Peaks”, the marines under General Zale attacked the Japanese mountain stronghold. They used a special weapon called a “Tom Thumb”, which was a skinny and short high explosive bomb that could be pushed through a viewing slit in a pillbox. One marine, getting as much cover fire as possible from his buddies, would sneak up on the pillbox, slide the Tom Thumb through the slit and then run as far away as possible before there was a big boom and it was done. After doing this, one veteran leatherneck said, “And for this I quit school!”, and the marines stayed lighthearted all through the battle.
But the strongest pillboxes in the biggest mountains fought back harder firing lots of artillery at the marines, pinning them down for three days until April 2, when the firing let up for some reason that they didn’ know. These pillboxes were surrounded by barbed wire so they would be hard for soldiers with Tom Thumbs to blow up. But the marines brought up their artillery and “pulverized” the peaks”, a phrase invented by the marines when they “reduced the mountains to slopes”. And after that it was still not easy going, but soon the Japanese forces were destroyed and Yayi was gained, with heavy casualties on both sides.
The sixth chapter was called “Soui: Last Step to Ekoe”. The marines swung back to the island of Soui, their last attack before Ekoe. The landing force wasn’t much, only 2,000 men, but it was very important that they took the supply bins in the island’s caves. The landing was unopposed but soon the marines encountered pillboxes that had to be destroyed with either Tom Thumbs or tanks. Soon everything had been taken except for a rocky plateau that was strung with pillboxes bristling with machine guns and 20 millimeter cannons, a tough nut to crack. But the marines found a weak spot in the rocks where they were able to use TNT to blow a hole and get into the caves below that way, and used more TNT to destroy all the supply bins there. Now they were ready to attack Ekoe itself!
I had written twenty-five pages, the longest story I had ever written, but I had only gotten through the first part of the story. So since I had to turn it in, on the cover and the title page I had put “1st Phase”, and drew two lines under it so you’d know it wasn’t the whole story but just the first part.
When our teacher handed my story back to me, she had attached a small piece of paper to it with a paperclip where she wrote in red pencil, “Wow! What an extensive story, and you even did a cover, title page, table of contents, and broke it up into chapters. Great work!” She gave me a “4/3”, which meant even though she only planned to give at most three stars for this assignment, she was going to give me four stars because I wrote so much. That was the part I liked the most. Abby and Beth, who sat next to me on either side, saw my score and made that clicking noise, because they had only got “3/3" on their stories. I was pretty sure mine was the only one that got four stars in the whole class, because Andy and Billy just got “2/3”.
But now our May assignment was to write a “State report”. We had to write about its history, geography, the people that lived there, and what kind of agriculture and industry there was. After we wrote it, we also had to get up and “teach” the rest of the class about our state. We could pick any state we wanted to do, but we couldn’t do Michigan, and we couldn’t do a state that someone else was already doing. So if we had a special state we wanted to do we should tell our teacher quickly before someone else did. Like with all big assignments, she gave us all a note to give to our moms and dads telling them about the assignment so they could help us figure out what state to do.
At dinnertime that night when I showed mom and dad the note, they both thought I should do my report on New York, because that was where they both lived before they came to Michigan, and the only other state I had visited. They told me AGAIN the story about how they first met each other, when mom was an “ameteur” championship tennis player and dad was a sports reporter for the local newspaper “covering” the IBM championships she played in. “IBM” was the name of the big company that her dad, my grandfather, worked for. They made typewriters, computers, and other stuff like that.
I didn’t really want to DO a state report, but I didn’t tell mom and dad that. I just wanted to write the “2nd phase” of my Ekoe story, where the Americans invaded the main island. But I did want to at least get those three stars that our teacher would give us if we did a good state report, and keep her thinking I was a really good student. So I told my teacher I wanted to do New York, and since no one else was doing it, she wrote it down in her book that I was.
***
It was Friday night, two weeks later. Our teacher had reminded us at the end of our school today that our state report was due on Monday. After dinner I was sitting at the desk in the office looking at my notes on the report, hoping that I had more stuff written than I actually had. I had the CKLW radio station on. They played a Petula Clark song I had heard so many times already. She sounded like an older girl, like the Motown groups, and not a grownup…
Every day when the work is behind you
And the shop and the store put the lock on the door
Just get away where your worries won't find you
If you like, well, I'll tell you more
The music in the song just kept getting happier and happier as she sang a second verse…
Don't let the day get the better of you
When the evening comes, there's so much to do!
