Heart of a Tiger: Growing Up With My Grandfather, Ty Cobb

by Herschel Cobb

  “How do you do, Mr. Bliss?” I mustered in as strong a voice as I could.

  “Howdy, there, young man. Pleased to meet you,” he roared, still laughing at whatever had been said before I entered the room. “So, you’re hanging out with this old gent, huh? Well, watch those afternoon naps of his.” He winked at me, gave me a little squeeze, and let go of my hand.

  “And that’s Chip,” Granddaddy continued, motioning toward the other man in the room. “He knows what really goes on around here.”

  I shook another hand. I felt a sheepish smile form on my face as, backing up, I bumped into Granddaddy. I looked up and he was still grinning.

  “So, what did you finally do with it, Ty?” Chip asked, continuing their conversation.

  Mr. Bliss spoke up, laughing loudly. “He had to throw the whole thing out. Probably the car too. Right, Ty?”

  “Not quite, but close. I got pretty used to the smell—used to ignoring it, really. It was rank as anything. Lucky I had it wrapped up good. I left it for the bears, up at the top.” His palms were facing outward as he finished.

  “And what about that car, you have to give it away?” Chip asked, still laughing.

  “Ah, come on, Chip, you know I sold it. Just didn’t get much for it.” Granddaddy smiled, and then they all laughed again. “You boys laugh all you want, I won’t do that again. Now, I’ve got to get Hersch and his sister home and get them some breakfast.”

  Mr. Bliss offered, “Ty, stay here. We’ll fix them a plate they’ll never forget.”

  “Thanks, Bill. Another time. I’ve got Kit, his younger brother, at the house, and I’ve got to get back and make sure everything’s okay.” Granddaddy was heading out the door as he spoke, waving with one hand and taking my arm with his other. “You boys keep that story to yourselves, now.” Their chuckling continued as we crossed the reception area of the lodge and out the front door.

  “What were you talking about back there?” I asked.

  “Long story, Hersch,” he began. “Your granddaddy can be pretty stubborn at times. I’ll give you the short version. A few years ago, I’d been hunting in Idaho and bagged a big buck. It was the last day of my trip, and I managed to get the thing into the back of a station wagon I had then. Wrapped it up real tight in a tarp and started the drive back to California, actually headed for the lake. Well, it’s a three-day trip straight through, but I got bored driving and stopped to do a little gambling, so it took me a couple of days longer. By the time I got here, my buck was smelling a little gamy.”

  “What do you mean?” We were outside, walking slowly down the front steps.

  “The meat had begun to turn. You know, rot. Ever smell rotting meat? Stinks like the dickens. And the smell was hard to ignore.” He made a face. “I drove the last leg down here without a rest and came straight to Glenbrook. I wanted to get my buck gutted, skinned, and dressed up. It was about 2:00 a.m. when I got here and banged on Bill’s door. He was mad as the dickens that I woke him up. Anyway, I talked him into taking a look at my buck, but everything went downhill from there. His cook was gone, and when we unwrapped the tarp, the meat had turned. Smelled awful. Just awful. We dragged the thing onto the ground, and I unwrapped a little more and cut the belly. Sure enough, the maggots had started.”

  “Maggots, what’s that?” I squinted as I asked because the very word sounded icky.

  “Little worms. Feed on rotting meat. Tens of thousands, crawling all through my buck, just sucking away. Must have been the heat beating through the back window right on my buck that caused it all to happen so fast. It was plenty hot during the drive, but I thought I’d make it. It was a complete loss. Can’t eat maggot-filled meat. So Bill and I wrestled the thing back into my wagon. He was still mad, but laughing at me. Told me to get the thing out of here. I wanted him to bury it, but he’d have none of that. So, I left. I was mad and tired. Drove up the hill, round the bend, up a dirt road about a hundred yards, and dumped the thing in the bushes. Good feed for the bears, I figured. I headed back to Cave Rock real quick then, because it wasn’t quite square with the law what I’d done. Now, Hersch, I didn’t mean any harm, just didn’t have any other way to get rid of it. Besides, the coyotes and vultures would have a feast.”

  Feast? Yuck, I thought. My face scrunched up, nostrils flared, and mouth parted only slightly so nothing could get by my teeth. While I imagined the ghastly picture he described, Granddaddy laughed lightly and put his hand on my shoulder, as if to say everything was okay, and that’s just what happens when you’re stubborn.

