together, Johnny was allowed to bring a friend along, and he always picked me to go.
Uncle Eddie was a big man; not only tall but also he had a very large body frame. He wasn’t fat to any degree, just tall and broad. He had to be at least six foot three inches tall, and even without being fat, I am sure he weighed at least two hundred and fifty pounds. He played football in high school, and went to the Pennsylvania State University. He was one of the only people I ever met that had actually graduated from a university.
Uncle Eddie had a real lust for life, he smiled all the time and when he laughed, he could make a room shake. He was one of the nicest people that you could ever meet, and everyone seemed to like him. He was one of the rich people that did not make regular people jealous. He always was generous, and helped his family out if they ever had any financial problems. Uncle Eddie and Johnny’s mom were brother and sister, and I heard that Uncle Eddie had given her the money they needed to buy the house they lived in. Johnny’s dad appeared to be the only one who was not fond of Uncle Eddie. He never returned the smile as he greeted Uncle Eddie, and I noticed he always avoided eye contact when they spoke to each other. Uncle Eddie never seemed to be aware of this. He shook Johnny’s dad hand extra hard and smiled as broad as he could, even as Johnny’s dad looked away and tried to pull his hand out of the grip much sooner than Uncle Eddie would.
Uncle Eddie arrived in town late Friday night and had spent the evening in downtown Philadelphia in one of the nice hotels on Broad Street. It was named the Bellevue Stratford Hotel and it had big luxurious rooms. The lobby had marble floors and a huge crystal chandelier that hung from the ceiling, which must have been fifty feet high. Uncle Eddie had told us they even had real room service where you could tell the desk what food you wanted and have them bring it up to your room.
Uncle Eddie had taken Johnny and me to visit the hotel the last time he came to town and I was amazed at how beautiful it was. It had large oil paintings on the walls and marble sculptures throughout the entranceway. The employees dressed in long black coats and when you walked in you felt as though you were entering one of the royal palaces of Europe.
On Saturday morning, Uncle Eddie drove his car from the hotel to Johnny’s house. He parked out on the street and strolled up to the house, smiling at anyone who he happened to pass along the way. I was standing outside on my porch as he walked by. Instead of a simple wave, he jumped up on the porch with one giant leap and pulled me into a giant bear hug. He squeezed me so tight that breathing was out of the question. It struck me funny that my own uncles and aunts would only greet me with a quick pat on the head or a peck on the cheek. They never seemed as happy to see me as Uncle Eddie was.
“How you been?” Uncle Eddie asked.
“Just fine.”
“How are you doing with your schoolwork?”
I assured him that I was doing well and would get good grades again this year. He smiled and shook his head showing his pleasure.
“You boys have any big plans for the summer?”
“Well, Reverend Casey is trying to build a baseball field for us to play on where the old empty lot is. It’s gonna be a real field with bases and everything.”
“It’s about time they had a baseball field for you kids to play on around here, after all it’s crazy playing baseball in the cemetery where you kids play,” Uncle Eddie said. “You must be pretty excited.”
Uncle Eddie was one of those rare individuals, someone that actually cared about other people and how they were doing. He never talked about himself or how much money he had. He did not brag about his big important job in Harrisburg, or how he got to talk to Governor Pinchot every single day. Johnny had told me that once the Governor had gone to Washington to meet with President Harding and that Uncle Eddie went along with him.
I stayed outside my house for a while, bouncing a ball off the front steps. I was waiting for Johnny or some of the other kids to show up, so that we could find something to do. I was going to knock on Johnny’s door, but thought better of it, not wanting to interrupt Uncle Eddie’s visit. After a few minutes, Johnny ran out of his house looking as happy as I ever remember Johnny looking.
“Uncle Eddie wants to take us fishing!” he said.
“Us? Can I go too?” I asked.
“Yep, he said we can both go,” Johnny replied. “It’s tomorrow morning and he is going to take us up to a real lake up in the Pocono Mountains where he says they have real big fish,” Johnny said as he tried to catch his breath from the excitement.
