The Daring Rescue at Squaw Queen Creek by Bob Kaufman

I remember vividly the moment I saved Glenn Hull’s life. Everything else that day is just a blur.

1965 Basketball

Glenn was unquestionably the best all-around athlete in the class of 1966. A few guys might argue that point, but they’d lose. Being the best in Portola isn’t necessarily saying a lot, but if I recall correctly, Glenn did have some success after high school. While he wore the PHS Tigers uniform, he played football, basketball, baseball, and track all four years. He was a four-year letterman and a Feather River League Allstar in football both our Junior and Senior years.

According to the program for the Westwood basketball game, January 22, 1966, Glenn stood 6’2” tall – nothing remarkable, but he had long arms and a vertical leap better than anyone around. He could hold his own on the basketball court with opponents from Quincy and Greenville who boasted a towering 6’8” on the event programs. Sometimes they fudged the numbers a bit, I think, trying to get into our heads, but these guys looked every bit that tall, or taller. That was especially true of a couple of games where Glenn was suspended and I, John Hein, and a few other sub-six-footers were called on to play center for the Tigers. I saw a clip once showing a tall giant of a guy, standing flat-footed, holding a basketball in one hand with his arm straight up, and five little guys running around, trying in vain to jump and take it away. We were those little guys. To say it was hopeless is an understatement!

Fall 1965 Football

Glenn was a pretty nice guy…most of the time, but he chose to be ornery on occasion. For mouthing off to Coach Wise near the end of football, he was suspended at the beginning of our final Varsity Basketball season. After losing the first four games by a combined score of 246 to 152, including back to back games against the Quincy Trojans who outscored us by 57 points (remember the 6’8” giant?), Bob Hurd and I cornered Glenn and persuaded (begged) him to apologize to Coach so he could come back and try to salvage our season. Glenn capitulated and apologized. In the remaining 14 games he averaged 22 points and 16 rebounds per game to lead the team. Even with Glenn on the roster, though, we were small. Coach Donnenwirth’s parting words in the Pineneedle were: “The team was lacking in height but not in spirit as it turned in many outstanding efforts during the season.” That’s how coaches sugarcoat a 4 and 14 season. What he really meant was we got our rear ends kicked, but we tried hard.

And that's not all he said. He closed his message by saying "Six seniors will be departing from the present team, but the juniors showed great improvement during the season and should form the nucleus of a contending ball club for next year." Dang, I hate it when they say "Wait till next year." Thanks a lot, coach. For us there wasn't a next year!

1966 Basketball

Glenn’s orneriness didn’t stop at badmouthing Coach. He knew I always wanted to wear jersey number 14, no matter what sport. I was born on the 14th, and somewhere along the way, 14 became MY number. I managed to get it for football and basketball that year, but before the start of baseball season, when Coach Cimaglia was handing out uniforms in the boys’ locker room, Glenn muscled his way ahead of me in the line and deliberately grabbed number 14 before I could get it. Now, mind you, I had no sense of entitlement in the matter. He did it just for spite and wouldn’t give in when I tried to persuade (begged) him to trade with me. So, for baseball, I wore number 15. I’m still mad at him about that – maybe…. Come to think of it, most likely, I was able to wear number 14 for basketball because of his suspension – maybe….

I saved Glenn’s life, and for that, I had to wear number 15! Is there no justice in the world?

Well…perhaps there is. It’s time to rewind the video tape.

The Daring Rescue at Squaw Queen Creek happened four years earlier, near the end of the eighth grade, before any of us superstars in the class of 1966 took the fields, stormed the court, or ran the track in a Tigers uniform. Notwithstanding his athletic prowess in high school, in the eighth grade, Glenn could not swim. Completely in character with his machismo, he would never admit that to any of us guys. But then one day, in the heat of battle, we discovered Glenn’s Achilles Heel was aquatics.

