Puddle of Mud

Puddle of Mud

As with most holidays, we find ourselves going back to places of nostalgia.  A place, where we reminisce of a simpler time in our lives.  Mother’s Day…and a Happy Mother’s Day to those reading…is one of those times.  I found myself passing through the old neighborhood.  Gone are the many trees, the older houses and the kids playing on the street corners.  What remains are the street corners themselves, and I could visualize my friends and I there…as if we never left.

I was 10…give or take a summer or two.  “I’ll call for you” was the rally cry of the day.  Once gathered, all we needed was a ball…and maybe a broomstick handle doubling as a bat.  My poor grandfather…he had a garage full of broom heads with no matching shafts.  He would mumble something in Hungarian at me, but he knew a simple sacrifice would keep a cadre of kids occupied, and off his property, all day.

Our games were never ending, unless our one and only ball would go astray.  As soon as it would veer off course, “CHIPS” would be shouted.  This one word call meant the kid who had hit it, had to pay for it, if it were lost for good.  The first choice would be to retrieve it.  More often than not, this break in the game became part of the game.  Our blacktop turf was teeming with traps…roofs and gutters, yards with dogs and the dreaded nemesis…the sewer.  Sewers were the black hole.  Covered by low-lying grates, they lay in wait on each cornered curb, hoping a hit would head their way.  They drew in a Pinky like it was needed for its very survival.  Our ball would eventually find our foe.  But we were resourceful rug rats and we would always find something to pry open the manhole covers.  Ball retrieved…game on!

Our corners’ would vary depending on the maze of parked cars.  One day we ventured to a corner I had never played on.  Some of the older boys searched out this site.  No cars…and only a 10ft x 10ft fenced off square that protected a concrete cavern.  We used one side of the fence to pitch against and we hit away from it.   It worked well until I fouled off a pitch that went up...and behind…and down…about 15 feet down.  The ball found a resting place at the bottom.  Someone yelled out CHIPS…yeah, yeah…I know.  I had never come across anything like this cement crater…but it was either buy a new ball, or take on the untamed unknown.  I was able to shimmy through the chained gate…no beer belly back then!  There was a metal ladder descending down the hole.  How convenient…this was going to be an easy score…no CHIPS for me!  I arrived at the dry end of the bottom.  I spotted the ball in the corner of a puddle and headed over.  My plan was simple, walk through the water, grab the ball, scurry back up the ladder and on with the game.  Only one thing…that was NO puddle.  As my first step hit the water, it was like I fell through a trap door.  I was immersed in water…and waste.  I was in over my head…literally!  I can’t recall how long I was submerged…wet sneakers have an anchoring effect on a kid.  I felt like I sprung back out as quickly as I went in…but I knew that was not the case.  Seems everyone knew it was NOT a puddle, but me.  I pulled myself out of this sarcophagus of stench.  I could hear nasally laughter as they held their noses.  “What where you thinking?” they said…”didn’t you know that was a sewer.”  Apparently not…

I was wet, I was cold, I was covered from head to toe…but far worse…I stunk!  I headed home…and my newly attached coating began to harden like Magic Shell.  I walked through the front door and Mom was just coming out of the kitchen.  “WHOA…don’t come in here with all that mud on you young man! “. She approached to shoo me back outside where I came from…when it hit her.  “What’s that smell!?  Did you fall into a sewer!?”  Well, yes, as a matter of fact…I did.  Mothers seem to have to put up with a lot when they have boys…but I would think this was on the far end of the spectrum.

The water from backyard hose never felt as cold as it did that day.  I would never again see the clothes I was wearing.

I did however get the ball back…