Sports in America

by James A. Michener

  ‘Well, we jumped into the car and drove like fury to the north end of the island, and there we saw two boatmen rowing toward us, and they had Forbes and the guide perched on the back seat looking very foolish. A Benbecula woman who regularly scanned the ford to prevent just such accidents had seen that my husband and the guide were starting too late to come back safely, and she had alerted the boatmen.’

  Only once did Forbes Easton, this very cautious Boston banker, confess what had happened. ‘The guide suspected that we hadn’t the time,’ he told a fisherman during a trip to Alaska, ‘but I was so elated by our catch of three salmon in North Uist that I said, “I’m a stout walker. There’s plenty of time.” You’ve heard what they say about the tide at Benbecula? It rushes in like a white horse. It was well above our waists when the boatmen rescued us.’

  In spite of this misadventure, Forbes Easton often has returned to Benbecula during the salmon season, finding its austere landscape, with the Atlantic Ocean pounding on its western ramparts, much to his liking. His preference, however, in recent years, has been a curious, cold, swift-moving stream in western Alaska.

  He first heard of the Kvichak River when he was stationed on Kodiak Island during World War II. Natives of Alaska told him repeatedly, ‘There’s one fine river north of here on the mainland. The Kvichak, running out of Iliamna Lake.’

  Half a dozen times he tried to devise some way of getting north to the Kvichak, but the war drew him westward, and he never made it to this fisherman’s paradise. Many years later, however, when a business acquaintance who had his own jet plane suggested that fishing in Alaska might be fun, Easton said, ‘There’s this river west of Anchorage that might prove to be rewarding,’ and they had flown from Boston to Minneapolis to Edmonton to Anchorage, and then west to King Salmon, where they hired a one-engine local plane that flew them to the unlikely spot called Igiugig, where a flea-bitten Alaskan guide waited to show them the mysteries of the Kvichak.

  It was one of the best fishing experiences Easton would encounter, a delightful change from the British tradition of either New Zealand or Scotland. The Kvichak was a rough, bitterly cold, turbulent river flowing out of a lake fed by glaciers, and the people who frequented it were as rough as the river. They were men who had lived with Eskimos, who had worked at the edge of the Arctic Ocean, who had spent their winters in Fairbanks, betting on when the ice would break up in the rivers.

  They fished for forty-pound salmon and eighteen-pound trout, and they saw moose along the banks of the river, and wild fox, and the stories were salty and the card games endless. ‘It’s a primitive land,’ Forbes Easton told his Boston friends. ‘It’s really like nothing else left on earth. And I want to go back.’

  He did. His tales of the Kvichak were so compelling that several friends with their own jets wanted to try their luck with the huge salmon and trout, so that parties were organized at various times. ‘But one thing. If you can’t stand mosquitoes, stay out of Alaska,’ Easton warned his Boston fishermen. One mosquito repellent after another was tried, with invariable failure. And then Easton discovered that if you went to the Kvichak in mid-October, the mosquitoes were gone and the trout were biting. So in recent years he has formed the habit of taking his vacation in October. Sometimes he meets snow. Always he encounters bitterly cold mornings, but the rest of the day is pleasant. And the trout are magnificent.

  He wishes that Alaska were closer to Boston. ‘But if it were,’ he reasons, ‘the place would be overcrowded. Anyone who gets to Igiugig has had to make a real effort, and maybe it’s better that way.’

  What he does, when the distance seems too great, is return to his first love, the water he fished as a boy with his father. In eastern Maine there is a chain of lakes set amid forests and connected by small swift-running streams. Fourth Machias does not sound inviting as a fishing area, but it contains a fighting supply of bass and eels, and pickerel and perch. The first and last are good eating; the second and third are considered by the Maine people as inedible scavengers and are thrown back.

  As a boy, Forbes Easton had resented bitterly the actions of his father and the guide in making him throw back the eels and pickerel, for they were fun to catch, and fought much better than the bass. They were handsome, too, long and thin and much the way things living in the water should look. He determined therefore to try eating them the first chance he got, but when he went to a hidden area and cooked up a pickerel, he found it so hopelessly filled with bones that he had no opportunity to judge the taste.

