A Friend In Need Is A Friend Indeed

You probably won’t remember Jerry “Toothpick” Bowden. But he and I go way back. To a couple of “field of dreams” of yesteryear. His field was up by Webb School. Mine was down the street a bit, across from the old pajama factory.

He was a few years older than me, but you cannot imagine how unimportant that was at the time. Or now.

We both played baseball like our very lives depended on it. If I couldn’t get enough guys up for a game, I’d stroll the short distance up the slope and across the street to watch Toothpick and his friends play. Listen, I saw him go into the hole at shortstop, backhand a smash headed for leftfield, slide to a quick stop, wheel and throw a bullet to first base to beat a fleet runner by a full step.

It was as good as you will ever see.

When I heard of his recent passing a thousand thoughts raced through my mind. One of them was that play, still as plain in my mind as if it had happened yesterday. He had on a St. Louis Cardinals’ cap, a white t-shirt, a ragged pair of jeans, and tennis shoes that had seen better days. It was the exact same thing I was wearing on that sparkling day in the mid 1950’s.

He was using a three fingered Rawlings when he made that remarkable stop. I borrowed that old glove from time to time. It was premium cowhide, and well cared for. I tried often, in every way I could think of, to trade him out of it. Of course, I didn’t have nothing close to that glove to offer. He’d turn me down with that laugh of his that would light up the universe.

“Pick” was gracious enough to share his laughter with most everyone...loud, long, and often. He put his whole soul into it.

I would notice him watching us beside the single tree that stood aways back from our third base dugout. It was only natural that we would get together. Both of us were the first to arrive at our respective fields. One day we just met in the middle and started throwing a baseball back and forth.

It seemed right and practical and fun.

But it was the deep South. In 1956. When a black kid and a white kid were not exactly encouraged to do so. We didn’t neither one know any better. And maybe more importantly, we didn’t care.

Baseball is a wonderful common denominator.

And don’t think some kind of racial breakthrough here. We didn’t care about that either. We cared about each other. We were friends. We were not trying to change the world. Or fix the human race. We talked about girls. And school. Our favorite big-league players. And what we ate for supper

I was hoping he was lucky enough to get hamburgers, French fries, and a Coca-Cola every night. I was so disappointed when he told me it was turnip greens, brown beans, cornbread, and milk. Good golly, sakes alive! That was the same thing I ate near ’bout every day.

How so alike we were.

And listen closely here, I am not throwing off on John F. Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, Martin Luther King or any other leaders back in the day. But if me and Pick had been in charge in 1958, things that followed would have been a lot different.

You say that’s too simple a solution to a very complex problem. Well, I think differently. There was nothing complex about the way Pick and I got along. And it worked amazingly well.

Maybe the complexity everyone assured us was there…was a big part of the problem!

In the summer of 1965, we washed a hundred million cars together at Tommy Hill’s DX Service Station. Half the town brought their car in every Saturday to get shined up. We laughed our way through a boring job. Baseball was still the main topic. But Pick encouraged me to go to college. As a matter of fact, he was adamant about it.

I was a bit more worldly by then, and realized he was pushing me toward an opportunity that he didn’t have. An entire nation ought to be ashamed to put him in that position. I’m still mad about it! And yet, he never quit smiling. And laughing.

The last time I saw Pick he hugged me so hard he lifted me off the ground. I remember that smile when he saw me walking up…also like it was yesterday. Buddy Wiggleton was umpiring a Little League game at the park and had invited me along. It was most fitting that Pick and I spent our last time together leaning over a fence watching kids play baseball.

We talked of old times. And great memories. I never had a better friend.

I said at the outset of this eulogy, you probably wouldn’t remember Jerry “Toothpick” Bowden.

I will never forget him.

Respectfully,
Kes
kesley45@aol.com