Ghost men of our childhood

Lately, as I watch the buses load and unload their precious cargo, I have begun to reminisce about the school days of my youth. Summers seemed to last longer back then than they do now, but not nearly long enough. I love to relive those days, but only in my mind. Lord knows I don’t want to go through it again. However, there is one thing I miss that I am reminded of every time I watch the Little League games on TV. I remember growing up in the backyards of my neighborhood playing baseball with the limited number of players we could scrounge up. Sometimes we would have a dozen kids out there, while other times left us with maybe four. The fewer players we had the more I enjoyed it. When the roster was less than full you had to rely on a “ghost-man.” These ghosts took your place on the base paths so you could bat again. The truly imaginative of us would try to even get the ghost man to steal a base or take two bases on a single. Ghost men were the perfect teammates. They never argued balls and strikes. They never tried to take you out on a play at the plate. They never took their ball and went home. They never got accused of being on the juice. All they did was wait patiently to be called into action. I miss my ghost men. I often wonder what they may be doing now. Are they like the Lost Boys? Do they never grow up? They couldn’t play multiple sports. Only baseball. Backyard football used an all-time quarterback when we had an odd number of players. Ghost men as receivers never really caught on. There were no ghost men in pick-up basketball games sitting on the side of the court waiting for “next”. And ghost men didn’t play soccer when I was a kid, because if you had a ball you could kick, you played kickball. What if those ghost runners DID grow up with us? What if they could take their place in the corporate world? They could take the blame for an unfinished project. They could be your wingman whenever you went to talk to that “hot chick.” They could be the one you could blame when your wife wants to know why you came home from your trip to the store with your daughter missing one shoe and teething on an unopened pack of baseball cards. Yes, I miss my ghost-men. But sometimes, when the sun is low in the sky and the wind is blowing just right, I can sit in my backyard and, if I turn my head just right, I can hear the ghost-men in the field behind my house saying, “Play Ball!”

Childhood Memories

Life in 1977 on Sunset Drive was everything this boy could hope for, and I could not have experienced it in a better neighborhood. Oh the stories that street could tell.

On Sunset Drive the light posts still bear the marks of Frisbees flung in countless games of disc golf.

The yards were so spacious then, allowing us to throw 30-yard bombs from the Tatums' driveway end zone to the Hewitts'.

Neighboring houses would quake in fear that a coverless baseball wrapped in black electrical tape would find itself resting among the shards of glass on the living room floor. And the Christmas footballs had a life expectancy of about two days around the Galloways' yucca bushes.

After a hot morning playing ball we would all gather at my friend Les' house in the hopes that his mother would take us to West Hills Country Club so we could go swimming.

Sunset Drive had enough boys on it to field our own football teams so our own Super Bowls were Sunset vs. the world.

While we won more than we lost, the record wasn't what counted. It was the tales we told later that would have had the Dallas Cowboys quaking in their boots.

The city seemed much safer then as we rode our bicycles everywhere in town. The trip to Cloverleaf Mall was a simple jaunt through the woods that today are decorated with the colors of the fashion season on the racks at Walmart.

If trees could talk the leaves would tell of prepubescent war heroes that would get shot, count to 30, and get back up to fight again. The bark would smell of gunpowder and the forest floor would be littered with rolls of expended caps.

Al, John, Les, Steve, Jay and the gang have all grown up and gone their separate ways. Our world has gotten bigger and the neighborhood houses and yards have gotten smaller over the last 30 years or so.

I witnessed that fact myself when I rode past my old house the other day. The trees now dwarf the houses and the houses themselves seem so much smaller than they were in the days of my youth.

But if you walk down the street today and listen carefully, you can probably still hear the screams of joy. If you climb into the trees of the vacant lot and look far enough you can probably still see the Frisbees making their way down the street. And somewhere among those sites and sounds you can imagine all of the things we left undone for the next generations.

I hope they have as much fun as we did.