Tuesday, June 11, 2024.
I rode my bike late in the afternoon south toward Crown Point. There's a trail that bisects Centennial Park in Munster and cuts along the eastern edge of Briar Ridge. Right in front of Community Hospital I almost got run over. This begs the question - if you get hit by a car in the Community Hospital parking lot, do they put you in the ambulance or just roll you 20 yards across the parking lot to the emergency room. It's a tossup.
That got me thinking - why are people so mean toward bike riders? I have been riding the streets that I rode today for more than 50 years. I know these streets. I know the traffic flows, how fast you should go in some areas, and where you should look for bike riders. Most people either don't know any of this or they're downright hostile toward people who ride bikes I thought about how as a kid I could ride across Munster without really giving much thought to getting hit.
I rode my bike late in the afternoon south toward Crown Point. There's a trail that bisects Centennial Park in Munster and cuts along the eastern edge of Briar Ridge. Right in front of Community Hospital I almost got run over. This begs the question - if you get hit by a car in the Community Hospital parking lot, do they put you in the ambulance or just roll you 20 yards across the parking lot to the emergency room. It's a tossup.
That got me thinking - why are people so mean toward bike riders? I have been riding the streets that I rode today for more than 50 years. I know these streets. I know the traffic flows, how fast you should go in some areas, and where you should look for bike riders. Most people either don't know any of this or they're downright hostile toward people who ride bikes I thought about how as a kid I could ride across Munster without really giving much thought to getting hit.
Today, I rode my bike right by Frank Hammond Elementary School in Munster. And on the southwest corner of the school there's a baseball field where youth teams always practice. I realized that 40 years ago I was on that field for Babe Ruth practice. Mr. Silverman was the coach. His son Gary is the guy who sings for various bands in the Region, usually with Frank Sakelaris and Chuck Ramirez. Gary Silver, as he is known, is the best singer of Rolling Stones tunes ever - and that includes Mick Jagger because he's so old.
Mr. Silverman asked if anyone had a cup on so that he could throw batting practice and have a catcher. No one raised their hand. I wasn't the normal catcher. I was a shortstop. But I always liked to put on the chest protector and mask and shin guards. It made me feel good. I don't know why.
"I'll do it," I said.
"But you're not wearing a cup," Mr. Silverman said.
"Here. I'll take this catcher's helmet and squeeze it between my legs as I squat."
Mr. Silverman - "coach" Silverman as I should say - scratched his head and shrugged his shoulders and next thing you know, I was catching batting practice with a navy blue plastic helmet between my legs. I caught BP for a few batters, then Matt Pfister came up. And I remember the moment to this day... sitting out here on the back patio listening to all of these sirens going by to Community Hospital.
Oops - Powers Healthcare.
I'm sitting out here and for some reason my groin is tightening up. So is my lower stomach. It's a physical twitch time to the moment that Matt Pfister stepped into the box. The first pitch was a high fastball from Mr. Silverman. Pfister went after it and tipped the very top of the ball. A smidgeon. He couldn't have caught more than the laces with his bat.
To catch the high pitch, I stood up and readied my catcher's mitt. As I stood, the plastic helmet slipped off of groin. The ball changed direction ever so slightly and instead of landing in my mitt, it was a direct hit to the area of my groin where there was no longer a plastic helmet . Yep. You guessed it. By the way, I'm sitting out here listening to sirens and someone one yard over coughing. I get the feeling he or she is allergic to cottonwoods, which are rampant these days, or smoking weed. I prefer the latter mental picture because if it's who I think it is, she's kinda old.
I have gotten hit in the privates a bunch of times. But to this day I never experienced pain like getting hit in the balls from a foul tip by Matt Pfister. I don't remember much of what happened in the next few moments. There were flashes of light or lights of flashes and Mr. Silverman, coach Silverman, asking me if we should call an ambulance.
"No, I'll be all right," I said when I came to. "Just give me a minute.."
"I should have never let you catch without a cup. I'm calling an ambulance," coach Silverman said.
Now this is the point where I reveal something about myself that I just figured out - that I'm either pretty tough or a bit of a martyr... or a combination of both. I was riding my bike this afternoon down Southwood by Frank Hammond school and I was thinking that I had played baseball dozens of times on those fields. And I remembered all of the sudden, riding my bike 40 years ago at the exact same location.
In tough guy fashion, I eventually stood up and walked around for a while. Mr. Silverman kept saying that he was gonna call an ambulance. But this was pre-cell phone days. How was he gonna call an ambulance anyways? This school was closed. He didn't live nearby. He would have had to run a house and pound on the door. That's just not something people did.
Without announcing it to anyone, I hopped on my bike and started riding home.