  Years later he discovered that the Japanese considered eel a major delicacy, but when he got to Japan as a member of one of President Eisenhower’s commissions, he tasted Japanese smoked eel and found it too oily for his taste.

  To leave Boston late in the day and fly to Princeton, the name of the little town closest to Fourth Machias, and to rise early next morning and go out upon this lonely and secluded lake to fish for bass and perch, accepting such eels and pickerel as came to his line, and to watch the eagles flying above is a joy that renews his youth.

  ‘Horse racing may be the sport of kings,’ he tells his associates at his Boston club, ‘but fishing is the recreation of gentlemen.’ He assures his wife that his fishing vacations have kept his mind clear, his senses alert, and his health in top condition. ‘Of all the places we’ve gone,’ he told her, ‘I believe I’ve liked Lake Taupo in New Zealand best. That is, when Alan Pye was still living. But the place that makes my heart beat faster is Fourth Machias. I fished there as a boy.’

  From Easton’s own testimony, fishing has been a major joy of his life, and he is correct in attributing to it much of his sustained vigor. Throughout history certain men and women have found in this quiet sport recreation of inestimable value, and the high quality of writing devoted to fishing is a tribute to its values.

  But I doubt that fishing contributes much to health. In fact, the constipation that usually results from inaction and an excess of heavy food probably offsets any possible contribution. I would judge that his regular visits to the bank gymnasium have done a lot more toward keeping Forbes Easton physically healthy than all his fishing. But of course, the outdoors made a contribution to his emotional health.

  Fortunately, fishing has almost no public entertainment value, and as a fisherman who has tried most of the spots Banker Easton refers to, I hope it will always remain free from the pressure of competition. I have grave doubts that things like the deep-sea fishing contests held off the Kona Coast in Hawaii ought to be encouraged, but since the presence of spectators is not involved, for they can hardly go to sea to watch the fishermen, I would be willing to concede that little harm is done. The day’s catch is measured and judged and prizes are awarded and everyone does a lot of drinking … on shore.

  Therapeutic Participation

  The directive was simple and easily understood. The base commander issued an order which read: ‘Any officer or enlisted man in this outfit who is grossly overweight, as determined by the medical officer, will be separated from the service.’

  When Major Rollins reported to the hospital for his examination the doctor said, ‘Five feet, nine inches. With your body build you should weigh a hundred and sixty pounds. You’re twenty-two pounds overweight and you have one month to lose ten pounds, six months to lose all twenty-two. If you don’t, you know the penalty.’

  Major Rollins recognized this threat as an invasion of his privacy, but he knew that he had to lose twenty-two pounds or get out of the army, and he had never found any other form of life that suited him better. He liked formal organization and knowing where he stood on the promotion table and being able to fit his otherwise chaotic life into an orderly process.

  ‘How shall I go about it?’ he asked.

  ‘First, let me give you an EKG. Then stop eating so much.’

  ‘What’s an EKG?’

  ‘An electrocardiogram. And if that proves out okay, as I’m sure it will, we’ll start out on an exercise program.’

 
‘I already play golf.’

  ‘I said exercise,’ the doctor replied.

  The regimen he outlined consisted mainly of jogging, around the base and across the Texas countryside: ‘One mile a day for two weeks, then two miles, then three miles; and after five weeks, four miles a day. Every day. Every week for six months.’

  It was the hardest work Major Rollins had ever done. He was thirty-seven years old and in rather poor condition. True, he had played basketball in high school and had been on an intramural team at the University of Montana, but only to acquire his gymnasium credits. As soon as these were assured, he quit sports altogether and allowed himself to grow quite flabby.

  At first it hadn’t shown, for he was not inclined toward heaviness, but as he continued in his idleness and his devotion to army chow and the Thursday night freebies at the officers’ club, he began to degenerate.