Our eighth-grade band class was a wonder to behold. We boys made for an interesting ensemble:  Bob Hurd (aka "Turo"), Pete Thill, and Glenn Hull – Trombone; Rory Luce – Tuba; Stan Ghidossi (aka “Bugs”) – Baritone Horn; Bob Kaufman – Clarinet. I think I was the black sheep in that group of brass players.

Our music teacher, Mr. Ivan Thompson, who also taught seventh and eighth grade English, had a tradition of taking the boys from eighth-grade band class on a camping trip out in the wilderness – without our instruments. Notwithstanding our instrument-less-ness, we took our vocal cords wherever we went and made good use of them riding through Clover Valley in the back of Mr. T’s pickup singing:

“I got a gal named Bony Maroney.
She’s as skinny as a stick of macaroni.
Oughta see her rock and roll with her blue jeans on.
She’s not very fat, just skin and bones.
But I love her, and she loves me,
And oh, how happy now we can be
Makin’ love underneath the apple tree.”

I Got a Gal Named Boney Maroney, by Sha-na-na

Glenn Hull, Class of 1966

Yeah. Glenn taught us that song. Can you imagine six eighth-grade boys riding through the woods in the bed of a pickup truck singing that one? Better that than dancing to it with a girl at a sock hop. That gig didn’t launch any stellar music careers, but a half-century later, I did make it to the grand stage in Carnegie Hall…but that’s another story.

On Squaw Queen Creek, somewhere before the confluence with Little Last Chance Creek, was a swimming hole, guarded on every side by the tall willow bushes that grow along all the creeks and rivers up home. We once played a basketball game in Westwood where the court was so short the top of the Free Throw Circle was only a couple feet from the mid-court line. This swimming hole was no more than half the size of that half court.

On the west end of the swimming hole was a huge round boulder, protruding high enough above the water to make a small diving platform, but low enough that you could almost sit and dangle your feet in the water. There might have been a small patch of wild grass on the side of the creek, but at best, it was a soggy bog. The only sure way to exit the swimming hole was to climb up the rock. It wasn’t much of a climb, but it was slippery when wet and only had a few handholds we could use to pull ourselves up and out of the water. Three or four boys could sit on that rock and just barely bump elbows. I don’t know how high Glenn could reach in a vertical leap in the eighth grade. None of us had yet finished growing, but that swimming hole was deeper than that – deeper still by the height of one more thirteen-year-old. I know because many years later, Turo told me so. The water was dark and murky. I was only able to see a couple of feet below the surface.

To get to Squaw Queen Creek, we had to drive to Beckwourth, then take the Beckwourth to Genesee Road up to Clover Valley, cross over into Dixie Valley for a few miles and then hang a left to follow Squaw Queen Creek into Squaw Valley (not ‘the’ Squaw Valley loved by skiers). It might have been 25 to 30 miles away from town, but it was all dirt roads from just a few miles north of Beckwourth. I’m sure driving time was an hour or so, especially with boys in the bed of the pickup. It was a remote area. Still is today. It was the perfect place to get away, if nothing went wrong.

There we were on that rock – Glenn, Turo, me, and a couple others. Given that Rory, Pete, and Bugs were the only other candidates, it should be easy, but I simply do not remember who else was there.  Somebody asked if we all could swim. Everyone answered yes. A couple guys jumped in followed by Glenn. Suddenly the water was splashing and churning like it was full of piranha on a feeding frenzy! Glenn’s arms were flailing around as he tried to get his head back above water. The only other time I remember his arms waiving around so vigorously was during the 1965 Quincy football game when he was open in the pass pattern, but our QB, Mike Nally, was desperately trying to run away from a couple of Quincy’s defensive lineman and ended up with a mouthful of grass and a ten yard loss right in front of our bench – and a screaming Coach Wise.

The noise around the swimming hole was almost as loud as Coach’s screaming. During the commotion, Turo jumped in. I stayed on the rock, trying, but failing to grab hold of Glenn’s arm. Turo disappeared into the turbulent water for what was probably only fifteen seconds or so but seemed longer than one of Mr. T’s English classes.  His arms still flailing, Glenn drifted closer to the rock, and his head popped above the water. My reflexes were too slow for me to catch his arm, and his hair was just too short. In desperation, still having not seen Turo come up, with my right hand, I clinched Glenn’s ear! Holding on for dear life (not sure whose), it must have been enough to keep him safe until the others could get out of the water and help pull him up.

