"Alone Again, Naturally" - Submission #37

The summer after my freshman year offered me the solace of baseball. I loved baseball. It was my happy place. Many of my earliest memories of life included baseball. I spent countless hours throwing a rubber ball against a wall to field ground balls or tossing a ball as high as I could to see if I could track it down and catch it. I’d lay on my back in my bedroom and repeatedly toss a ball up with my right hand and catch it with my left. Often, I would just take a baseball bat and work on the mechanics of my swing. In my mind, each swing was preceded with the fantasy that I was up in a crucial situation in the World Series. And every swing represented me swatting the game winning hit… while my adoring fans roared.

.

I’d like to think that I was a pretty decent player. I pitched and played shortstop. Two coveted positions on the diamond.

There were two teams that represented Madrid for our age group of the Senior League in the region. My team was the Sox and our evil, cross-town rival was the Dodgers. It was actually a pretty fun competition and we were the top two teams in our league.

Lovell Gordon was our coach and his son, Terry (we called him ‘Bubbles’) was our catcher. Kevin Gibbons and I rotated on the mound.

We did well that year. I think we won the league. I had made the All-Star team the year before as one of the younger players in the league and so I had every confidence that I would make it again as one of the older ones. Plus, I had a good season.

Coach Gordon was assigned the task of picking two players to represent the Sox on the All-Star team. I was confident that Kevin and I would be chosen. I was half right. Kevin was chosen… deservedly so... and Bubbles was the second choice.

I was devastated.

I’m still bitter about that.

As it would turn out, I would never play organized baseball again.

I don’t remember a whole lot about my sophomore year of high school. I certainly never dreamed it would be my final school year in Madrid. But as it turned out… it was.

Most of that year was shrouded in loneliness, fear, uncertainty and emotional pain. I was just surviving… trying to make it through each day. My family situation and social life continued on its downward trajectory.

The only semi-bright spot was basketball season. Again… sports to the rescue.

I played on the JV team and started every game. We only had six players on the squad, so being a “starter” wasn’t all that impressive. But I do remember the six players… Don Friedmeyer, Kevin Gibbons, Rod Isolini, John Horton, Randy Norton and yours truly.

My singular highlight was scoring 21 points in our very first game. I was as hot as a pistol. I never scored in double figures again.

I have a number of odd, random memories from that basketball season. One of them was a game, in our home gym. We were locked in a heated battle with only a couple seconds left to go in regulation. The score was tied and Kevin Gibbons was at the free throw line. He had a chance to win it for us. I was at half court, bent over, hands on my knees… begging God to let us win the game. I despised the very thought of losing! I tried to make a deal with the

Almighty… “God, if you allow Kevin to make this free throw, I will quit smoking. Yes… I will quit smoking cigarettes and pot. I promise!”

Don’t judge. You’ve made similar “deals” with God, right?

Kevin sunk the free throw and we won. God held up His end of the bargain… but I didn’t. I broke my promise later that night… in my bedroom. A celebratory cigarette… in the dark… alone again, naturally.

Randy Norton threw a party for the team when the season ended. The party included the essential elements... booze and chicks.

Randy had one of those “cool dads” who left us alone to party with a “You boys behave!” admonition as he winked and drove away. Yeah right. We’ll “behave” alright.

That night quickly became somewhat of a blur for me as I became quite the mixologist. I combined various liquids as though I were playing with a chemistry set. They tasted horrible at first but it didn’t take long before the taste became a nonissue. My mantra became pour and consume.

Apparently there was another party, with similar refreshments being served across town because about an hour into our shindig, a couple guys delivered one of their partiers to Randy’s house. It was a girl named Lynnette, whose older sister was with us.

I think the guys that dropped her off… did so because they were scared. They had to carry her to the house. We were drunk but Lynnette was blackout drunk. She couldn’t talk. She couldn’t function. She was only 14.

I felt sorry for her. I sat on the floor by the couch where they laid her and tried to brush the hair away

from her face. Somebody had brought a bucket and set it down next to me. It was great timing because within seconds she began heaving. I grabbed the bucket with one hand and held her head up with the other as she heaved and vomited.

When she was through, I grabbed a box of tissues from the end table and began wiping around her mouth. She would occasionally open her eyes and then close them quickly as she tried to form words but her ability to speak coherently failed.

Eventually Lynnette passed out… completely.

Looking back, she really should have been taken to the hospital but we didn’t have common sense enough to make that judgment. I assume that she had never really drank before and didn’t know her limits. Painful lesson, I’m certain.

I thought about her the next day as I was working through my own hangover. I called her house to see how she was doing. She answered the phone. I had never really talked to her before and because she had zero recollection of the events from the previous night, she was awfully confused as to ‘why’ Bart Munson was calling her.

