Golf Ball, Eye Ball
I've been told I have a great memory, and to a large degree, I believe it. I see very vivid images and feel very powerful emotions left over from endless childhood, teenage, and adult memories, many of which still drive many of my peculiar habits, fears, likes, peeves, and so on. I can recite, often in great detail, things that happened in my life as far back as my Spy Era -- which, as I so often do in regular conversation, I must now make an abrupt 90-degree turn to explain.
I read Calvin & Hobbes comic strips and books religiously as a child, and likely into my early teen years. I could spend a lot of time talking about the brilliance of this particular corner of the comic strip world, but the internet is already full of information on, praise for, and philosophical waxing about young Calvin and his pet tiger, Hobbes. While a large part of author Bill Watterson's genius resided in his ability to bring legitimate philosophical ideas into such a medium, he was also wildly adept at exploring a little boy's mischievous, hilarious, and often insightful personality in a way that was not only universally enjoyable, but also uncannily relatable for so many readers (myself included). But for the sake of the story I came here to tell, I'll just post the following comic to explain what I mean by "my Spy Era."
Now, I know Calvin didn't specifically say he'd been a spy, but for whatever reason, my pre-teen brain interpreted the comic as a suggestion that this is exactly what he believed. And, for over two decades now, I've thought of that comic strip every time I've pondered the personal mystery of my life prior to my fifth birthday. This is what I jokingly refer to as my Spy Era. You may call it something different, or maybe you don't call it anything at all, but we all have that hazy or completely non-existent memory period prior to our fifth, or fourth, or third birthday -- when we might as well have all been spies.
Calvin-described brainwashing aside, I have retained a few memories from my Spy Era, but mostly the memories start a bit later on. From the day I met my long-time best friend, in kindergarten, and the exact words we exchanged, all the way up to excruciatingly detailed break-up memories from my twenties.
There is a minor flaw in some of the memories, though, in that I often struggle with chronology. Maybe chronology isn't the correct word there -- I know that I learned to tie my shoes and knock out multiplication tables well before the time a girlfriend dumped me while on a road trip, still six hours from home. What I struggle with is often which year, and at what exact age these things happened. Usually, with some effort and maybe a few timeline landmarks, I can piece together the more recent memories, but the year that Brian and Jason moved away -- though I have a vivid memory from the very day -- is hazy for me. And since they're the major supporting characters in this story, you might have predicted by now that I am uncertain as to when, exactly, the golf ball took flight.
I'm going to assume that this all happened prior to first grade, as I believe I have a picture of Jason and an elementary school friend with me at a surprise birthday party, so I'd at least been to kindergarten before they left. Brian and Jason were brothers who lived three houses down from me and my older brother, Steve. Brian is Steve's age, and Jason is mine, so it was a perfect arrangement for boys living just a few houses apart. I learned to ride my bike by pointing it at their house, taking a running start, and leaping onto the seat to briefly coast towards to their yard, where I would launch myself to the ground while the bike crashed any number of feet down the sidewalk -- I had not learned to brake just yet. Or turn. Or pedal. We played laser tag in their house, and they relayed to us the very early basics of their taekwondo class. Their endlessly friendly father, Jeff, coached one of my tee-ball teams, and their kind-hearted mother, Nancy, was kind of a back-up mom in my young mind. I remember the day they moved away, and, frankly, it sucked.
We'd do typical little boy things, like create hideouts in large bushes between houses, or under that large fir-like tree on the corner of Echo Circle and Pine Cone Drive, where we found a lighter presumably left behind by neighborhood Big Kids. We'd also do dumb little boy things, like dig a deep hole, crawl inside, and let the other kids ride bikes over the thin piece of plywood from which we'd fashioned a 'ceiling.' I vaguely remember playing baseball on the side yard of our house, and climbing atop the jungle gym in their backyard. These were halcyon days, people.
At the far reaches of the Dumb end of our Little Boys' Hijinks Spectrum was the day that we decided to hit golf balls around the front yard. I don't remember which club we were using, though I suspect it was an iron, if for no other reason than that it would be short enough for us to handle. Steve or Brian could probably fill in some gaps here. The front yard was not a golf course, though. No front yard in Northgate Estates was. They certainly weren't the exasperatingly small, token front yards of many zero-lot-line Texas neighborhoods, but they weren't large either. So how, exactly, we ever kept the golf ball in the yard remains a mystery to me. But Brian was old enough and smart enough to do the math -- a real golf club, a real golf ball, and a real small yard did not all go together.
"We'd better switch to the plastic balls. I'll go get them, hang on." And with that he tore off through the front door of the house to find the whiffle-like practice golf balls. Steve and I stood where the driveway met the grass on the right side of the yard. Jason, still armed with a real golf ball and real golf club, faced us from the left side. An innocent last swing was due, and Jason squared himself over the ball. Sensing danger, I moved to hide behind Steve, just in case. But with the patience of a five-year-old -- which is to say, no patience at all -- I couldn't help myself, and peered around Steve's left side to watch. One second too late, Brian reappeared at the front door, plastic golf balls in-hand. As I leaned over far enough to finally see Jason, he finished his swing. I made eye contact with the solid, dimpled ball as it surrendered to the apparent gravitational pull of my oversized head. With the brain-rattling crack of a scuffle-ending, right-handed haymaker, the golf ball introduced itself to my left cheekbone. It still comes to mind anytime I am hit in the cheek or nose by just about anything.
There is an instant of darkness, and then the sidewalk opening before me as I sprinted, bawling, past the small telephone company box between their yard and that of the Harwick's, the next closest house to my own. I remember realizing Steve was following close on my heels, trailing only because my pace was one motivated by fear and pain, as I flew between the green generator box and the concrete light post separating the Harwick's yard from the next, where Mr. and Mrs. Hess lived. Passing the Hess' place, I steered to the left, across our front yard and driveway, up the walkway approaching the porch, and through the screen door to Mom. Within seconds she had an ice pack pressed to my face, but to little avail, as the swelling finally reached critical mass, breaking the skin where the zygomatic and maxillary orbital bones meet (hat tip to wikipedia).
After a quick trip to the local urgent care facility, I returned home with no stitches, only butterfly tape holding my battered face together. As I recall, Mom pampered me accordingly, with Gatorade, an ice pack, and the entire couch. Jason and Nancy were at the door before long to check on my status.
But they did not arrive empty-handed, for with them arrived the Boulder Hill headquarters of M.A.S.K. I suspect very, very few of you know what M.A.S.K. was, and that's your loss, but I'll give you the basics. M.A.S.K. was an 80's cartoon mixing elements of G.I. Joe and Transformers to create a bad-guy-battling team of mask-wearing heroes riding in vehicles that mechanically shifted into other, more radical vehicles. One guy drove a sports car with Delorean-esque falcon-wing doors, allowing it to take flight for battle. Another had a sort of jeep-like vehicle that opened in the front to launch the equivalent of a laser-gun-toting wave runner. A personal favorite was the green guy riding a motorcycle that shifted into a single-occupant helicopter apparently rivaling a modern-day Apache. But M.A.S.K.'s Boulder Hill headquarters was the holy grail, and for a few fleeting moments, it was mine.
Instead I'm left wondering if I can get a decent tee time this Friday.
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