I Wish Don Joy Wore a Size 9 Shoe! by Bob Kaufman

Don Joy wore a size 16 shoe.

OK, so I’m exaggerating again, but he was a big guy compared to me, the skinny 98-pound weakling.  He lived a block up Gulling Street from my house.  We played together a lot when we were kids.  His dad, Irwin Joy, owned Joy Hardware.  The name is a bit misleading.  I only went there to see Don, buy model airplane kits, and later, 45 rpm records…but that’s another story.  Though it does explain why I still call a plumber if I have a leaky faucet today.

We spent many long hours on the kitchen table at the Joy’s home playing Stratego, Battleship and Risk.  In a personal message recently, Don expressed that one of his great pleasures today, fifty or so years later, is playing Strageto with his grandsons, allowing them to move their bombs and flag, leveling the playing field so they could beat him.  When they play Battleship, he lets one stand behind him telling the other where to hit next.  Believe me.  He NEVER extended such a courtesy to me in the 60’s!

We also spent many hours in the basement of the Joy house.  Actually, it wasn’t really a basement.  Their house was on the corner of Gulling and Magnolia where the ground dropped down 20 feet or so to the creek that ran in the gully behind both of our houses.  The front door to the Joy home was on Gulling street.  Go down the stairs in the kitchen, to the “basement”, hang a right and you could walk out the garage door onto Magnolia Street.  In the corner by the garage door Don and his older brother, Ken, had built a huge HO scale model railroad.  If we weren’t running the train, we could be found playing ping pong in the “dungeon” to the left at the bottom of the stairs.  Don was no more kind to me at ping pong than he was at Stratego and Risk.  I remember many summer nights playing Hide and Seek at the Joy house with all the other kids in the neighborhood.  We couldn’t lay on the lawn and do much stargazing, though, there were too many pine trees in the yard.  For stargazing we went to the Hein’s just a few houses away.

Don was a year ahead of me in school, and in my mind, many steps ahead of me on the smart scale.  Maybe he wasn’t a genius, but I leaned heavily on him in Math, Chemistry and Physics.  Don was a good friend and I have many fond memories of the times we shared in the little mountain railroad town of Portola, California in the 50’s and 60’s.  I JUST WISH HE HAD SMALLER FEET!

I had thought for many years that this event happened at the Loyalton football game in the fall of our 1964-65 school year when Don was a senior and I a junior. But checking the 1965 Pineneedle for that year, I see that the Portola Varsity defeated Loyalton 10 – 7 on our home field.  That certainly was the year Willie Ghidossi kicked a field goal in the closing minutes of the game to secure the victory.  Field goals simply weren’t part of the game in those days, so that was an amazing feat (pun intended).  But that, too, is another story.

Willie "The Toe" Ghidossi, Tigers No. 33 Kicks a field goal to defeat Loyalton 10-7, Fall 1964.

Portola at Loyalton, 1975
(Photo Credit: Lance Studebaker)

So, my Don Joy Big Foot story must have been in the Junior Varsity game in the “pasture” at Loyalton
in the fall of the 1962-63 school year.  The 1963 Pineneedle says Portola JV defeated Loyalton 39 – 0.  Why else would Coach Rowden put a 98-pound weakling freshman in at half back?  Our lead was secure enough that there was no risk of losing the game.  Coach called for a Quick 7 (or Quick 4 – after 50 years, I don’t remember which way the numbers went – from left to right or right to left).  I was the left halfback, Don was left tackle.  The Quick 7 was a simple halfback dive over the tackle spot.

I remember the ball punching my gut as I clutched it between my arms.  In that instant, the big guy opened a hole wide enough for a WP diesel engine and I could see daylight to Don’s left.  There was nothing in my view but open field to the goal line about 80 yards away.  In fact, I think there was nothing beyond the goal line for another half mile or so.  I could have run like Forrest Gump!

Coach Rowden

We lost our next two games to Greenville and Herlong and narrowly defeated Chester for the season finale.  I am certain that that one moment in Loyalton was the only time my number was called to carry the ball that year.  As my glorious 80-yard run to pay dirt flashed in my mind, my right toe caught the heel of Don Joy’s size 20 cleats, I went down on my face, got a mouthful of Loyalton pasture and recorded a whopping gain of about 18 inches.

I have always wondered if Coach noticed the ball hitting the ground just before I fell on it.