You'd better put on your best and wear a smile
Come along with me a while
It was one of those songs, like her other song “Downtown”, where she wasn’t talking about stuff that happened to her or her boyfriend, but trying to give you her good ideas and “advice”. And then the music kind of exploded as she sang the chorus part…
'Cause I tell you
I know a place
Where the music is fine and the lights are always low!
I know a place
Where we can go
Hearing the chorus music with her words always made me feel happy. If the grownups were telling you to do stuff you didn’t want to do, like my teacher and this state report, she had a way to be happy instead.
At the door there's a man who will greet you
Then you go downstairs to some tables and chairs
Soon, I'm sure, you'll be tapping your feet
Because the beat is the greatest there
All around there are girls and boys
It's a swingin' place
A cellar full of noise!
It's got an atmosphere of its own somehow
You gotta come along right now!
It sounded like one of those “discotheque” places where older kids went to dance to our music without the grownups being around, except maybe that Dick Clark guy on TV, who seemed like a grownup but liked our music anyway. I’d never been to a place like THAT, I probably wasn’t old enough yet, but I did like listening to music with my friends when no grownups were around.
'Cause I tell you
I know a place
Where the music is fine and the lights are always low!
I know a place
Where we can go
I was surprised to see dad standing at the door to the office looking in at me.
“Coop, I should know this by now”, he said, “But tell me again who’s that woman singing.”
“Petula Clark”, I said.
“Right”, he said, nodding slowly, “She’s got a voice like a bell and such good diction, you can understand every word she sings.”
He saw my school notebook open on the table and asked, “So how’s your state report coming?”
It wasn’t coming very well, so I didn’t know what to tell him. Our teacher had given us time in the library each day to read books about our state, but I usually sat with Billy, Gil and Teddy or with Andy, and talked about other stuff like sports or music. I had written down some notes and had actually tried to write the history part.
“I don’t know”, I said. I really did know, but I didn’t want to tell him it was going badly. I wanted to be able to do this kind of report, no problem, without any help from mom and dad.
“When’s it due?” he asked.
“I don’t know”, I said again, which wasn’t really true, “Pretty soon!”
“Well what do you have so far?”, he asked, “Have you written anything? Do you have any notes?” Dad did lots of writing, so he knew all that stuff about how you wrote stuff, and he was always taking notes. I knew it too, at least our teacher had shown us how you’re supposed to read stuff and take notes. I had tried to do that when the girls in our class were in gym class so the boys got to go to the library. But it was more interesting talking to my friends about sports, like how the Tigers were doing, or with Arthur, Andy and Mike about whether the Kinks were better than the Beatles.
I wasn’t sure what to do. I didn’t like talking to mom and dad about my school work. I wanted them to think I could take care of it all by myself with no help from them so they’d always think I was a really good student and wouldn’t worry about me or try to tell me how to do stuff by making “suggestions”. But though I’d gotten through most of the year being able to do everything our teacher wanted us to do, even though a lot of it was kind of boring, this state report was SO boring, and I was getting the feeling that I wasn’t going to do it very well. But I couldn’t let that happen because I wanted my teacher and all the other kids in the class to think I was super good at school. That’s the kind of a person I wanted them, and mom and dad, to think I was. That’s the kind of person I wanted to be. But it was so damn BORING writing that state report!
If I told dad I could take care of it all by myself and I didn’t need his help, he would think I was pretty neat, but then I would have to do SO MUCH BORING WORK over the weekend before Monday. Or else I’d just write and turn in something really bad and he and mom would figure out that I COULDN’T do everything by myself, and then maybe they’d start trying to be in charge of me.
I had heard dad say to mom and some of the other guys he worked with on the phone stuff about “notes” and “rough drafts”, I tried talking like that.
“Yeah well”, I said, wrinkling my nose and looking up at the ceiling, “I’ve got a really rough draft of the history part and some notes about the geography, the people who live there and the industry and agriculture stuff. It’s not very good yet.” That sounded kind of like what I’d heard HIM say.
“Okay”, he said, nodding his head and putting a smile on his face, “That’s often the starting place. It all starts bad and you incrementally make it better. That’s the writing process, realistically.” I nodded, like I was thinking about what he said.
“If you want to show me what you’ve got so far”, he said, his eyes twinkling like he really wanted to help me, “I can maybe type stuff up for you.”
“It’s not very good yet”, I said again, I didn’t want him to look at my stuff and think I was really bad at doing this kind of writing.
He nodded again and even laughed a little through his nose. “Don’t worry”, he said, “I get it. I’ve been there.” It sounded like he REALLY wanted me to show him, and whatever I showed him, he wouldn’t think it was really bad. So I figured I could give him what I had and I’d be safe, and he’d maybe help me even.