Pete Thill, Glenn Hull, Glenn Schwartz

Hearing Hurd tell the story decades later, one would think he thought he was the hero. I mean, he said he jumped in, but Glenn grabbed him and was pulling him under. With considerable effort he managed to break free from Glenn’s grasp. He sunk down, and standing on the bottom, he  grabbed Glenn’s legs and started pushing him up and toward the rock. All I remember is my hand clutching Glenn’s ear…and then singing Boney Maroney in the back of Mr. T's pickup the next afternoon. Everything in the middle is gone. But, I can still see Glenn’s face while we were singing. When he was being goofy, we all had a lot of fun!

Forty-five years later, at our 40th class reunion in the Log Cabin, Hurd and I were joking with Glenn about the rescue. He said he did remember the event, and in his goofy way said, "Yeah, and I haven't been swimming since!"

A few years ago, during a reunion as several of us gathered around a fire to reminisce, in the clear night air at River’s Edge RV Park in Clio, under the canopy of his trailer, Hurd said there was one casualty that fateful weekend. As he told it, a few hours after his daring rescue, we were all laying around the campfire in our sleeping bags when a lizard scampered toward the fire, jumped in, and was burned to a crisp. Sadly, that image did not stick in my memory. If my brain had been able to retain three images instead of two, definitely I would have wanted the third to be the fire-roasted lizard.

Great Hands, Bob! by Bob Kaufman

Google "great hands" and you'll quickly find a list of web links and an array of images depicting a variety of seemingly unrelated topics: physical massage, tattoos, potter's wheels, football, baseball and basketball players doing their thing, and even a hockey player picking his nose.  If "ball" is anywhere in the name of a sport, the successful players must have good hands. The superstars have great hands.

T-38 Flight Line, Williams AFB, Arizona, 1971

T-38 In the Overhead Traffic Pattern,
Williams AFB, Arizona, 1971

During my days in the cockpit, the best pilots were sometimes called "good sticks" referring to the stick we held in our right hand to control every movement of the aircraft. With throttles in our left hand and the stick in our right hand, it was also said of those who were the best pilots, usually with some envy, "he has great hands".  I was first in my class of 70 or so student pilots for most of our year in training. When our follow-on assignments came near the end of training, I had earned first choice. I graduated 4th in my class...but that's another story.

I had pretty good hands.

Capt. Bob Kaufman, Boomer Flight IP,
Williams AFB, Arizona 1974

On the other hand, there was "ham hands".  Walking through the hallway of the T-38 squadron building one day I observed a small crowd of student pilots listening to one of their comrades telling a "war" story about his heroics during the mission he had just completed. While performing a routine entry to the overhead traffic pattern - a maneuver that required a simple, level 60-degree bank turn to line up with the runway at an altitude of 1500 feet AGL (above ground level) at a comfortable 280 knots airspeed - this magnificent young airman somehow rolled his flying machine inverted (upside down), crossed through the final approach corridors of two active, parallel runways and almost "bought the farm" in a cotton field a few miles southeast of the runway.  Miraculously, ham hands recovered from his very unusual attitude, crossed back through the other traffic on his return to the prescribed pattern, and eventually landed safely and lived to recount his heroics to his fellow students in the snack bar. During his heroic narrative he used the phrase "great hands" in reference to his safe recovery.  Its a wonder how he didn't break his arm patting himself on the back. I was not his IP (instructor pilot) so I bit my tongue and walked away.  Discounting possible mechanical failure, only the worst of pilots could ever get such an unusual attitude in a perfectly good airplane. Nah, that’s too nice. I can’t imagine how even the worst stick could do it. This guy was awfully @#^$%* lucky! (Colorful military metaphor censored!)