Portola JV Football Team, Fall 1962

Portola at Loyalton, 1975
Beckwourth Peak in the background.
Photo credit:  Lance Studebaker

The Day Dad and Humpy Got Lost in the Woods (And I Rescued Them!) - by Bob Kaufman

Once upon a time I was about five years old...and I was good at it. I definitely had a child’s imagination.

Me at the front door.
The Big Snow of 1952

In hindsight, a commodity which I now possess in abundance, it was the best place in the world to grow up, but life was difficult in my home town of Portola, California, situated in the Plumas National Forest in the northernmost region of the Sierra Nevada Mountains of eastern California. I read somewhere that winters in the 1940's through the 1960's, though not necessarily colder, were much wetter than recent decades. It seemed to me we had a lot more snow in those good ol’ days.  I don’t suppose that perception has evolved because I have lived in the desert for almost half a century since leaving home.  Locals might argue with me on this notion, especially after the winter of 2019.

The Sierra Nevada Mountains - Wikipedia

The most memorable winter was the winter of 1951-52 when we had ten feet of snow in town.  Nearly 65 feet of snow fell on Donner Summit that year and the snow pack reached 26 feet, the greatest depth ever recorded there.

City of San Francisco passenger train stranded on Donner Pass, January 13, 1952

Reign of the Sierra Storm King: Weather History of Donner Pass

The severe winters made it necessary for us stockpile firewood every summer. Getting firewood was a LOT of work.  I remember one summer when I was a teenager dad ordered a logging truck load delivered to the vacant lot across the gully from our house. Some of those logs were more than three feet in diameter. I spent a good part of that summer becoming very familiar with a chain saw, sledge hammer and wedges…but that's another story.

Dad cutting the big tree
that had been struck by lightning.

Another time, a lightning strike destroyed the huge pine tree across the gully on the corner of Plumas and Ridge streets. We only had to go a block away to find our wood that year, but our work was still cut out for us, so to speak. Ah, but you couldn’t beat escaping from the cold and sitting in front of a blazing fire in the fireplace on a winter evening - the reward for a summer of hard work. I remember gazing through the double-pane storm windows in our living room watching the snow fall in our yard and on the street.

Like the headlights of a car on a foggy mountain road, the vertical cone-shaped glow from the single street light that hung at the corner of Plumas and Gulling streets, caddy corner from our house, provided just a tiny glimpse of the winter wonderland that would be revealed at sunrise the next morning after the storm clouds had passed.  I loved how snowfall muffled the normal sounds of the town. It's amazing how quiet and peaceful it can be during a gentle snow storm.

Dad on Santa's (Humpy's) lap
at the Portola Theater
Bertha Miller Photo, courtesy of Carrie Neely

Evert Humphreys was unforgettable. For a skinny kid like me, he seemed more round than tall - something like the egg-shaped fictional character with a similar name. But that was more perception than reality.  Although, he did have a Santa Claus suit and he played that role well.

I have met a lot of characters in my life, but few were nicer, kinder, or friendlier than Evert Humphreys, affectionately called Humpy by all those who knew and loved him. During those years I saw him often in his fishing outfit, overalls, railroad work clothes, but most often in his suit at church, where he could always be found on a Sunday unless he had been called to work that day by the WPRR. Oh! And there was the time of my fish story - the big one that got away on the Klamath River - Humpy was there! For sure, THAT is another story. Humpy and dad, and it seems, most men in town worked for the Western Pacific Railroad.  Dad was a brakeman and I think Humpy was a dispatcher. At least whenever dad took me to the old depot, Humpy could be found in the office. Like the fire in the fireplace on a cold, snowy winter evening, my memories of Humpy are warm and pleasant.

Me and somebody in the old Chevy

It must have been a spring day, in 1953 or thereabouts.  Dad and Humpy decided to take our beige-colored 1950-ish model Chevy out into the woods to scout for firewood. That Chevy was the kind of car that performed just as well on a dirt road in the woods as it did on a long family trip on the highway.  When I was very little, I would often climb into the back of that car and lay on the panel between the window and the rear bench seat. On a cold winter day, the radiant heat of the sun made it a cozy hideout.

Portola City Limit, west end of town.
Bald Head Mountain right of center.