I gave him my notebook with what I had written about New York history and my notes about the other New York stuff. “It’s not very good”, I said again.
“Got it”, he said, nodding really fast and taking my notebook, “Let me see what I can do.” And his eyes twinkled again.
David came into the office. “The Flintstones are going to be on”, he said. We always watched the show on Friday nights, he and I. I didn’t know what to do.
“Listen Coop”, dad said, “You and David go ahead and watch your show. I’ll take a crack at what you’ve got so far while you’re watching.” I nodded, and got out of the wood office chair that mom had now painted green. Our little TV was on the Herman Miller chest on the other side of the room.
Mom had recently moved the Herman Miller chest up here because she said it didn’t fit with all the other furniture down in the living room. I remember her saying, “Though it matches the wire Bertola chairs around the dining table, it just doesn't fit with all the wood furniture around it. Plus we need a chest of drawers up in the office.”
David turned on the TV and changed it to channel seven. He and I sat on the floor across the room from the TV as dad sat in the wood office chair, picked up the typewriter from the corner of the desk and set it right in front of him and then opened my notebook and put it on the left side of the typewriter and leaned his head down to look at it closely.
There was one of those Roy O’Brien commercials I’d been seeing on TV since we first got and watched this TV seven years ago…
Stay on the right track
To Nine Mile and Mack
And get the best deal in town
‘Cause Roy O’brien, has the best deal around
Dad sang the words of the last line of the chorus in harmony as he kept looking at my notes. Finally the show started as dad started banging his two fingers on the typewriter.
Wilma Flintstone: (Standing and looking out the circular stone window of their house) Goodness it’s dark out. (Looking at the watch on her wrist) Those two have been gone almost half an hour!
Betty Rubble: (Sitting in a chair across the room reading a book) Well you know Fred and Barney. They’re probably at the bowling alley.
(The scene changes to a giant flying dinosaur flying through the night sky with a stone enclosure on its back with round windows. We zoom in to see the interior of the stone age airplane, being piloted by two obvious bad guys, with Barney and Fred back behind them.)
Barney Rubble: (In a seat but tied up) Hey Fred, I’m really disappointed. I thought they served champagne on these flights.
Fred Flintstone: (Also tied up in a seat behind Barney and angry) Barney! How can you joke at a time like this? We’ve been dive bombed, beaten up, kidnapped, and right now we’re over the middle of some ocean and never see our loved ones again!
Barney: You know Fred, that’s your trouble, you always look at the dark side of things.
Fred: (Still angry) Rubble, you’re a numbskull!
(We see the pilot and copilot again. The copilot talks on a microphone that looks like a horn from a dinosaur.)
Copilot: Red Herring to control tower. Red Herring to come in for a landing.
(We see the flying dinosaur airplane over a volcano in the middle of the ocean with smoke coming out of it.)
Fred: (Looking out the window, scared) Landing where? All I can see is that smoldering volcano!
(We see the top of the volcano open up like it’s a lid on a hinge.)
Barney: (Looking out the window) Look at that Fred. The volcano is flipping its lid!
(The scene changes to Fred running his dinosaur earthmover in the query as the opening Flintstones theme song begins.)
Flintstones
Meet the Flintstones
They’re the modern stone age family…
All the regular TV shows were doing reruns now. I remembered this episode from last fall. It was a “takeoff” on James Bond, that’s the word that mom and dad used, when someone did a silly version of a real or pretend person or story.
To impress David and dad with how smart I was I said, “Oh yeah, I remember this one. It’s a takeoff on James Bond.” Dad smiled and nodded as he continued to type with his two fingers.
“You’re learning the lingo, Coop”, he said, whacking the silver bar coming out the left side of the typewriter to go to the next line for more typing. David wrinkled his nose and looked at me and dad.
“Takeoff?” David asked, “Lingo? Isn’t James Bond that secret agent guy in that movie?”
“Goldfinger”, I said. I’d seen the movie last December with Billy, Gil and Teddy during Christmas break from school. It was so neat, we just stayed in the State Theater after it ended and just watched it again. It was fun because we sat up in the front row so everything looked giant and there was hardly anyone else there. I’d also seen James Bond books at the Blue Front. “There’re books about him too”, I said.
“Ian Fleming”, dad said, still typing, “Wrote a whole series of James Bond stories. Pulp fiction really, like Tom Swift but for grownups.” He laughed through his nose and said, “I was tempted to read one to you guys at bedtime, but your mom said there had to be better literature to expose you to.” That was interesting. Something dad wanted to read to us but mom didn’t want him to. I’d have to check out those books the next time I went to the Blue Front.
