The Mokelumne Hill Gophers of a Half Century Ago
When the Spectacular Becomes Mundane, a Rebuffed Teacher, and a School Break-in
I grew up in a town of 500 people. We never had more than one grocery store, or more than a single tavern there. “The store” was all you had to say. Responding to “Meet me at the store” or “Can you get me some milk from the store?” with “Which store?” would have been nonsensical; there was only one. People did call the bar “The Well” (because that was its name), but nobody in town had to ask what you were referring to when you mentioned it. Everybody knew the place (at least what it was, and where it was).
Although so small, one resident considered Mokelumne Hill to have everything he needed. In his obituary, it was reported that this old man (he was at least in his 80s, if not his 90s, when he died) had only visited one other town in his life. He had never been out of the country, the State of California, or even the County of Calaveras, but he had been to San Andreas once. San Andreas, the County seat, is eight miles south on Highway 49, and boasted a couple of thousand residents—a regular “bright lights and big city” kind of place compared with the geezer’s hometown. His reaction to this bold foray into the outside world? “I never went back. I found out that San Andreas didn’t have anything that Mok Hill doesn’t have.”
This may give you a little idea of the town of Mokelumne Hill, nestled in the Sierra Nevada foothills, in California’s “Gold Rush Country.” In fact, the town, along with many others in the area—such as Jackson, Drytown, Amador City, Paloma, and the like—had been much more populous and lively a century or so earlier, when the gold prospectors saw to it that the many saloons and ancillary establishments (if you know what I mean) remained solvent.
You could be excused for saying that Mokelumne Hill was a sleepy town in the 1970s. Some visitors from New York had driven cross-country in their Volkswagen Beetle to visit cousins living nearby (in Angels Camp). After taking a look around the County, they asked me, wide-eyed and seemingly flabbergastedly, “What do you do around here?” I was offended at the question. I felt we had an interesting life, with plenty to keep us occupied and entertained. In reality, we kids had nothing much else to do than play sports. But that was enough for us. Getting to play sports was the highlight of our school day (at recess and lunch, after wolfing down our vittles), and we spent many evenings and weekends engaging in those favorite activities of ours, too.
We would play football, baseball (we called it baseball, but it was technically softball that we played), and basketball at the school. The first two sports were played on a field that we called “The Gopher Bowl.” This moniker stemmed from the fact that the school’s mascot was a gopher. We were the Mokelumne Hill Gophers.
I recall three amusing incidents connected with our three obsessions, one each while playing those sports.
What might be the funniest thing I ever saw took place on the Gopher Bowl while playing football. It was a kickoff. Two half-brothers were on opposite teams. Thad Swiatek was the biggest kid in school—not fat, but tall, wide, and thick. A man among boys, you might say. His half-brother, Jimmy Perona, was the opposite: a puny kid, physically speaking. But just as their names seem to align well with their relative sizes, the stereotypes about people of their dimensions seemed to hold up, too: Thad was more or less a “gentle giant,” whereas Jimmy was a fireball with “small man’s syndrome,” seemingly not afraid of anything or anybody. On this occasion, he wanted to best his much bigger brother in football for once.
As the ball was kicked off, Jimmy raced down the field, paying no attention to where the ball was going, but making a beeline for Thad. The play was occurring on the opposite side of the field from where I (and Thad) were, so I simply watched Jimmy as he flew, full-speed-ahead, down the field. Once he got within a few feet of Thad, Jimmy went airborne, leaping as high as he could, putting his fists together in front of his chest—a typical football pose—and slammed into Thad’s brawny chest.
Thad was simply standing there watching the play on the other side of the field. He saw Jimmy coming at him, and glanced at him very briefly before returning his gaze to the play. He didn’t brace himself for the collision, or try to avoid it. He simply stood there like a statue. When Jimmy’s body impacted Thad’s chest, the smaller sibling immediately bounced off, straight back, landing on his keister with a shocked expression on his face, eyes bulging. Thad looked down at Jimmy impassively, briefly, then turned his attention back to the end of the play—the ball carrier’s flag having been pulled. Thad didn’t say a word, laugh, change his expression, or anything. I don’t think I ever laughed so long or hard in my life.
As for baseball (OK, softball), we had one kid who was a standout athlete in all three sports, but baseball (we called it baseball, so I will just call it that from now on) was probably his best sport. He was so good, in fact, that he would make spectacular play after spectacular play at shortstop, diving to his left, diving to his right, jumping up to snag a ball headed for the outfield, always making the catches and throws, never committing an error or letting a ball get by him.