I don't know why dad and Humpy decided to take me along on this trip. Maybe I cried and begged to go. I’m certain we drove the old highway out past Rocky Point and into the west end of the Sierra Valley, crossed the Feather River at the bridge on the county road that goes to Sierraville. Then we must have turned back west on a dirt road that led to the back side of Bald Head Mountain. I didn't know it was called that until just a few years ago, and today, I'm not sure that is the exact name. To me, it was just the mountain with the "P". Even little kids know where the "P" is. You can see it from just about every place in town, except when it is covered with snow, or if you happen to be crawling through a culvert under Gulling Street. But this day, we were on the back side of the mountain, and this imaginative five year old might well have been in Montana for all he knew.

We stopped in a large open area surrounded by manzanita brush.  It seemed rather open for being in "the woods". I think there had been a forest fire a few years earlier, leaving mostly manzanita in that area. Higher up the mountain there were pine trees, or maybe they were Douglas fir. For a mountain kid, I didn't know my trees very well. I just thought everything was a pine tree if it had needles instead of leaves. It's no matter that there were no trees nearby. The manzanita was at least two kids tall all around and I couldn’t see anything else.

The Kaufman home on Gulling Street
Portola, California early 1950's

Dad and Humpy got out of the car to go looking for logs.  Not wanting me to slow them down Dad told me to stay in the car, saying they would not be far away and would be back soon. They quickly disappeared into the brush and my five-year old imagination kicked into overdrive. What seemed like hours was probably ten minutes...or less. It was so quiet I couldn't hear anything but my pounding heart. Although, in over seventy years, I have never seen a bear anywhere near my home country,⧪ I imagined that surely a bear had eaten Dad and Humpy by now, or worse he might come to the car and eat me! I curled up like a roly poly bug on the floorboard, hid my face and covered my eyes and ears. That didn't help. I couldn’t look up because I knew there would be a huge bear with monster claws and razor-sharp teeth glaring at me through the window! I curled up as tight as I could, but the bear just wouldn't go away.

Unable to take it any more, I jumped up, looked that grizzly bear straight in the eyes through the window...but he was nowhere to be seen. So, I opened the door and started yelling! The sound of my cries just faded away into the brush. Over and over I yelled "DAD!" "HUMPY!", but after a brief echo, there came only silence. Now I was crying!

Brethren from the Portola Branch, circa 1955
Evert Humphreys, front and center

I decided it was too dangerous to stay there, so I started to walk down the dirt road back from where we had come. Don't know how far I went – thirty miles at least, walking, running, and crawling all the way! I went around a bend in the road and couldn't see the Chevy any more, all the time looking for that bear. Didn't see him, but there were a lot of snake holes and I was sure poisonous snakes were going to spring out and bite me.

Finally, after about two days and nights on that lonely dirt road in the woods, fighting poisonous serpents and ferocious wild beasts all the way, I heard a familiar sound on the road behind me. I turned and looked and there came the old Chevy, kicking up a cloud of dust as it approached. Guess what? It was Dad and Humpy!

I don't remember anything that happened after that, except I'm sure Dad repeated the story many times when he visited folks in town. He was always telling stories and my embarrassing adventures were among his best.  Humpy was too modest to ever mention to anyone that he and Dad got lost in the woods. And I...well let's just say that I let them know right away that they were lucky that they didn't continue straight ahead on the road, over the mountain across the way from Rocky Point and back into town on the south side of the river.⧫ Instead, they turned around and came out the way we drove in.

Good thing, or else I might never have rescued them!

⧪ My dearth of bear sightings came to an abrupt end the evening of July 24, 2019 on the way to Graeagle...but that's another story!

⧫ Truth is, Dad asked me: "What would you have done if we had gone the other way?" How would I know? I was just a kid!

The Fastest Math Whiz in Mrs. Yount's Fourth Grade Class - by Bob Kaufman

I was the fastest math whiz in Mrs. Yount's 4th grade class…well…at least I wanted to be.

Portola Elementary School, circa 1959
Fourth Avenue and Nevada Street
Photo courtesy of Carrie Neely

It was most likely early March 1958, when winter's hold on our lives in the high Sierras had not completely thawed.  Dirty crusted snow still covered the shadier spots near the two-story grammar school atop the hill on the corner of Fourth Avenue and Nevada Streets. Mrs. Yount chose such a day to test our math skills with a contest.

Mrs. Yount's classroom was strategically located in the north wing of the building, at the top of the stairs that led down to the library and out to the cafeteria. We could get head start on everyone else when the lunch bell rang. Ah, the memories I have of the cafeteria...but that's another story.

I wonder if it was before or after lunch when we had our contest.... That could have had something to do with the outcome.