I explained… in detail. She was confused and embarrassed. I just laughed it off and told her that she had a great story to tell people in the years to come. I expressed my relief at how much better she sounded compared to the last time I’d seen her.

We ended up talking on the phone for a couple hours. So I called her again the next day and talked for a long time again.

After that, we became an item. She was the only girl that I ever gave my class ring to. She was the last girlfriend that I had in Iowa.

But what an odd start to that relationship.

The end of basketball marked the final stretch of the school year. Events would unfold that would push me to my limit and would be confronted with life changing... or ending... decisions.

"Up In Smoke" Submission #32

In the 1950’s, the term “stoned” was coined to describe somebody that was “under the influence.” Similar to “drunk” or “high.” In the late 1970’s, a derivative of that word, a noun, “Stoner,” entered the American vernacular and was used to describe, primarily, one who frequently smoked marijuana.

So, even though we weren’t actually using the term “stoner” in 1974, at Madrid High School… we had our “stoners” and everyone knew who they were. Steve “Hallsey” Hall, Brian “Huffy” Huffstutler, the Udorvich boys… and a number of others.

I can vividly remember many occasions passing one of these guys in the hallway or in class, usually before our first class of the day… and smelling the strong and distinct odor of pot. And you knew what they had been doing on the way to school or in their cars out in the school parking lot.

The smell stuck to their jackets, their clothes and their hair. Their half closed eyes and dazed smiles were further evidence of their impairment. I often thought that if I knew they were high, surely the teachers knew also. But they never said anything or did anything… at least not that I was aware of.

I didn’t hang out with this group much. I mean… we knew each other… heck, everyone knew everyone in Madrid. But other than being friends for a bit with Huffy in junior high… I wasn’t part of the “stoners.” But my curiosity about getting high was something that began to creep into my consciousness during my freshman year of high school.

I sat by Huffy in a couple of classes and I began to ask him about his experiences with weed. I asked him about the difference between getting high and being drunk. I asked him about cost and availability. I learned that it was packaged and sold in denominations such as a nickel bag, a dime bag or a lid.

He didn’t divulge who the dealers were but he assured me that he could procure it for me if I ever wanted some and could produce the cash. Huffy was as good as a used car salesman. His words intrigued me and his stories fascinated me. But I wasn’t ready to commit to an actual transaction.

One Friday night in January of 1974, the whole town (it seemed) had packed the gymnasium for a basketball game. The Madrid Tigers boys’ basketball team was state rated in the top 10 and the community was abuzz. We were not used to that level of success from any of our teams. It was an exciting time.

The team was led by a couple of seniors… Kevin Munson (my cousin) and Jim “Coba” Nicoletto, who had captured the imagination of high school sports fans across the state. Coba was a gifted, 4-sport athlete who nearly had his athletic career ended the year before in a freak accident during a baseball game.

Coba, who was the varsity catcher, threw off his mask as he prepared for a play at the plate. The runner barreled into him at full speed and his elbow crashed into the area around Coba’s right eye. Jim Nicoletto would never see out of that eye again.

The whole town lamented the loss of Madrid’s best high school athlete and wept over the fact that his senior year would be a total loss… athletically speaking. The problem was that someone forgot got to tell Coba that he was done participating in sports.

A couple games into the next football season, the townspeople were shocked to see Coba suited up for the game and standing on the sidelines. They were even more surprised to see him inserted into the running back position during Madrid’s first possession.

Coba finished that game with over 200 yards rushing and a legend was born.

Yes, he played basketball too, despite the fact that he was blind in his shooting eye and he competed at a level far beyond anyone’s expectations. His leadership and his skills on the court led the Tigers to a #8 rating in the state that season.

Now… what does this story about Jim Nicoletto have to do with the “stoners” and my first experience with pot? Other than the fact that I was watching him play on the night that I first smoked a reefer… absolutely nothing. It is just a great story and I wanted to tell it!

It was almost halftime. I didn’t see him at first but I suddenly smelled the aroma of cannabis.  Huffy had seemingly appeared out of nowhere and sat next to me. He had never sat next to me at a game in his life, so I knew something was up.

“You wanna take a ride?” He grinned broadly as I pondered his offer.

“Where to?” I stalled.

He repeated the question with exaggerated pauses between the words, as though he were speaking to someone from a foreign country. “Do… you… want… to… take… a… ride? Yes or no?”

I caught on to his cryptic utterings. At least I thought I did. This must have something to do with the topic that we had been discussing nonstop for a few weeks… his friend, Mary Jane.