Their Rest is History: A Visit to the Sicily-Rome American Cemetery

Imagine this.

You finally embark on your long-awaited honeymoon with your wife after many, many, MANY months of delays thanks to our old pal, global pandemic. You’ve spent thousands of dollars and dozens of hours planning your dream vacation to Italy. Following a dozen-hour, light beer-filled flight, you arrive at your incredible Roman hotel where you are serenaded by the intoxicating, authentic Italian accent of the concierge. You have arrived!

Naturally, one of the first things you want to do is visit a beautiful European beach, strap on a skimpy European bathing suit, suck down on some delicious Aperol spritzes, and let all your worries blow away with the refreshing Italian breeze.

And that’s exactly what a lot of people did.

My wife, Liz, and I went to the beach, too. Or at least close to it. Like a few miles…er…kilometers away from one. Okay, fine, we went to a cemetery. Because nothing helps a blossoming young marriage come to life like visiting a spot with a bunch of dead guys in it. Right? You betcha!

We weren’t visiting it out of some morbid fascination with true crime (even though we have one). And this was no ordinary cemetery packed with your everyday stiffs. This was the Sicily-Rome American Cemetery serving as the eternal resting place for 7,845 American soldiers, sailors, and airmen who fought and died in the Italian campaign during World War II.

On the morning of our adventure, we woke up to a beautiful Roman day. Bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, we arose with enthusiasm, brushed out teeth, and put on our outfits for the day. I donned some gear honoring my Great Uncle Emil – whose unit fought in the Italian campaign during WWII (though he joined the unit in France) – wearing a 36th Infantry Division t-shirt and Emil’s dogtag chain. With Liz looking fine and me looking…well looking like something…we headed towards the train station.

After a pleasant train ride from Rome, we first hopped off on the infamous town of Anzio. The Battle of Anzio was a brutal engagement that ultimately ended in victory for the Allies, but at great and unnecessary costs in lives largely due to poor leadership from General Mark Clark. What can I say? You just can’t trust a dude named Mark!

Leaving the train station, we encountered what felt like a battlefield of our very own. Dozens of wild-eyed, middle-school-aged kids rushed to enjoy the beach while smokin’ more heaters than an average GI during WWII. We only barely survived the attack!

From there, we visited a small, yet impactful museum dedicated to the battle. You could sense the pride and excitement from the two Italian gentlemen running the museum. They enthusiastically greeted each visitor and offered up any help we may need while touring the facility. The little space was jam-packed with everything from uniforms, beat up old weapons, photographs, medals, and more. After exploring the exhibits, the proprietor gathered up the seven or so patrons and proudly played a short documentary on the campaign using a beat-up old projector. It wasn’t exactly Oscar-worthy, but there was a lot of love put into it, and I greatly enjoyed watching it.

After completing our museum excursion, we went next door and scarfed down some rations (sandwiches and Peroni beers), put on our field packs (an orange, purse-like satchel) and set out on our march (one train stop over plus a sweaty walk) towards our objective (graveyard).

Along the short train ride to our next stop of Nettuno – home to the cemetery we sought – we caught a breathtaking view of the beach. Where this was once the site of tens of thousands of invading Allied soldiers, it was now the picturesque destination of pure relaxation for vacation-goers. And as we exited the train at our stop, we did an about face to head in the exact opposite direction of this blissfully beautiful beach.

As we walked north, we didn’t see anything quite noteworthy. It seemed to blend in with the rest of the beach town views we’d become accustomed to throughout the day – apartment buildings, shops, pedestrians, children smoking, etc. You would have never guessed that a massive memorial to a globe-changing war would be just around the corner. But as I soon came to realize, Italy always has a way of surprising you – mostly in the best ways possible.

Closing in on where our iPhone map told us the cemetery was, I caught a glimpse of something that made me smile. A street sign indicating that a baseball stadium – or stadio baseball – was off to our right. I took a look down the road in the direction of the stadium and let my thoughts temporarily drift back across the pond to my beloved baseball team – Go ‘Neds!