  I had the sudden urge to pee. “I have to go to the bathroom,” I said, looking back toward the front door of the lodge.

  “Fine,” he replied. “It’s just inside, next to the reception desk, on the right. I’m going down to the boat and check on Susan.”

  I raced back to the lodge. Once inside, I had to pass Mr. Bliss’s office. They were still talking, and their voices carried out to the lobby. I paused because it sounded like they were talking about Granddaddy. I drifted nearer to the half-open door.

  “Still stubborn as hell, huh, Bill?” I recognized the voice as the other man, the one named Chip.

  “Don’t know, Chip. Seems to have mellowed a bit. Taking on three youngsters for a couple of weeks, that’s more than I’ve seen before. Remember last year? He walked around as sullen and touchy as a rattlesnake caught in the open.” That was Mr. Bliss’s voice.

  “Yeah, I stayed way out of his way. So what about the boy? What’s his name?”

  “Herschel Jr. Same as his dad. The senior died two years ago. Heart attack. Young guy. Thirty-three or so. Getting divorced. Business couldn’t have been too good, either, from what I heard. Don’t know how the Old Man made it through those two years. He lost the other one too. You know, Ty Jr. died the next year. Brain cancer or something like that. Really went down. Two sons in two years. Really shook him deep.” His voice took on a more reflective tone. “Ya know, Chip, he never got along with his children as adults. He made it, they wanted it.”

  “Whadda you mean?” Chip asked. He didn’t seem to understand any more than I did.

  “His Coca-Cola stock, lots of it,” Mr. Bliss answered. “But the Old Man took their deaths hard. I’ve known that old coot for a lot of years. It was a real jolt. Sat over there at his place in a snit, alone, moping around. I’m sure he had a bottle. Ya know, Chip, he battled hard all his life. Won everything. But losing his boys, that threw him, that’s for sure.”

  “Yeah,” Chip interjected.

  Mr. Bliss’s voice dropped a tone lower, “But, yeah, that boy—Herschel Jr., that’s his name—seemed okay. Nice-looking kid. The Old Man likes him, that’s for sure. Held his tongue pretty good. Never seen him put his arm around anybody like that before or laugh like that. Maybe those grandkids will work something his kids never did.”

  “Yeah, maybe. Well, look here, I got those plans for the dock repair. Let’s take a look.”

  I edged away from the door, as quietly as I could, and slipped into the bathroom. That little bit of conversation started a buzz in my head. Wow, divorce. What was that? Mom and Dad weren’t living together when he died. But she had said it was a separation. And what did he make that his sons wanted? Why, Cokes. The questions stuck with me for a while, and then drifted to the back of my mind. They would not be answered for a couple of years to come.

  The conversation in the office was still going on when I left. I took the front steps three at a time and raced across the grass, down the long pier, and to the boat. Across Lake Tahoe, the morning sunlight was now shining almost to the base of the mountains on the California side. The blue water undulated without a ripple. I heard the engine of the Chris-Craft rumbling and saw my sister talking to Granddaddy. He was telling her the story of the hunting trip, rotten meat, maggots, and getting rid of the deer. Her head was shaking slowly side to side, with Granddaddy moving his hands as if to convince her that everything was all right. His affection for Susan showed at her slightest dis
approval of him. He knew he should never have started telling her about the deer, and he wanted to end the story as soon as possible. I knew this because as soon as I arrived, he quickly said, “Ah, you’re here. Climb in and let’s go get some breakfast.” Just as quickly, he dropped the story of the rotted deer.

  “I want to sit in the back,” I replied, pointing to the seat at the stern, behind the engine compartment. “Is that okay?”

  “Not this time, Hersch. I want you up here with me.” His voice brooked no argument. His inboard Chris-Craft was long, about twenty-five feet, with two rows of seats in front, then the engine compartment in the middle and then, at the stern, another set of seats. The rear seat would be out of reach to a helping hand in an emergency. I had looked back there longingly while we were racing toward Glenbrook harbor. The waves splashed high enough to reach out and touch them. That’s what I wanted to do.