Then dad stopped typing and turned around in the office chair and leaned towards me. “Can you tell David what ‘takeoff’ means? Besides what airplanes do when they go down the runway and go up into the sky?”
“It’s when you do a silly version of something”, I said, though I wasn’t sure whether to say it to David or to dad. If I said it to David, that would feel like dad was in charge of me and telling me what to do, or if I said it to dad it would be like he was my teacher at school. So I just said it, without looking at either of them.
“That’s right”, dad said, “They also call it a ‘parody’. And ‘lingo’ is all the special words you use in a particular field of study, like language in this case.” He shook his head and laughed through his nose. “So language study lingo includes the WORD ‘lingo’”, he said, “How about that?” Both David and I looked at him like we couldn’t figure out what he was talking about or why he thought it was funny.
He laughed again through his nose, turned back to the typewriter to start typing again and said, “Nevermind. Maybe someday you’ll figure out why that might be funny.” Then before he started to type he looked at me and asked, “So when is this report due?”
I didn’t want him to know that it was due Monday and I was in trouble getting it finished, so I said, “Soon.”
“Like Monday?” he asked, “That soon?” His eyes caught mine and though I didn’t want to tell him the truth, to know I messed up, but I didn’t want to make up a lie either, that might make mom and dad want to be in charge of me more. I didn’t know what to do and I felt my head start nodding just a little bit and slowly.
“Ah, okay”, he said quietly, and went back to typing.
***
The next day, Saturday, dad spent the morning at his office at Eastern. I rode my bike to practice for my new eleven-year-old Little League team. We practiced at “Winchell Park”, which was across Stadium from Tappan, the junior high I was going to go to after sixth grade. If I’d stayed living at my old house, I would have gone to Slauson after sixth grade at Bach.
We didn’t have regular baseball team names like the “Orioles”, that we had for nine- and ten-year-old league. Teams had the name of a business in Ann Arbor that “sponsored” them, which meant giving the money to pay for our uniforms, and the bats, balls, and catcher’s stuff that our coach had. So our team was called “Huron Valley Bank”, which was on the back of our team shirts.
And because we were in the eleven-year-old league now, we got uniforms like the real baseball players, with a shirt that buttoned up, instead of just a colored t-shirt, and real baseball pants and those special socks that went over your regular socks and went up your leg with stripes and were the same color as your hat. Our team's color was green, which was my favorite color, so that was really neat. Or really “cool”, as Stuart would say.
It was Stuart and Mike, who were in the other fifth grade class at my school, that got me to be on this team. It wasn’t even the Burns Park team. Most of the boys on this team I didn’t know because they went to Patengill. Most of the other boys in my grade at Burns Park, including Andy, Billy, Gil, Teddy, Frankie, Grant, Todd, and Cal, played on the “Michigan Tube Benders” team, which practiced just across the street from my house in the park.
Mike and Stuart had told me about how good their team was, but how they didn’t have a good first baseman. They’d played with me in pickup games in the park and knew I was left handed, so they thought I’d be perfect. Most kids were right handed, but if you were left handed like me, it was better for playing first base, but worse for playing second, shortstop, third or catcher. So since I liked Mike so much, I decided to be on their Huron Valley Bank team instead of the Michigan Tube Benders team most of the kids I knew were on.
Today was our third practice, and I kind of liked that all the kids on the team that didn’t know me were happy that Mike and Stuart had “recruited” me to be on their team and make it even better than it already was. I could play first base really good, and also hit really good. That is, except when Mike was pitching, but no one could hit him. I figured that he was one of the main reasons this team was so good.
When I got home from practice, dad was home from his work. He was out in the driveway painting the table mom had bought at a garage sale. They had both been “sanding” it all week, which I guess was really hard and made your hands hurt. Mom said because it had a “wicker trim” around the edge of the table top and “wicker work” below the top, she was afraid to put strypeeze on it and refinish it with Linseed Oil. So instead they had “sanded it down” and now dad was painting it with that “milk paint” mom was painting everything with now. She said it gave the wood an “eggshell finish with a beautiful soft patina”. It was green paint so I liked it too, better than the blue, pink or yellow milk paint.
Mom was on the other side of the driveway pruning the hedge. David wasn’t around, so I figured he was in the park or maybe over at Eddie’s house. Both mom and dad stopped what they were doing and smiled at me. They still had a lot of arguments, so it was good to see them both smiling at the same time, but it didn’t last long.
