Every early summer, my thoughts often turn to watermelon, the St. Cloud Municipal Swimming Pool, the St. Cloud Library, the cabins at Beaver Lake near Luxemburg, Barden Park, marbles and baseball cards.
Those things more or less define, at least in memory, my happy summers in the 1950s. We kids would gorge on watermelon, spitting seeds all over the lawn; we loved to spend afternoons at the swimming pool until our eyes were devil-red, our skin wrinkly; we died and went to heaven when we got to stay a week every June with our good neighbors the Fahnhorsts in the cabins by Beaver Lake; we’d spend Sundays playing Cowboys and Indians in Barden Park, a block from our house; we loved to go to the library to get arm-loads of books; we’d spend mornings playing marbles in the alley as the sun rose ever higher and the soothing sounds of mourning doves around us; and we loved to sit on the lawn to trade baseball cards with neighbor buddies.
Using our stashes of nickels and dimes, we’d buy stacks of baseball cards at Hackert’s Grocery. As we unwrapped the card packets, we’d stuff the wafers of gum into our mouths and chew like sugar fiends until we were gopher-cheeked and drooling.
The other day, while sitting on my deck, I heard two teenaged girls walking by on the street complaining about a friend.
“Let’s ditch her,” one said to the other. “If she comes over, let’s just pretend we’re not home.”
I was surprised to hear that expression – “ditch her.” I thought it was obsolete among kids these days. Then I smiled because it instantly unlocked a distant summer day – the day of Dickie and the Mickey Mantle card.
On a summer day in 1958, brother Michael and I were sitting in our backyard looking through our big box of baseball cards. Just then neighbor Dickie ran across the lawn so excited he kept stuttering, stumbling over his words.
“I-I-I got ‘im!” he said wild-eyed, chewing a big wad of gum. “I got ‘im!”
“Got who?” we asked.
“Mickey Mantle! I just got baseball cards at Hackert’s,” he said, pulling a card out of his shirt pocket. “Look! It’s a Mickey Mantle.”
I grabbed the card. Sure as shoot, it was a Mickey Mantle baseball card, still a bit dusty with sugar powder and smelling of the bubble-gum piece that came with it. I cringed with instant envy, then turned green with slow-burn jealousy. In the 1950s, any kid would have gladly toiled a whole summer doing rotten house chores with no allowance if he could only get a Mickey Mantle. Getting a Mickey then, so rare, was akin to winning a $10,000 scratch-off ticket now.
I handed the card back to Dickie as I desperately feigned an attitude of “So what? Who cares?”
“I’ll be right back,” he said, still giddy. “I gotta go show the Townsend twins. When I come back, we’ll trade cards, OK?”
He ran off.
“He thinks he’s so hot,” I scoffed.
“Yeah, what cruddy luck he got a Mickey Mantle and we never get one,” Michael said.
“Well, I got a Roger Maris and two Hank Aarons,” I bragged. “If you ask me, that’s just as good – even better – than one Mickey Mantle.”
“Yeah, now just watch, Dickie’s gonna go around bragging all day,” Michael said.
“I know. That’s why we should ditch ‘im.”
“Yeah, let’s!” he agreed, grinning. “Let’s ditch ‘im.”
For two days, we ditched Dickie. He’d pop over, and brother Johnny, per our orders, would tell him Michael and Denny aren’t home. From our upper bedroom windows, we’d watch Dickie leave our front steps and go home.
“Serves ‘im right,” I said. “I bet he already put that stupid card in a frame.”
We caved in and let Dickie be our friend again; we un-ditched him. We tried to wheedle the Mickey card off of him with card-trade offers and candy money. No go.
A couple years later, Michael and I got to go see the New York Yankees play in Minneapolis. There in front of our eyes was our hero, Mickey Mantle, playing ball, as if his baseball card had come to life. We couldn’t wait to get home to brag to Dickie we saw the real Mickey Mantle.
When we did, he dismissed our gloating bragging with, “Yeah, well, there’s lots of other players better than him, y’know.”
Michael and I moped all the way back home. We felt as if we’d just been ditched.