Two by two, all nineteen of us, twelve boys and seven girls, went to the chalkboard and raced to complete a problem comprised of several steps using the basic arithmetic functions. The first one to put down his chalk and turn around to face the class - and to complete the problem correctly - was the winner. I’m not certain how Mrs. Yount handled the odd number, but it was the girls who were odd, not the boys.

One by one, classmates were eliminated until only two remained. Those two finalists faced off with the final problem to determine the fastest math whiz in the class.

That crisp, almost spring morning, I competed against Darrell McMurphy.  On the cue from Mrs. Yount, I whipped around and raced lickety-split through the calculations, carrying and borrowing numbers here and there, just as we had been taught.  In only a few seconds, about 19 ½, I’d guess, I dropped my chalk in the tray and turned around a split second ahead of Darrell. I WAS SO EXCITED!

My last picture of Darrell McMurphy
Probably 5th or 6th Grade

Then…as Mrs. Yount walked through each step in the problem…my heart sank. Suddenly I saw, as did all my classmates, that I had made a slight miscalculation.  I was off by one digit!  Although I was a split second quicker, Darrell got it right and won the contest.

After 60 years it is doubtful that my memory of the event is accurate.  So, whether or not it actually happened this way, this is how I choose to remember it.  I would like to believe that my race with Darrell was for the class championship and that I was a close second to the winner, but it probably wasn't. Darrell eventually had to face Margy Lee.  When it comes to a contest of brains, NOBODY BEATS MARGY LEE……..EVER!

Memories of the old grammar school on the hill are sweet, although I am certain we didn’t feel that way at the time. We could not wait for school to end so we could catch chipmunks in the woods and crawdads in the river, or just ride our bikes on dusty mountain roads every day - the boys did anyway. I have no clue what those seven girls did during the summer. A few years later, I started paying attention.  I remember little else about fourth grade, but I will never forget how I suffered humiliation when I lost to Darrell McMurphy…then a little later, he was smoked at the blackboard by Margy Lee, the Fastest Math Whiz in Mrs. Yount's 4th grade class!

Mrs. Angwin's 3rd Grade Class.
(I do not have the picture of the 4th grade so this will have to do.)
Top row: Stan Ghidossi, Mona Guerra, Jackie Hickock, Glenn Hull, Margy Lee, Frank Powell, Linda Edgar.
Middle row: Jerry Babcock, Kim Rees, Bob Hurd, Mrs. Angwin, Ernie Gonzales, Judy Servia, Les Martin.
Bottom Row: Rodney Reid, Pete Thill, Darrell McMurphy, Mr. Matthews (Principal), Cheryl Conant, Bob Kaufman, Ken Knox.

Originally, that was the end of the story. I had intended it to be a nostalgic and somewhat creative look back at a single spark of memory from a much more innocent time. But recently I came upon the rest of the story and my purpose changed.

Three years after our contest at the blackboard, Darrell moved away from the mountains down into the valley and I never saw him again.  For almost sixty years I knew nothing of what became of him. Then one day, March 16 this year (2018) to be exact, I learned that Jay Darrell McMurphy was killed by small arms fire in the Thua Thien Province, South Vietnam, March 16, 1968, fifty years earlier to the day, and just ten years after our competition at the blackboard. He was survived by his young bride who was six months pregnant with their only child.

On March 16, 1968, I walked the campus at BYU. My greatest fear was in trying to muster the courage to ask a cute blonde, whom I had first noticed six months earlier, for a date. Darrell, on the other hand, patrolled the jungles of South Vietnam as the point man for his squad, where gun battles with the enemy and resulting casualties had been occurring regularly for more than a week. On the Virtual Vietnam memorial, Michael O’Connell wrote:

The Wall of Faces entry for Jay Darrell McMurphy, Sponsored by the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund

The Virtual Wall, Vietnam Veterans Memorial

HonorStates.org

“On March 16, 1968, my platoon led Charlie Company, down a jungle trail west of the new fire base Birmingham. Jay walked point and John Ahern walked his slack. My squad was second in line. Minutes after came a loud roar as AK-47 fire broke out. My platoon rushed forward; it was clear we had casualties. After we hit the ground, one of our squads moved to the left and M-60 fire broke out. The NVA had paid a price, but so had we. Both Jay and John were dead. I remember them both as good people and gallant soldiers. Rest in peace, pointman.”