Today, I retraced my steps from 40 years ago. By the way, there goes that coughing again. Yep. It's the woman across the way. I wouldn't take her as a pot smoker. Maybe she's sick and gets a prescription for weed. That would be sad, a lot sadder than she's an old Grateful Dead head who smoked weed with Jerry back in the day.
I rode my bike today - and 40 years ago - across the filed on the north of the school, down Marigold and around on University. And I wound up in the parking lot of Community Hospital, which my buddy Chris Klyczek used to call "the town prison." Chris is dead. He died 35 years ago. I still think about that sometimes.
I cut behind the high school and through Community Park by the baseball fields and through the St. Thomas More parking lot. That's where I went to school as a kid.
I rode that route today, and I rode that route 40 years ago. The hospital's bigger now. They built another wing and a parking garage. Someone painted the high school a dark red on the trim. That wasn't Munster's color when I was there. It was more of a candy stripe red.
I remember these things, these differences between then and now. I was just a kid, a dumb kid, dumb enough to catch Babe Ruth batting practice without a cup. In a time of excruciating pain, I did what I would wound up doing for most of my life. I just left. This time - or that time - I did it on a bike with swollen testicles that caused enough pain that I felt it in my throat. But there I was pedaling. And stopping and rolling on the ground. Then pedaling some more. And then stopping on a bench by the church.
At home, I burst through the side door and laid on the stairs.
"Are you okay?" my mom asked. "What happened? Did you get hit by a car?"
On that ride 40 years ago, I rode home without seeing almost any cars. There was a a third of the traffic that there is on Calumet Avenue now. I was hoping back then that as I rode home I might see someone I knew and could ditch my bike and take a ride. But back then people just didn't drive around like they do now. You went to work, got home and unless you had a game or needed gas, you probably stayed home.
On the ride today, ironically, I almost did get hit by a car. I swerved and flew off my bike, but I didn't get hit. The woman watched me tumble across the grass. When I came to rest, we met eyes. She knew what she had done. She just turned her head away and sped off. This sequence of events in which I almost get run over by a car has happened several times this year.
At least, though, when I rode my bike around Munster today my testicles weren't aching like some big grizzly bear was standing on them. I remember the pain from 40 years keenly right now. I've moved inside and I'm sitting on the couch. No more coughing - hunched over, gray, saggy cheeks, ugly old man feet and breath that smells a little like a dirty diaper. I feel a knot in my lower gut, the yank on my testis, the rusty deep pain behind my navel. That was real pain, gut-wrenching pain, made worse by bouncing up and down on a bike seat. I made it home, though, and my mom pulled me up the four stairs to the living room, where she turned on the air conditioner (we weren't allowed to turn on the air conditioner except for special occasions... like getting hit in the groin) and handed me a glass of cherry Kool-Aid. Eventually the house cooled down and my dad came home from work.
"You were catching? Were you wearing a cup?"
I said nothing. It was pretty much understood that I didn't think much before I did anything. It wasn't horrible stuff. I got busted a few times for stuff like throwing tomatoes at cars and running across the Borman Expressway for kicks. I didn't think much before I did things. It's been a pattern my whole life. I walk around in a fog, slipping in and out of clarity. At a party or in a bar, I chalk it up to spending a few years in Berkeley. But, really, I've just always been the kind of guy who would insist on catching without a cup, get hit in the balls, then make a long arduous journey across town in an immense amount of pain. I liked it so much that I rode the exact same route 40 years later. Imagine that.
Mr. Silverman asked if anyone had a cup on so that he could throw batting practice and have a catcher. No one raised their hand. I wasn't the normal catcher. I was a shortstop. But I always liked to put on the chest protector and mask and shin guards. It made me feel good. I don't know why.
"I'll do it," I said.
"But you're not wearing a cup," Mr. Silverman said.
"Here. I'll take this catcher's helmet and squeeze it between my legs as I squat."
Mr. Silverman - "coach" Silverman as I should say - scratched his head and shrugged his shoulders and next thing you know, I was catching batting practice with a navy blue plastic helmet between my legs. I caught BP for a few batters, then Matt Pfister came up. And I remember the moment to this day... sitting out here on the back patio listening to all of these sirens going by to Community Hospital.
Oops - Powers Healthcare.
I'm sitting out here and for some reason my groin is tightening up. So is my lower stomach. It's a physical twitch time to the moment that Matt Pfister stepped into the box. The first pitch was a high fastball from Mr. Silverman. Pfister went after it and tipped the very top of the ball. A smidgeon. He couldn't have caught more than the laces with his bat.
To catch the high pitch, I stood up and readied my catcher's mitt. As I stood, the plastic helmet slipped off of groin. The ball changed direction ever so slightly and instead of landing in my mitt, it was a direct hit to the area of my groin where there was no longer a plastic helmet . Yep. You guessed it. By the way, I'm sitting out here listening to sirens and someone one yard over coughing. I get the feeling he or she is allergic to cottonwoods, which are rampant these days, or smoking weed. I prefer the latter mental picture because if it's who I think it is, she's kinda old.