  He always intended getting himself back in shape. ‘I’m going on a diet one of these days,’ he had said a score of times. And he had resolved to do some serious exercise. ‘I think I’ll take up handball.’ But adult patterns in American life, even in the army, make it very easy to ignore physical well-being and rather difficult to preserve it.

  He had told the doctor he played golf, and had this been strictly true he would have been in much better condition. Actually, he played at golf, in a desultory sort of way, four or five times a year. Those officers who really played the game, say twice a week, walking briskly over the four-and-a-half-mile San Antonio military course and cutting down on their food at least one day a week, kept in pretty good shape, and none of them were on the commandant’s list of ‘personnel grossly overweight.’

  Major Rollins, who had protected his health in no way, was high on the list. So he jogged. In sweat suit and running shoes he bought from the Adidas dealer in San Antonio, he pushed himself around the track at the football field until the required mile had been covered. His legs ached, his stomach cramped, and he felt steady jolts of blood in his eyeballs, but on he went.

  During the first week his weight showed no change, and he consulted the doctor about this. ‘Perfectly normal. You’ve been hoarding water in your system. I could give you a pill to dislodge it, and you’d lose three or four quick pounds. But it’s better to let the water drain off naturally. You come in at the end of next week, and you’ll be surprised.’

  So he continued jogging for the next week and did lose three pounds. During the next two weeks he doubled the length of his run and lost another two pounds. Then he shifted to three miles, and at the end of the month, showed a loss of ten pounds, as required.

  He was pleased when the doctor showed him a copy of his report to the commanding officer: ‘Major Rollins has disciplined himself admirably and has lost the proposed number of pounds. There is every reason to suppose that at the end of six months he will be in first-class condition.’ At the next assembly the commanding officer congratulated him and added, ‘There were others who couldn’t discipline themselves to do it. They won’t be here long.’

  The next month began the sheer hell of jogging. Major Rollins was now up to four miles a day, and he ground them out faithfully, a kind of glaze settling over his eyes while a mechanical motion controlled his legs. He found that he had to put himself into a kind of trance in order to cover the four miles day after day. What was worse, he had reached a plateau in his weight loss and for two miserable weeks showed no drop when he climbed onto the scales.

  He asked the doctor about this, and was told, ‘Perfectly normal. Your body is adjusting to new conditions, and in another week you’ll show a dramatic loss. Keep jogging.’

  So on he jogged, and at the end of six months he weighed three pounds less than what the height-weight and body-build table recommended. He was elated and asked the doctor how he could maintain that level.

  ‘Eat less. And if you can’t find a game you like, keep on jogging.’

  ‘I’ll never jog again as long as I live,’ Major Rollins said.

  ‘Then take up handball, twice a week. Or golf. Or best of all, tennis. You can play that with your wife for the rest of your life.’

  The major tried tennis, but he had so little skill that he felt embarrassed. He tried to make himself play golf twice a week, but the time required seemed excessive, and he dropped that game too. The base had several handball courts and he signed up for Monday and Thursday, and although he was no good at the game, he persevered. ‘Anything’s better than that lousy jogging,’ he grunted when fellow officers asked him how he was doing.

  And with his proper weight, and a better diet and fewer cigarettes, and fewer cocktails and regular exercise, he began to feel like a fresh, vigorous man.

  From his interminable jogging Major Rollins derived no joy whatever. It was a cruel, punishing grind, but on one occasion he did happen to break the glaze over his eyes and saw a rather fine sunset. But the rest of the six months was drudgery. He was gratified when he came upon an article which warned older men against jogging because the steady hammering might dislodge their retinas. ‘I knew I shouldn’t have been jogging,’ he shouted to his wife.

  However, he later read a news release from Dr. Don Cooper, physical education specialist at Oklahoma State University, which said that over a four-year period involving a large number of middle-aged men, not one who had jogged faithfully had suffered a heart attack, whereas those who had not, experienced the predicted number. Major Rollins could have achieved similar results from almost any other type of serious exercise and dieting. Of course, participation in any demanding game would have been best of all.