When he would make these stupendous plays, we would typically erupt into cheers and clapping and say “Way to go, Kevin!” or “Heavy Kevvy!” (“heavy” was not a reference to weight at the time) and other exuberant expressions of that nature. Once, though, he made another breathtaking play, immediately turning and sailing to his right as the ball left the bat, spearing the ball out of the air, and jumping to his feet to keep the runner from advancing, and we all just looked on, as if his stellar play was to be expected—which it was.
We didn’t plan it. You might think we all got together before the game and said, “Hey, the next time Kevin makes one of his amazing plays, let’s just stand there, and not react or anything. It’ll be funny!” but we didn’t. His almost superhuman exploits had just become blasé to all of us at the same time. After a couple seconds of dead silence, and Kevin then looking around at us a little confused as to the meaning of our lack of enthusiasm, we all simultaneously realized what had happened, and cracked up laughing.
In basketball, which we played on the outdoor cement court between the Gopher Bowl and the classrooms, there was one particular guy who was a real hothead. He was always calling fouls on other people, but in his mind he was never guilty of any infractions whatsoever. Nor was he ever out-of-bounds, although the person he was guarding often was. Charging, traveling, double-dribbling: it was always the other guy. You get the picture.
So one day, after running up and down the court several times and then exploding into one of his profanity-fortified tirades about something that he had supposedly been the victim of, he—so out of breath that he had to pause in his vociferous and emotional outburst to loudly inhale and exhale rapidly several times to catch his breath before taking up the accusations anew—had to endure the scornful laughter of everyone.
Normally, we just patiently waited him out when he went into one of his Incredible Hulk-style temper tantrums, but his, “@#$%&! . . . hunh-hunh-hunh-hunh . . . @#$%&!” was just too ludicrous to let go. We all laughed derisively. For once, he seemed a little ashamed of his immature whining.
Also deserving to be told, perhaps, are a soccer story, and a tale incorporating “lost” balls, an absent-minded teacher, and a burglary:
Soccer is the most popular sport in the world, they say. And I do agree it is the legitimate bearer of the name “football,” as it is the players’ lower extremities that play the largest role in the contests. But I don’t like it; never have. I can’t abide it, primarily because you can’t normally use your arms to strike, throw, or catch the ball. Why agree to such an egregious handicap?
We had an “exchange teacher” from England one year. He wanted to teach us to play soccer. We were not at all interested—we wanted to go back to playing football (American football, that is). He tried to convince us that we would like the great game of soccer if we would only give it half a chance. Our rebellion was akin to a sit-down strike, but it was more of a stand-around-and-gripe strike. After a few days of banging his head against the wall, this teacher/soccer evangelist finally folded his tent and allowed us to go back to our beloved American sport. The poor guy didn’t stick around much longer; I don’t know if we brats had anything to do with that. We probably didn’t help matters. I can imagine he went back home to England and complained about the hard-headed, set-in-their-ways Yanks.
When we were outside playing sports at the school (which was whenever we could), sometimes a ball would get kicked or thrown up onto the school’s flat roof, and somebody would have to climb up the pole attached to the side of the building to retrieve it. Being light and agile, I often volunteered to do this—I’d shimmy up the pole, fetch the ball, heave it to the waiting athletes below, and slide back down the pole, fireman or Batman-style.
So, when we were at the school on weekends and needed a ball, sometimes I would go up to see if there were any stray balls laying around up there. Often there was. Sometimes we tried the doors of the classrooms where the balls were kept, in the off chance that they had been left unlocked. One of the rooms, in particular—which was the classroom of a certain particularly absent-minded teacher—was often unlocked. I tried the door one day when I was there alone to see if it was open. I was not at all surprised that it was, and I thought nothing more of it than that the goofy teacher had forgotten to lock his door again. I got a basketball, shot hoops for an hour or two, and then put it back.
The real reason for the open door, though, was that somebody had broken into the school and stolen some money or items. I had been seen around the school that day, and so suspicion fell on me, or at least I was considered a possible suspect. A couple of detectives came to the house to interview me about it. They seemed skeptical about my story, and the teacher, I think, was miffed at me when I “outed” him for often unwittingly leaving his classroom door unlocked. I don’t recall if the culprits were ever caught. I don’t think they were. But the matter, as regards me, was dropped.
I guess the moral of the story is: just because a door is unlocked doesn’t mean you should go through it.
Chapter 1 can be read here.