  “Come on, Hersch.” Susan’s voice was almost lost in the gurgle of the engine, and I slipped into the seat behind them and then climbed over their backrest, settling next to Susan on the outside. Dennis untied the lines, tossed them into the boat, and Granddaddy put her into reverse and eased away from the dock. Then he swung the bow around and headed slowly out of Glenbrook Bay. I expected to hear the engine roar, feel the stern drop deeply into the water, the bow rise up and block my view of where we were going, and feel the pull as we picked up speed. None of that happened. We were barely moving. Granddaddy had his arm around Susan, her right hand on the steering wheel, and his left hand resting on the side. Then he lifted her up, put her on his lap, and looked over at me and winked.

  I sighed deeply. Oh, how I wanted to drive the boat. We crept along through the calm water. Nothing special happened to us, except that as I looked around I had the odd sensation of seeing with my whole body what was around me. Lake Tahoe was deep blue, smooth as glass, with not even a ripple to disturb her. The sun was shining like bright yellow honey on the western mountain slopes in California, and the sky was light turquoise in the background. The air was so clear I felt like I could touch the scenic view before me.

  Glenbrook Bay was ruffled only by our wake. We were being pulled through blue paint, except that I looked down and could see the bottom of the lake so clearly I thought I could reach down and touch it. As we motored away from shore, the sandy bottom gave way to rocks, and I realized that it was very, very deep. The small rocks then mixed with huge boulders, deep under the sheen of the surface. The boulders spread out, jutting out of Glenbrook Bay on either side.

  I put my head back and looked straight up at the big, open sky. Even amid the serenity I could not help past associations with similar scenes from rushing back at me. I recalled the time my father took me flying in his single-engine Piper Cub, nearly turning the plane upside down during an extreme banking maneuver. The same sense of helplessness, feeling that my seat belt was unbuckled, clutched me in its grip.

  Granddaddy’s hand grabbing my left shoulder startled me out of my bleak daydream. “Hold on, Hersch. Here we go!” With Susan on his lap, he slowly pushed the hand accelerator downward. “Hang onto my belt.”

  The engine’s low roar tightened to a loud, steady, powerful whirl. The rush of air and water spray was exhilarating. His left hand manned the accelerator, and though his right arm was wrapped around Susan, his hand gripped the bottom of the steering wheel. She had both hands on top, trying to turn the boat from side to side. He held it steady, and soon we cleared Glenbrook Bay and sped toward Cave Rock.

  He leaned forward to see Susan’s face. She smiled brilliantly, proving to him that she could handle the boat. He grinned in response, with the deep lines in his face framing the pleasure that sparkled in his eyes.

  “Look up, up there, you two. Tell me what you see.” Granddaddy pointed at Cave Rock, his voice barely audible over the engine roar and waves crashing in white foamy wakes on either side of our craft.

  I squinted and yelled, “Wow, it’s a face.” Sure enough, a perfect outline of a face forms on Cave Rock, which you can see best heading south when out from the shoreline a ways. We were speeding along at a pretty good clip, and I braced myself between the backrest and the dashboard, standing with my head above the windshield. The cold wind swept back my hair. Granddaddy worked his right hand around my belt and waistband to grab me tight. I felt pretty brave—and safe from all harm.

  I stood the whole way from Glenbrook to Cave Rock. We sped along at twenty or twenty-five miles an hour, and only a few minutes later I spotted the boathouse and pier. I knew it was Granddaddy’s because Kit and Louise were standing on the pier, waving at us. On either side were two other piers with boathouses. His pier extended about forty yards out into the water, with the boathouse at the end. It was easy to spot because the rounded metal roof was old-fashioned, standing out from the other boathouses, which were newer, wooden, and painted. I felt a tug that pulled me down into my seat, and I sat obediently while Granddaddy slowed down and maneuvered the Chris-Craft around the lake side of the dock and into the boathouse. During my summers at Cave Rock, the boathouse dock became one of my favorite places to play. I could dive off the huge pilings, either into the late afternoon waves arriving from California or the calm water of the cove side, chasing fish or crawfish that lived in the huge rocks nearby.

  Kit’s voice echoed off the curved tin ceiling of the boathouse as we entered, but was drowned out by the engine. When Granddaddy turned off the key and the engine died, Kit was shouting the last words of his greeting, “. . . and I’m real hungry.”