Johnny and I had tried fishing before. We had taken a very long hike up to the Pennypack Creek because other kids had told us they had caught some big fish there. We didn’t have much in the way of equipment. We brought a ball of string and cut pieces that we tied to long sticks we found in the park on the way to the creek. We didn’t know what to use for bait, so we put a bunch of things from our kitchen in a bag. We hoped that we could dig out some worms on our way through the park, but wanted to have a backup plan for bait if we didn’t find any. We brought a hot dog, some pieces of bread, and some small bits of meat.
It took almost two hours to walk to the creek and even though we had stopped at a dozen different spots, we didn’t find a single worm to use as bait. We spent another two hours putting pieces of meat and the hot dog on the end of two sharp hooks that Johnny brought, but we didn’t catch or even see a single fish the whole day. By the time that we got home, Johnny and I decided we were never going fishing again.
“Remember the last time we tried fishing and it didn’t work out so great,” I reminded Johnny.
“This won’t be anything like that,” he assured me. “Uncle Eddie is gonna get us real fishing equipment. We were going to use genuine rods and reels and he is going to buy night crawlers to use as bait. And besides we were going to a big mountain lake, not some small creek in the city.”
“Well, you know you can count me in,” I said happily. “I’ll be ready to leave anytime in the morning you tell me.”
The next day was going to be a glorious morning, a glorious Sunday morning. It did not hit me until I went in the house. Sunday morning, how can I go fishing on a Sunday morning? Sunday morning was church time, not fishing time; that was what I was sure my mother would say.
I was just going to have to find the right time to ask her and make sure that she was in a good mood. When she would say no at first, I would have to come up with the perfect look of sadness to try to gain a bit of pity in an attempt to make her change her mind. It was a look of dejection, where I would make my eyes water slightly and look away as though my world was ending. It was a look I had used many times before, with quite a bit of skill, and often had been able to change my mother’s mind. We would have to see how much pity I could get and if it was enough to get me on that Sunday fishing trip.
11
Entering the house, I was lost in thought, trying to come up with the perfect mix of emotions to persuade my mom into letting me skip church on Sunday. I had to decide between using sadness and pity or to go with the forceful and demanding approach. Before I walked into the kitchen, I decided to go with the watery eyes and faux sorrow as soon as she would say no. I might have to go into full-blown tears when she refused for the second time. That might be the point where I would get her.
The back door from the alley was just closing. My mom had just taken out the garbage and put it in the can out back where the garbage men came every Monday to haul it away. Turning towards me, she gave her usual warm smile that always put me at ease. She was cleaning up the kitchen and putting her dirty teacups in the sink.
I started right in.
“Mom, sit down, I have a very important favor to ask you,” I began. “Johnny’s Uncle Eddie has been kind enough to ask me if I would go with them fishing up at a mountain lake up in the Pocono Mountains. He said we are going to use real fishing rods and there are lots of big fish to catch. This might be the only chance in my entire life to go fishing in a real mountain lake, and use re
al fishing equipment. The only bad part is that we have to go tomorrow since Uncle Eddie has to be back in Harrisburg on Monday. So as much as I hate to miss church, even once, I think that this is a once in a lifetime opportunity for me and I really can’t miss it.”
I had laid out a pretty strong opening argument, but I was more than prepared to give my second and third reasons, and then fall back on the tears as my last resort. My mom looked at me with a serious look, “alright then,” she said. Not really listening to her, I went into my second phase of my argument.
“I go to church every week it’s not a big deal if I miss it once and you should want me to do something special when I have a chance to,” I continued.
“Didn’t you hear me,” my mom interrupted, “I said it was alright to go. Church can survive one Sunday without you.”
I guessed that I had won the argument, although it really didn’t seem like an argument at all. I hugged her and skipped upstairs to my bedroom to try to get to bed early so I would be well rested for our trip in the morning.
Falling asleep was hard on nights when I had something special happening. I kept thinking about how great catching a big fish would be. Bringing it home and having my mom cook it for dinner and we would all say how delicious it was. Finally, after about an
Me, Johnny, and The Babe Page 10