During my search, I met and spoke with Lon Reed who had been Jay's friend after he moved from Portola (I always knew him by Darrell, but he went by Jay afterward). He spoke very highly of his dear friend, and posted this remembrance on the virtual wall 8/23/16 - "It has been 48 years since you left our world while fighting in Vietnam and your friends and family miss you very much. What a shame to lose a fine man like you, Darrell, but we grieve your loss and respect you for your service to our country, the United States of America. I hope you are at peace my friend and know you are always in our hearts. I will be visiting Droast in Hawaii next year and we will hold up a glass to you."

I also learned of Darrell's daughter, Kimberly McMurphy (Coates), who was yet unborn when Darrell perished at war. She posted under the title "The Father I never knew": "This is my father...he was killed 3 months before my mom gave birth to me. I will forever only know him by photos and letters he wrote home.  I am his only offspring and live my life knowing that he would be so proud of me."

Michael O'Connell called Darrell a "gallant soldier." I Googled “gallant” and found it quite in harmony with a phrase I love from scripture: “steadfast and immovable”. After conversing recently with one of his closest friends, and after reading the remembrances of his comrades, those who knew him in peacetime and in war, after he moved from the mountains, I can safely say: “In the face of fear and mortal danger, Jay Darrell McMurphy was steadfast and immovable in performing his sworn duty.” Darrell was truly a gallant soldier, and my classmate whom I will never forget. "Rest in peace, Pointman."

Mrs. Freeman's 1st Grade Class.
Top row: unknown, Ken Knox, Cheryl Conant, Andy Parsons, Pete Thill, Stan Ghidossi, Mike Nally.
2nd row: Darrell McMurphy, Bob Kaufman, Mona Guerra, Mrs. Freeman, Jerry Babcock,
Rodney Reid, Linda Edgar.
3rd row: Margy Lee, Ernie Gonzales, Helen Monahan, school nurse, Mr. Matthews, principal,
unknown, Judy Servia.
Bottom row: Pam McPhie, Bob Hurd, Kim Rees, Michael Curzon.

The Twelfth Man by Bob Kaufman

Portola Tigers JV Football, 1956-1957
Bill Rees #34, top left
Joe Kaufman, #39, bottom left

Every boy who has ever struggled to put on the pads of a football uniform has had visions of making the big play. In another story about Don Joy’s size 16 shoes, I told of my vision of an 80-yard touchdown run in the Loyalton game sometime in 60’s – a short-lived vision that ended with my getting a mouthful of Loyalton grass after a whopping gain of 18 inches. For most of us, those visions just drift away like a puff of smoke from the score keeper's final gun on a breezy mountain afternoon.

Sometime in the fall of 1956, I was on the west sideline of the old football field doing whatever an eight-year old might do on a sunny fall Saturday afternoon. I was watching the JV football game while sitting on my bicycle as close to the sideline as I could get without getting into trouble. My brother Joe was on the team or else I probably would have been riding my bike in the woods checking chipmunk traps and just kicking up dust. I remember how he would sit on the porch at our old house and polish his cleats and clean his helmet on game day. I’m sure I wanted to go to the game to see if he would get them dirty again.

The Old Football Field and THE HILL
1964 Before the "New" Gym and Science Wing were built
Photo by Carrie Neely

That day, Portola was defending the north goal, facing south with a clear view of Beckwourth Peak, and THE HILL, frequently used in practice on Monday as "incentive" meant to encourage good performance on Saturday ...but that's another story.

Dan Olsen told me recently that the Tigers were playing the Grizzly's from Loyalton. I would never contradict Dan, a Hall of Fame QB from yesteryear who was the Varsity signal-caller that same day, but who missed the play because he was in the locker room getting dressed at the time.

The line of scrimmage was near our opponents 30 yard line.  The teddy bears ran a sweep play around their left end, right in front of a bench full of Tigers. Suddenly, out of nowhere, Big Bill Rees, all 300 pounds of him came off the sideline and flattened the runner, who only seconds before had visions of a 70-yard touchdown run.

For over 60 years, I have had that memory in mind, although like a faded photograph from the good old days, so blurry you cannot recognize any of the faces. I don’t remember anything else about it. Surely, we were penalized for too many men on the field and Bill was ejected from the game for his infraction – definitely a personal foul for unnecessary roughness and unsportsmanlike conduct!

Well, at the Alumni Picnic last month (July 2018), I had opportunity to tell Bill about that memory, and he just laughed and laughed. Then he told me the rest of the story and filled in a little of the detail in that long-since faded photo.