So, there I was, in right field, Spring 1965, my junior year in high school playing for the PHS Tigers baseball team.  That was a few years after they had completed the new football field which is now called Coach Bob Wise Memorial Stadium.  The old football field would later become the baseball field, but at that time we did not have a suitable baseball field anywhere in town.  Instead, for home games we rode the bus to Graeagle and played on the gravel field surrounded by Tomahawk Trail, just up the hill from highway 89 in the middle of town. (Later I mention the "dugouts" at that field, but they were no more than telephone poles, laid horizontally on some footings, which we seldom used because, frankly, they hurt our butts!)

Portola Tigers High School Baseball Team, Spring 1965
Graeagle Baseball Field
1965 Pineneedle

Bunky Brown played center field.  He had the strongest arm of anyone in the county and his skill at the plate was everything you would want in a strong center fielder.  On the other hand, my ninety-eight pound weakling arm had improved just a little…very little, from Little League…but I had quick feet, good judgement, and quick responses so I was able to cover a lot of ground and run down some tough fly balls. I wanted to play center field but nobody was going to replace Bunky until he graduated. (I did make to center field in 1966!)

Mr. Cimaglia's Coach's Message in the 1965 Pineneedle said:  "The outfield was manned by Brown, Grant and Fisher".  They were all seniors.  But I must have done something right because coach also said: "The 1965 baseball season can be summarized in the score:  Portola 2, Lassen 0.  The Tigers beat Lassen in the last game of the year to knock the Grizzlies out of first place.  Stalwart pitcher Ed Cavaille performed masterfully on the mound.  Portola scored on consecutive hits by Nally, Kaufman, Hull, and Ed Cavaille."
(Mr. Cimaglia always called me "Coffee" or maybe it was "Kaufee". However you spell it, I really liked that.)

Coach Armando "Mando" Cimaglia's Message
1965 Pineneedle

Make a note of that.  It is in print for all to see.  I actually contributed to the most important game of
that year...but this story is about the Greenville game.  We were scalped by the Indians 14 - 7.

In one of the late innings, Greenville had two out and I think a couple of men on base.  Their batter hit a routine fly ball to shallow right field...and it would have been a routine catch not worthy of being mentioned ever again except that, belying my previous statement about good judgement, at first, I started moving to my left and back.  Then I realized the ball was going to drop well in front of me. Quickly I dug in with my left foot, changed course, and scrambled forward.  At the last instant, with both arms outstretched, I dove head-first onto the gravel, landing on my forearms, kicking up a cloud of dust like an Arizona monsoon.  I closed my glove a split second early and the ball landed on the crease between my thumb and fingers.  Because I was engulfed in that cloud of dust, absolutely no one at the field but me knows for sure what happened. However, the umpire, showing somewhat uncharacteristic good judgement, (something umpires seldom do when you're losing), ruled it was an out.

I trotted toward our "dugout" on the third base side, passing the first base dugout where the Indians were on the warpath, whooping and hollering and complaining they had been cheated out of a few more runs...as if 14 to 7 wasn’t enough of a massacre. You would have thought the game was on the line by their reaction.  All the Tigers had to say was "Great hands, Bob!" (A few might have said “great catch”, but that wouldn’t fit the story, so I’ll pretend I’m right.)

Truthfully, it was a catch.  The ball never hit the ground.  Instant replay would not have overturned that call. Just like that ball stuck in the crease of my glove, that mental image of the ball resting there has stuck in my memory for more than fifty years!

The next day in Mr. Rowden's math class, I sat with my elbows on the desk and both hands in the air, like a doctor waiting for his assistant to put on his surgical gloves, to keep my scarred and scabbed forearms off the desk.  Oblivious to my heroic play the previous day he said something totally in character like: "What happened?  Did you trip going down the stairs?"  Didn't he know he was in the presence of a superstar with great hands?

I don’t know if I had a girlfriend at the time.  I hardly did, ever, so probably not.  But if I did, she would have been impressed even if Mr. Rowden wasn’t.  And she would not have known that I was a hero, basking in my fifteen seconds of fame, only because I misjudged a routine fly ball...and I certainly wasn’t about to admit it!

