Shepherd Stories of Forgotten Sports Idols and Other Ordinary Mortals

1. Auflage 2023
ISBN: 978-1-6678-7473-9
Verlag: BookBaby
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: PC/MAC/eReader/Tablet/DL/kein Kopierschutz

E-Book, Englisch, 198 Seiten

This collection consists of nine sports fiction stories featuring sports stars from bygone eras. These 20th century snapshots involve humanizing encounters with teammates, fans, and other ordinary people. Their narratives focus on mentors, friendships, and the connection of sports to both the aspirational ideals and discriminatory contradictions of American culture.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Shepherd, Gordon

Shepherd, Gary

Leseproben

ROUND 1 It was just before lunch when our principal, Mrs. Lawrence, escorted a new kid into the school’s sixth grade classroom. “Boys and girls, please give me your attention. I want to introduce you to your new classmate. His name is William Harrison Dempsey” (named for William Henry Harrison, arguably the least-known American president). Mrs. Lawrence quickly cut off the tittering provoked by the stiff-sounding name—mostly among the girls—with an icy glare that swept the room. “He and his family are new in town,” she continued. “They come from Manassa, Colorado. Isn’t that correct, William?” “Aaa, mmm, yes, ma’am,” the new boy affirmed. I learned later that the Dempseys had moved from Manassa to several other small mining towns in the mountains of western Colorado, including Creede and Montrose, before coming to Provo, Utah. But William hadn’t wanted to bring too much attention to himself that first day of school. He had been born in Manassa and lived there as a young boy, and that was good enough. William had dark eyes and unruly coal back hair, was darkly tanned, and was obviously wearing hand-me-down clothes. Compared to most of the towheaded boys in the class like me, he almost looked like an Indian. (I later heard rumors that William did have a little Cherokee blood, passed down through his mom’s family.) But I could tell that the girls seemed taken by his dark looks, even if he had what seemed to us an incompatibly starchy name. “All right, boys and girls, I want everyone to be nice to William and help him adjust to our school,” Mrs. Lawrence instructed. She paused again and said, “Welcome to Page School, William. We think it’s the best school in Provo, Utah, and we think you will do just fine here.” With that commanding benediction, Mrs. Lawrence again scanned the room with her discerning gaze, nodded her head, and left the room. Our teacher, Mrs. Anderson, put her arm around William and directed him to take the vacant desk across the aisle from me. My first impulse was to think, “Of all the rotten luck! Why next to me?” But when William sat down, he looked at me and grinned. I only hesitated a second then grinned back. Ten minutes later the bell rang for lunch. I pulled my lunch pail out from my desk and walked outside with the new kid. In the schoolyard I asked William if he’d brought anything to eat. “Nah, I already ate,” he said. “By the way,” he continued, “everybody calls me Harry, not William.” I looked puzzled. “You know, Harry—short for Harrison,” he explained. “Yeah, okay, sure,” I replied. “Here, why don’t you take this apple? I can get a lot more. We got apple trees at home,” and I pulled out a big, shiny Jonathan from my lunch pail. “Okay,” Harry said, as he took it from my outstretched hand. “Thanks!” And he grinned again. “What’s your name?” “Carter, Carter Jacobson,” I replied. “Carter? I never heard that name before,” Harry said. “How’d it be if I just call ya Jake?” “Jake?” “Yeah, you know, short for Jacobson,” Harry explained. I kinda liked the idea. “Okay, sure,” I said. From then on, Harry and I became best friends. Harry was already 12 years old (I was still 11). We were about the same height, but I was heavier. Some kids called me “Pudge,” and I hated that. Harry was kind of skinny but wiry strong. I lived just a half mile from the Page school on Canyon Road, a couple of miles north of downtown Provo. Harry lived even further out in the sticks than I did, just off of the Geneva Road, four miles west of our school in Lakeview and within smelling distance of Utah Lake. Sometimes Harry’s dad dropped him off at school in their old buckboard when he had some reason to go to town, and sometimes Harry walked. I learned from Harry that his father’s name was Hyrum, just like the prophet Joseph Smith’s older brother. But then he had become a Jack Mormon who didn’t go to church or follow the church’s rules. Harry’s mom was nice. She was petite with dark hair and flashing eyes. She always asked me if I wanted a cold glass of water whenever I went inside their small house of old whitewashed adobe. Unlike her ne’er-do-well husband, Mary Cecelia Smoot Dempsey (Harry confided to me her full name) was a religious woman who struggled to keep her children close to the church. When she got to know