Bill and Kim Rees (Kimberley Lowerison)
PHS Alumni Picnic 2018

Bill said he was playing defensive tackle (where else?) and it seems he thought Coach Rowden had sent in a substitute for him. So, he was hustling to the sidelines, as fast as his 300 pounds could move, trying to get off the field before the Grizzly's center snapped the ball, in order to avoid the penalty. Then he said he must have been mistaken, because the coaches and everybody on the sideline were yelling and waving frantically at him to stay on the field. As fortune would have it, Bill got the message in the nick of time and dug in his heels, creating a trench in the turf somewhat resembling the Marianas. The enemy running back had his vision of a 70-yard touchdown run dashed in an instant. Suddenly, Bill turned, took aim on the bear cub, and mashed him to bits!

Personally, I think it is a better story the way I remembered it. Bill was a legend in my own mind. But, instead of being a hero, the likes of Jesse James, or maybe The Incredible Hulk, I guess he was just plain lucky. Either that, or Coach Rowden had just invented a new and very effective defensive play.

On second thought, I think I am going to have a senior moment and forget our conversation at the picnic.

Here’s to Bill Rees, Portola JV’s Twelfth Man!

The Great Pickoff Play at Third Base by Bob Kaufman

Gary Cole scared the pants off everybody!

Well, that isn't exactly true, nor fair. I should explain.

Gary lived across from the Hein’s a block north of my home on Gulling Street. From everything I remember he was a pretty nice guy.  He was two years ahead of me in school, so I doubt we ever "played together", but I do remember one football game on Gulling street when he kicked a field goal over the power lines...but that's another story.

It must have been the summer of '58.  I was 9, going on 10 years old, in my second year of Little League and had earned a place in the infield playing third base for the Tigers.  Two or three evenings a week we had the wonderful experience of playing ball on the field on the south edge of town surrounded by pine trees so tall that most of the field was in shadows by late afternoon.  A small creek ran behind the fence from center field to right field and then on into town.  I can't imagine a better place in the world for forty or so eight to twelve year old boys to don the uniforms of the Yankees, Tigers or Giants and spend a balmy summer evening playing ball. An occasional trip to the Sierra Valley to play the Sierraville Cubs or the Loyalton Cardinals provided a change in scenery but was no less idyllic than the home games.

Play Ball!

Gary Cole was a Giant.  It said so right on his chest - as if we were clueless and needed a reminder. Over six feet tall at age twelve he was huge!  Pull out the 1964 Pineneedle, his senior yearbook, and you'll see he played football, basketball, baseball and track all four years in high school and was a four-year letterman, probably in all four sports. It was all I could do to keep my 98-pound weakling body in the batter's box when he fired a fast ball from the pitcher's mound just 46 feet away. And it was all our pitchers could do to keep the ball out of the creek when Gary came to bat. The creek angled away from the park from right field to center, so if he pulled the homer to left field we wouldn't have to play with a wet ball.

Conference on "The Mound"

My imagination and memory fail at trying to compose the scenario that placed Gary at third base that evening. His usual presence there was only in passing as he rounded the corner in his typical home run trot. Yet there he was. The only possible way I can figure he was obliged to stop at third base was because we intentionally walked him and another batter or two drove him around the bases.

The Tigers' battery against the Giants was John Work on the mound, and Tom Olsen behind the plate. John threw a couple of pitches to the next batter. Each time, Gary danced several steps toward home, then turned his back to our catcher and walked back to third, strutting just like John Wayne.  Then, after the third or fourth pitch, Tom called a conference at the mound. His plan was to fire the ball to me after the next pitch and we would pick the big guy off when he turned his back.

I was so excited! Imagine me involved in a super pick-off play against the league's most valuable, admired, feared (you fill in the adjective, he was all of those) player. If ever there could be a modern David and Goliath tale, this was it.  We would be the talk of the town for the rest of the summer.  Heck, we probably would become legends in our own time!

We returned to our positions and got set.  John wound up and fired the pitch.

I am certain the Giants won the pennant that year and probably every year Gary played.  Of course, in high school he was on OUR team. He was exciting to watch on the field and on the court.  I think our teams did pretty well the years he played. 

Oh, and The Great Pickoff Play at Third Base, the day we became living legends, the heroes of the Feather River Little League?  Never happened.  John’s pitch was too close to the plate. The batter punched the ball somewhere to the outfield and Gary Cole walked home, strutting just like John Wayne.

Football Action - 1964 Pineneedle

Block 'P' Four-year Lettermen