“Hey Eric”, she said, still sitting in the grass on the other side of the hedge, “Be extra careful applying the milk paint to the wicker work. We want to spread it on in very thin layers, so we don’t lose any of that nice three-dimensional detail in the wicker bands.”
“Jesus Liz”, he said, sounding a little mad, “I know how to paint, and this is not the first piece of wicker furniture I’ve done. If you weren’t over there behind the damn bushes you’d see that I’m already doing it exactly like you say!”
“Okay, okay”, she said, waving her hands in the air, “Just wanted to be sure. It’s such a unique piece of furniture with all that wickerwork.”
“It is that”, he said, sounding a little bit less mad, then looking at me and smiling.
“Hey Cloob”, he said, “How was practice with your new team?”
“Good”, I said, nodding. I could tell he wanted me to tell him more about it, but I didn’t like telling mom and dad what I was doing unless there was a special reason to do it, like I needed their help with something. But this wasn’t one of those times, and I could tell that he was a little bit sad that I didn’t.
“I typed up your notes for your State Report”, he said, “They’re up on the desk in the office. I went to the library at Eastern and filled in a few of the details I couldn’t find in your notes on geography, population, agriculture and industry.”
He looked at me a little worried and said, “I hope that’s okay.” I nodded, and he stopped worrying and smiled again. He said, “I think it’s turning into a good solid report.”
I didn’t think it was such a good report when I looked at my notes yesterday. I figured he must have added some more stuff and did a lot of the writing part too. I also figured that maybe I COULD tell him about my practice after all, considering.
“So I’m definitely the starting first baseman for the team”, I said, making him smile and his eyes twinkle, “We’re really good. Mike’s one of our pitchers, and he’s like incredibly hard to hit.”
“Your friend Mike?” he asked, “The tall guy that came to your party?” I nodded. Then he nodded and his eyes twinkled again.
“I bet he is”, dad said, laughing through his nose, “Like Koufax on the Dodgers, who’s six foot two. I bet Mike’ll be taller than that when he gets his full height.”
“And my school friend Stuart is on the team too”, I said, “He plays centerfield but he’s good too. Most kids that play outfield in Little League aren’t as good.”
“That figures”, dad said, nodding slowly, “You put your most talented players in the infield where most of the action is. In the pros, often a team’s best hitters are outfielders because the infield positions require more specialized skill, so you often sacrifice some on hitting so you get players who can play the infield positions well.” I nodded. That made sense.
“So go ahead and look at what I typed up”, he said, starting to paint again, “And let me know if there’s anything else I can help you with. I’m sure it’s been a long school year and you’re eager to be done.” I nodded. I was. I figured this state report was the last really big hard thing.
I ran up the steps of the porch and into the house, then up the stairs to the office. Sheets of paper with typing on them sat in a little pile next to my notebook on the desk, which was also painted green with that milk paint stuff. There were six sheets of paper with typing on them. The first one was a cover page that said in big typed letters…
New York State - “Finest of the 49”
(Since nothing’s better than Michigan)
Written by: Cooper Zale
Typed by: Eric Zale
Date: May 23, 1965
The history part that I had written myself was typed on the next two pages, with the word “HISTORY” in all capital letters at the top of the first page. It looked so much better typed, though it only took one and a half pages instead of four in my notebook. I compared it to what I had written and I could tell that he’d changed some sentences and spelled some words differently than I had.
Then there was a page that said “GEOGRAPHY” at the top, where he had turned all my notes into sentences and paragraphs and had added paragraphs below about the lakes and the weather that I hadn’t written any notes on. After that a page that said “POPULATION” at the top, followed by a page that said “AGRICULTURE & INDUSTRY”, with paragraphs on each page that he must have written himself because I hadn’t got any notes yet on THAT stuff! And the stuff he wrote didn’t use any of those grownup words that I didn’t even know. It looked like something I could have written myself.
I couldn’t believe that all this was done! I had been so worried that what I finally wrote for my teacher, she would say it wasn’t very good and she’d be disappointed in me, that I wasn’t as good a student as I wanted her to think I was. But now, though dad had done a lot of it himself, I didn’t have to worry about it anymore. I figured other kids in class probably had their moms and dads help them too.
Had I cheated? Probably. But I never wanted to do this assignment anyway. School, I figured, was about convincing grownups, your mom and day and your teachers, that you learned all the stuff that you were supposed to learn and they didn’t have to worry about you. I guess I had convinced dad, so he had helped me convince my teacher. After a long year of school it was like the best present ever!