people, she told them she preferred to go by Celia. But I started calling her Sister Dempsey, because she faithfully attended my ward chapel for Sunday services. When I first met Harry in 1907, the Dempsey household had six kids: five boys and a girl. Harry told me he had another older brother, three married sisters, plus a younger sister and brother who had both died in Colorado before the family moved to Provo: a total of twelve kids! Wow. That was a lot, even for most Mormon families in Provo. Sister Dempsey was in her late forties, but she seemed too young and spry to have birthed that many babies. I only had two younger brothers and a little sister. Sister Dempsey’s husband had switched from farming and ranching to various mining jobs when they lived in the mountains of western Colorado, but I never figured out exactly what he did for a living in Provo. Harry told me his dad took temporary jobs mining for silver outside of Park City or worked at Kennecott Copper in Bingham. Later I heard Hyrum was an occasional patron of Provo’s only saloon on Center Street, and he was said by some to have a roving eye for pretty women. Harry told me that his old man had been a schoolteacher when he first married his mom, which I found hard to believe. He didn’t talk like a schoolteacher, and I never saw him in church—not even on Christmas or Easter. Both Hyrum and Celia were originally from West Virginia. That’s where they met some Mormon missionaries preaching what we call the restored gospel. Celia quickly accepted their teachings with earnest hope and conviction. But Hyrum seemed more attracted by their descriptions of Zion in the mountain deserts of the Utah Territory and church leaders’ admonitions to gather here in the last days to welcome the Second Coming of the Lord. Hyrum was a restless man who was always seeking a pot of gold over the next horizon. He was the one who decided to seek their fortune in Zion. But he and Celia only got as far as Manassa, Colorado, where they encountered a small, supportive community of Mormon settlers and decided to stay. That was in 1880. Twenty-seven years later, they finally made it to Zion in Provo, Utah. This time it was Celia who had insisted on the move. When I turned twelve—like other Mormon boys who attended their meetings and followed most of the rules—I was ordained to be a deacon in the Aaronic Priesthood. I asked Harry if he was going to be ordained, too. He said he guessed not. His mom wanted him to, but his old man was firmly opposed and said he wasn’t gonna be “lorded over by a 12-year-old priest in my own house!” Harry and I didn’t talk much about religion. He didn’t seem interested. Harry was a rough kid, and sometimes he used rough language. But he was also good-natured, generous, and my best friend. I didn’t want to sour our friendship by being preachy. Figure 13: Harry dressed for church, which was not typically where he spent his Sundays. When school ended for summer vacation, Harry and I discovered a good place to fish along the north bank of the Provo River, just before it flows into Utah Lake. We went there almost every day after my farm chores were done, and sometimes Harry brought along his little brother, Bruce, who was 6 or 7 at the time. We’d eat apples or pears, apricots, peaches, or cherries, depending on the season—which were easy picking from the numerous orchards in the area—while we dangled our fishing lines in the river’s current. When we landed a brown or rainbow trout, we’d put’em in my dad’s wicker trout basket and divide them up at the end of the day. Harry wrapped his share of the catch in a big bandana to take home to his mom for dinner or breakfast. Sometimes we’d ditch our poles and play marbles on the soft soil along the banks of the river. Harry had never played before but found some old aggies to shoot with. I taught him the proper way to shoot off his knuckle, and before long he was a lot better than me. I had a prize flint taw that Harry envied. I knew I had enough money saved from doing my chores to buy another one, so I traded it to him for five trout and a dozen aggie marbles. Figures 14 and 15: The Provo River, left, on its way to Utah Lake, and, right, a view of Utah Lake, Looking west. That summer I also had my first taste of beer, and I didn’t much like it. One afternoon we met at our spot on the Provo River, and, from his back pockets, Harry pulled out a couple of bottles of Fisher Beer—bottled right in Salt Lake City, less than two miles from the Lord’s Holy House on Temple Square! “Look what I got!” he announced. “I swiped them from my old man’s stash. He won’t miss’m!” Hyrum Dempsey had an icebox stowed in the corner of the family’s chickencoop where he kept his beer. Sister Dempsey refused to allow the noxious stuff in her house. “I don’t know, Harry,” I said with more hesitancy than delight. “Beer’s against the Word of Wisdom, and my deacon quorum leader said that liquor drinking would send us to hell.” “Oh, bullshit,” Harry...