  He was four years younger than me and six years younger than Susan. He was always hungry, loved food, and was a bit roly-poly. He had a cute and mischievous smile, a face full of freckles, and an impish laugh, and got along with everybody. The cold water of Lake Tahoe made him flinch, so he preferred to play with his stuffed animals on the beach and up at the cabin.

  “Mr. Cobb, master Kit woke up about an hour after you left, and he has been very patient waiting for you to come back and have breakfast with him. Quite insistent that his sister fix him breakfast.” Louise’s voice carried a humorous edge that told how “insistent” Kit could be.

  I stood up, hurried along the backrest of the front seat, and sprang onto the dock. I felt the sharp dip of the boat as I leaped, and heard, “Whoa, Hersch, not so fast. You’ll have us overboard.”

  Granddaddy quickly shifted his body weight toward the center of the boat to stop the rocking. He continued, “Next time, not so fast. Go slow and keep all the weight in the boat even. I don’t want this thing tipped over. We already had that once in this family.”

  I knew he was referring to the time my father was driving recklessly in his speedboat on the Snake River in Idaho and turned it completely over. A man drowned, and Daddy had to go to court. That’s about all I knew about it. I’d heard bits and pieces about the incident, but when I asked questions, I was told I was too young, and the “whole thing was unfortunate.” Daddy never went to jail, but the experience sounded like the sort of outsized thing he would do.

  Granddaddy and Susan climbed out of the boat, and we filed out of the boathouse through a door that seemed undersized. The sun was brightly shining, sparkling off the water out on Lake Tahoe, and filtering through the shallows at the cove to the sandy bottom. Susan, Kit, and I waited together for Granddaddy to finish tying the lines from the boat. His shape filled the doorway as he emerged.

  “Well, just look at you three.” His voice had a fullness and gentleness that seemed to wrap around us and pull us toward him. His smile was so broad that all the lines in his face came together. Granddaddy’s eyes were sparkling and at the same time looked right through us. He could see farther and notice more than anybody I’d ever met. The slightest motion caught his eye, and he never seemed to doubt what he saw.

  Their sparkle that morning was slightly covered with the mist of a tear. He quickly wiped his eye, dropped to one knee, took Susan and Kit in his left arm and me in his right arm. “You three look li
ke you belong here.” That’s all he said. He stood up and looked down at us standing underneath him. None of us said anything.

  Pale turquoise water shimmered between the planks of the dock, and the rocks on the bottom of the cove gleamed vividly. The sand tempered the dark blue of the deeper parts of the lake, and its clarity disguised the actual depth. Granddaddy stood tall, gazing out over the lake toward the golden sunlight on the western mountains. He towered above me, and I could see his broad smile and sense the comfort he felt. Louise had Kit hand in hand, walking with him to the edge of the dock, squeezing lightly in case he leaned too far over the water. Susan stood next to me, holding onto Granddaddy’s huge hand.

  His chest heaved as he looked down at us and said, “Why don’t you two come with me and we’ll check and make sure the boat is secure? I’m getting mighty hungry and feel like something extra special for breakfast.”

  The pier from the beach to the boathouse had been rebuilt many times. Granddaddy told me each winter the storms at the lake created huge waves that pounded relentlessly for the entire season, bashing the planks from the underside, until eventually they sprang loose from their nails. The planks were huge, four inches thick by ten inches wide and twelve feet long, secured on each side by nails longer than railroad ties. Two or three had been ripped completely away and the gaps in the dock were wide enough to fall through, making them exciting to jump over.

  The boathouse was a separate structure from the pier. Telephone pole–sized pilings had been sunk deep into the lake bed to form a horseshoe frame running parallel to the shore, and the interior was wide enough to accommodate his Chris-Craft. Thick wire mesh was wrapped around the horseshoe frame and huge boulders were set inside, as if it were a metal basket. Large bolts and wire cable connected the pilings. The boathouse was mounted four feet higher than the pier, and four steps led up to an old wire gate and fence that kept out unwanted visitors. The extra height, the wire frame, bolts, cable, and the massive boulders could withstand the winter storm waves, and the boathouse had survived for years and years. Granddaddy’s boat spent the winters in dry dock in Tahoe City, getting serviced and in storage. He respected the power of winter storms and knew the damage the pounding of incessant waves could wreak.