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