Progenitors

When the boys found a car with keys, they stopped to consider the pros and cons of Grand Theft Larceny.

As soon as she realized her middle boy was missing, she started calling around. It was a relief to learn that two of his friends were also nowhere to be found.

America still held a Tom Sawyer view of boyhood. For better or worse, they didn’t think to put pictures of children on milk cartoons.

The three ran away because the parents of one them was in his face about something. The other two went along for the ride. Who would notice, really? And school wouldn’t start until after Labor Day.

They weren’t but 14 years old, we think — details are a bit sketchy.

None of the boys had seen an ocean so they decided on California. There would definitely, absolutely, be an ocean there. They didn’t have a map but one of them was sure west was that way.

When the boys found a car with keys, they stopped to consider the pros and cons of Grand Theft Larceny. Miraculously, they decided against it. None of them had a license anyway.

They spent one night sleeping in a rusted tractor-trailer cab in a junkyard. One of them remembers the cold. They survived on snacks from filling stations and country stores. They did not steal.

The runaways had gone about 50 miles and were approaching Versailles State Park when a friendly older man pulled over to gave them a ride. They were in luck. He happened to be going their way.

It wasn’t long until he pulled up to a small-town police station and told the boys he was an off-duty officer of the law. He got on the phone and told their parents the kids were here and they were safe and they seemed like nice-enough young men and you don’t need to be too hard on them.

She sent her oldest son to bring them home. He liked to drive his Mercury and she gave him gas money. None of the boys’ parents bothered to go along. There was silence on the way home.

“Your dad and I were worried sick.” his mother told him.

In return for his solemn promise never to run away again she pulled a baking sheet out of the oven. Drop Sugar Cookies — his favorite — soft, not browned. He hated when they got the slightest bit crispy on the edges. She had made them just right and he told her they were good.

Drop-Sugar Cookies For Runaways
2 cups sugar
1 cup shortening
3 eggs
¾ cup sour milk
1 tbsp baking soda in the milk
2 tbsp baking powder
2 tbsp vanilla
¾ tbsp salt
5 cups flour
Cream sugar and shortening. Beat until light/fluffy. Add eggs and mix well. Add remaining ingredients. Drop by spoonful. Bake at 375º until they look right and not a second longer.

No one had ever played varsity. Coaching scouts didn’t know the family existed.The six-year-old playing in his first soccer game had no idea of the hopes his father had placed on him.

He didn’t know his family never had a trophy displayed on the mantle and never saved a press clipping from the sports section. No one played varsity. Coaching scouts didn’t know the family existed.

The boy’s father’s was determined to do something about that.

He’s a man with bad eyes and worse reflexes but he appreciates what sports can contribute to a child’s life. He admires athletes for their prowess and understands why people wear franchised logos, He sometimes featured sports legends in the ads he created for his clients. He tries not to be envious.

The man saw to it that his son was exposed to hockey, baseball, football and basketball. Golf and tennis were offered at school.

The boy joined a soccer league during kindergarten and took to the sport.

In the first minutes of his first game, the ball found its way exactly two paces in front of his power foot. “It might be a long time before you score again,” his coach laughed. And it was.

When the boy’s father volunteered as a referee, the league issued a uniform with a jersey, shorts and socks but he couldn’t bring himself to wear it— it’s risky for a guy who barely understands the game to look so professional.

The boy played on a team until late into high school when AP courses demanded his attention. He still gets together with friends and former teammates to watch sports.

He can rattle off stats and trivia with the best of them. When he and his old man are together, looking for things to talk about, he patiently explains the finer points of major league sports. That’s his job.

Being the jock in the family carries certain responsibilities.

Harry drove his car around back, pulled it into the garage, hung his keys on the hook in the kitchen and died.

He was missed of course.

The garage shared an interior wall with the basement so Harry’s car stayed warm and dry during those years after his death. His wife Nellie didn’t drive but her son-in-law regularly started the Chevrolet to make sure it didn’t seize up.

Nellie dreaded the idea of selling the keepsake. She once started to write a classified but “sturdy bumpers” and “chrome push buttons” was as far as she got.

She and a neighbor across the street had both married railroad men and they liked to do their ironing together. The woman had a son back from the service, going to trade school. He carried his tools and supplies as he changed buses to get across town. It ate up hours every day.

The woman told Nellie she had bought him a car at a bargain price and hoped it would last a while.

“I wish you had told me.” Nellie said. “Harry’s car’s still sitting in the garage. There’s almost no miles on it. Your son can have it for whatever he can get for that other car.”

The kid referred to it as his “Chevy” which stood for Chevrolet which stood for everything good in postwar America.

He forgot to set the hand brake one night and it careened through a neighbor’s yard taking a row of shrubs with it. It was an embarrassing pimply-faced mistake Harry never would have made.

A hit-and-run driver slammed into its passenger side during the first winter after he moved away. When he came home to visit he parked a used sports car in the driveway.

He walked over to tell Nellie the insurance company had totaled Harry’s car because it was thirteen years old. He certainly liked driving it, he said.

“Did it ever burn oil on you?” Nellie asked. “Harry bragged that Chevy never burned oil.”

“No, ma’am, it never did.” he said. He was lying of course.