I'm From Portola. Period! by Bob Kaufman

On June 2, 2010 at Comerica Park in Detroit, Michigan, Tigers pitcher Armando Galarraga became the 21st pitcher in Major League history to throw a perfect game...almost.   Galarraga retired the first 26 Cleveland Indians batters he faced and needed only one more out to achieve perfection. The Indians’ 27th batter was Jason Donald. With the count at 1-1, Donald hit a routine ground ball to second base. It looked like an easy out. Galarraga circled toward first base to take the throw, but his bid for baseball immortality failed when first base umpire Jim Joyce, arms flying out to each side as if he had just attacked two invisible assailants with sideways karate chops, signaled that Donald was safe at first base.  I was watching the game live on TV and could see clearly that Donald was out by half a stride.  Everybody in the world knew it.  I wasn't a Tigers fan but who wouldn't cheer for someone who had just thrown a perfect game?  I started to cheer and stopped midway when Joyce signaled "safe", almost straining some critical muscles in the aborted effort.  Galarraga did everything necessary to earn the glory but instead finished with a one-hit shutout in a 3–0 victory.  He faced 28 batters and threw just 88 pitches, 67 strikes and 21 balls, striking out three batters.  That game is sometimes referred to as the "Imperfect Game."

Amando Galarraga's Imperfect Game
The Imperfect Game - Longer Version

Rather than achieving every pitcher's dream, Gallaraga's otherwise perfect achievement is just a footnote in baseball history.  If ever he tells his grandchildren about it, he can't just say "I pitched a perfect game." He is forever consigned to adding a footnote to explain what really happened.  Invariably that will open a lengthy conversation that will interest absolutely nobody.

I HATE FOONOTES!

The intersection of Gulling Street and Highway 40A, 1952.
Photo by Alice Olinghouse (Walker), PHS Class of 1967

When I left home in September 1966 to begin my first year of college, I quickly learned that "Portola, California" as an answer to "where are you from" is an incomplete statement without a footnote.  Sometimes I wished I had grown up in San Francisco, or better yet, Los Angeles.  I envied those who could simply answer: "L.A." It is so compact, efficient and complete! You don't have to say another word after that.  On the other hand, "I'm from Portola" must always be followed by "It's about 50 miles northwest of Reno.” … "No.  You're thinking of Portola Valley.  That's in the Bay Area on the peninsula near San Francisco where there's fog, smog, congestion and lots of weird people.  My hometown is in the mountains on the east side of the state where the air and water are clean and pure, everybody knows everybody else and we don't even have a stop light in town.  In fact we could leave home, forget to lock the doors and return to find everything just as we left it...except if we left the water running on the lawn, a neighbor surely would have turned it off before it started running down the street."

But who would be interested in that?

Portola's Traffic Light
Portola Reporter Photo, 2004

Somebody did “borrow” my sister’s car one night when she left it running in front of the Portola Theater for a minute or two, and went in to help Jolene, who was taken ill.  When Carol went back out of the theater, her car was nowhere in sight. An hour or so later, it mysteriously showed up half a block down the street from our house, with a little less gas than when it disappeared.  Even car thieves in my hometown could be trusted not to do any real harm!

Beyond that one-car-theft incident, any attempt to compare Portola with a big city is complete balderdash at best, and at worst, an insult to the proud country folk who lived and grew up there.

In 2004, thirty-eight years after I left home for the city, they ruined everything and finally put a stop light at the intersection of Gulling Street and the highway, right smack dab in the middle of the north side of town…but that’s another story.

A few years ago, I learned that my grandfather - dad's natural father who I never met, who last contacted the family in the mid 40's some twenty or so years after he first disappeared - died near Los Angeles in 1953 when I was barely five years old.  If life had turned out differently, I might have lived near him and could have realized my dream of being able to say, "I'm from L.A." Period!

With my luck, the next question would have been "Which part?"

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