I have gotten hit in the privates a bunch of times. But to this day I never experienced pain like getting hit in the balls from a foul tip by Matt Pfister. I don't remember much of what happened in the next few moments. There were flashes of light or lights of flashes and Mr. Silverman, coach Silverman, asking me if we should call an ambulance.
"No, I'll be all right," I said when I came to. "Just give me a minute.."
"I should have never let you catch without a cup. I'm calling an ambulance," coach Silverman said.
Now this is the point where I reveal something about myself that I just figured out - that I'm either pretty tough or a bit of a martyr... or a combination of both. I was riding my bike this afternoon down Southwood by Frank Hammond school and I was thinking that I had played baseball dozens of times on those fields. And I remembered all of the sudden, riding my bike 40 years ago at the exact same location.
In tough guy fashion, I eventually stood up and walked around for a while. Mr. Silverman kept saying that he was gonna call an ambulance. But this was pre-cell phone days. How was he gonna call an ambulance anyways? This school was closed. He didn't live nearby. He would have had to run a house and pound on the door. That's just not something people did.
Without announcing it to anyone, I hopped on my bike and started riding home.
Today, I retraced my steps from 40 years ago. By the way, there goes that coughing again. Yep. It's the woman across the way. I wouldn't take her as a pot smoker. Maybe she's sick and gets a prescription for weed. That would be sad, a lot sadder than she's an old Grateful Dead head who smoked weed with Jerry back in the day.
I rode my bike today - and 40 years ago - across the filed on the north of the school, down Marigold and around on University. And I wound up in the parking lot of Community Hospital, which my buddy Chris Klyczek used to call "the town prison." Chris is dead. He died 35 years ago. I still think about that sometimes.
I cut behind the high school and through Community Park by the baseball fields and through the St. Thomas More parking lot. That's where I went to school as a kid.
I rode that route today, and I rode that route 40 years ago. The hospital's bigger now. They built another wing and a parking garage. Someone painted the high school a dark red on the trim. That wasn't Munster's color when I was there. It was more of a candy stripe red.
I remember these things, these differences between then and now. I was just a kid, a dumb kid, dumb enough to catch Babe Ruth batting practice without a cup. In a time of excruciating pain, I did what I would wound up doing for most of my life. I just left. This time - or that time - I did it on a bike with swollen testicles that caused enough pain that I felt it in my throat. But there I was pedaling. And stopping and rolling on the ground. Then pedaling some more. And then stopping on a bench by the church.
At home, I burst through the side door and laid on the stairs.
"Are you okay?" my mom asked. "What happened? Did you get hit by a car?"
On that ride 40 years ago, I rode home without seeing almost any cars. There was a a third of the traffic that there is on Calumet Avenue now. I was hoping back then that as I rode home I might see someone I knew and could ditch my bike and take a ride. But back then people just didn't drive around like they do now. You went to work, got home and unless you had a game or needed gas, you probably stayed home.
On the ride today, ironically, I almost did get hit by a car. I swerved and flew off my bike, but I didn't get hit. The woman watched me tumble across the grass. When I came to rest, we met eyes. She knew what she had done. She just turned her head away and sped off. This sequence of events in which I almost get run over by a car has happened several times this year.
At least, though, when I rode my bike around Munster today my testicles weren't aching like some big grizzly bear was standing on them. I remember the pain from 40 years keenly right now. I've moved inside and I'm sitting on the couch. No more coughing - hunched over, gray, saggy cheeks, ugly old man feet and breath that smells a little like a dirty diaper. I feel a knot in my lower gut, the yank on my testis, the rusty deep pain behind my navel. That was real pain, gut-wrenching pain, made worse by bouncing up and down on a bike seat. I made it home, though, and my mom pulled me up the four stairs to the living room, where she turned on the air conditioner (we weren't allowed to turn on the air conditioner except for special occasions... like getting hit in the groin) and handed me a glass of cherry Kool-Aid. Eventually the house cooled down and my dad came home from work.
"You were catching? Were you wearing a cup?"
I said nothing. It was pretty much understood that I didn't think much before I did anything. It wasn't horrible stuff. I got busted a few times for stuff like throwing tomatoes at cars and running across the Borman Expressway for kicks. I didn't think much before I did things. It's been a pattern my whole life. I walk around in a fog, slipping in and out of clarity. At a party or in a bar, I chalk it up to spending a few years in Berkeley. But, really, I've just always been the kind of guy who would insist on catching without a cup, get hit in the balls, then make a long arduous journey across town in an immense amount of pain. I liked it so much that I rode the exact same route 40 years later. Imagine that.
RSS Feed