  As one who has jogged many weary miles I personally agree with Major Rollins that this is one of the world’s dullest pastimes, but Dr. Cooper’s data make the torture bearable. When I find myself in a place where tennis is unobtainable, I jog. I curse as I do so, but I jog.

  The Social Participant

  The happiest day in the life of Marvin Bates, shoestore operator, aged thirty-eight, came four years ago when a well-dressed gentleman entered his shop in Cheyenne, Wyoming, and said, ‘Marvin, we’ve been watching you, and if you could manage to take out three hundred dollars’ more advertising in our papers before September 15, I think you’d be invited on board the Treagle.’

  Marvin had grown up in New Jersey, in the Passaic area, where he had been told a thousand times by his two uncles, ‘Marvin, always remember that this town produced the greatest high school basketball team our country has ever known.’ And they would relate the glories of those remarkable teams in the 1919-25 era which had won 159 straight games, whipping opponents from much larger cities and creating a legend that would never die.

  There had been other good high school teams in subsequent years, notably in Indiana and Texas, but never any to equal Passaic, which had gone undefeated for so long a time. Marvin’s uncles had not played on the team, but they had gone to Passaic High and had participated in the glory that had accrued to their city.

  Marvin saw little grandeur in Passaic, a factory town with gloomy streets and a high school whose teams were now lucky to break even, let alone set records. So at the earliest chance he enlisted in the Air Force, convinced that he would never return to what he called ‘that dump.”

  At one point in his army service he was stationed at Francis E. Warren Air Force Base, and once he saw the Rocky Mountains and the plains and the clean attractiveness of nearby Cheyenne he decided that upon completion of his enlistment he was going to head right back. He subsequently served at Randolph Air Force Base near San Antonio and at Travis in California, but nothing he experienced in either of those favored states changed his mind. He was a Wyoming type.

  So after his discharge he headed for the mountains, and the only job he could find was clerking in a shoestore. He did this for ten years, then bought out the owner. He liked the shoe business, especially in Wyoming, where he could sell everything from tennis shoes to high-heeled Texas boots worked in silver. He was an enthusiastic young man, married to a h
ealthy Wyoming girl whose parents lived on a ranch west of Laramie, and he would have found his new life totally enjoyable except for one thing. He was never really accepted in Cheyenne.

  Many former military people had decided, like Marvin Bates, to come back to this beautiful region after their service was completed, and the city was crowded with newcomers who stayed a while, then moved on. The local people could never determine which newcomers would stay and which would become disenchanted, so a natural reserve was practiced, and Marvin Bates suffered from it.

  His boss had been no help. This man had come to Cheyenne after army duty in the area and had stayed only a dozen years, building a good shoe business, then selling it off to his clerk. The man had made no mark on Wyoming, nor it on him. Bates could well be the same kind of man, and he suffered from the indifference of his peers. For example, each autumn he saw the leaders of the community ride off on the Treagle, laughing and joking and drinking beer together, while he stayed home.

  The Treagle was an amazing operation, a private train assembled each autumn to carry the leading citizens of Cheyenne to the opening football game played by the University of Wyoming at Laramie, some fifty miles to the west. It was an enchanting train, composed of golden cars that had once traveled the great railroads of the west, plus special Pullmans that had been used by Presidents.

  It chugged into Cheyenne on Friday night before the big game and stood gallantly in the famous old station right in the heart of town, so that those fortunate enough to have been invited aboard the next day could say off-handedly to their friends, ‘I’m riding the Treagle tomorrow,’ and this stamped them as important citizens of the community.

  The name was clever, the first part representing the State Tribune, the city’s evening Republican newspaper, while the last half stood for the Eagle, the Democratic morning Journal. Since both papers were owned by the same family, editors were given strict autonomy in running their respective dailies, so that Bernie Horton, the Democrat, would back one candidate for governor in the morning paper, while Jim Flinchum, the Republican, would back another in the evening.