Then I looked left. And there it was. In the middle of this seemingly typical neighborhood was a spectacular entrance to a 77-acre plot dedicated to fallen American soldiers who helped liberate Italy.

We entered through the beautiful front gate and passed sharply dressed and impressive looking security guards who greeted us with a friendly nod and a “Buongiarno.” The first thing you see upon entering is a large water feature – a reflecting pool – with multiple fountain spouts and a little island with a memorial structure in the middle. What struck me was the color of the water. It had a brownish red, almost blood-looking color to it. Having Googled pictures of the memorial cemetery, I noted that the water in this feature is typically clear, blue, and beautiful. Whether the water was just dirty from a busted filter or possibly they were dyeing it red in honor of the upcoming Memorial Day, the symbolism in its blood-red tint wasn’t lost on me.

After seeing the fountain, I could feel goosebumps on my arm begin to tingle. But once we walked around the fountain to the right, and I saw the rows of American crosses and Stars of David for the first time, those goosebump tingles transformed into full on vibrations of pure awe.

Pausing to take in a wide view of the cemetery and its rows and rows and rows (and rows) of grave markers, I realized I had never before seen such a beautifully manicured plot of land. The grass was immaculately cut and cared for. Everything from the gravestones, bushes, trees, and flag poles, were perfectly spaced and unbelievably well kept. I mean perfect! Hell, even the trash receptacles looked inviting enough to dig through.

The entire cemetery seemed as if it were protected by a shield of remarkable calm. After witnessing all the hustle and bustle of Rome and the fun rowdiness in the towns we traveled through to get to the memorial, experiencing this sudden transition in atmosphere was very impactful.  

Approaching the nearest row of crosses and Stars of David, I could feel the softness of the grass. It seemed cozier than most any bed I’d ever slept on. I found this very appropriate, given how violently these men died, they deserve a spot to eternally lay so peacefully. For the record, didn’t actually lie on the grass, out of respect and all…but it was tempting.

I would be lying if I said I didn’t feel downright emotional at this part of our visit. My chest became noticeably tighter. It became harder to breathe – as if I had just walked from a heated house out into sub-zero weather. And I felt tears welling up in my eyes. I had no personal connection to any of fallen, but after all these years of fascination with learning about the deeds of these men and women, I felt an emotional connection – as if meeting my personal heroes for the first time. Because, to me, that’s exactly who these people were.

Gathering myself and wrangling my emotions, I continued towards the markers. Etched in each gravestone was the name, rank, unit, home state, and date of death for each individual. Nearly 500 of these graves housed the remains for unknown servicemembers – typically the bodies of those who were too mangled to identify. The etched inscriptions on these crosses read the following – “Here rests in honored glory a comrade in arms known but to God.”

I walked up the first cross to inspect it closely. Reading the name, I couldn’t help but smile. It just so happened to be “Miller,” which was the name of Tom Hanks character in Saving Private Ryan – the movie that kickstarted my lifelong passion for this subject.

I felt a little ashamed and morbid for smiling in front of grave just because this very real person shared the name of a fictional character I admired. So, I took a picture of Private First Class Edward J. Miller’s marker and promised myself to investigate this very real person’s past to see what I could learn about him. I did the same for many crosses and Stars of David I saw that day with the same idea in mind.

I slowly made my way through the many rows in this particular plot (Plot B), reading the gravestones as I passed by and giving thought to many questions about who these servicemembers were during their brief time on earth. What was his personality like? Was he funny? What did he look like? Did he have a sweetheart back home? How did he die? What was the last thought that went through his head? My little stroll was both fascinating and sobering.

After patrolling almost every corner of Plot B (1 of 10 plots), we realized it would take all day, and probably most of the next day, to explore every plot thoroughly. Though it would have been great to have the time to see and pay honor to every gravesite there, we had to get back to honeymoonin’ amongst the living at some point.

From Plot B, we walked to the rear of the cemetery where they erected a large memorial structure. Out front, were two flags waving beautifully in unison – one Italian and one American.

Naturally, it wouldn’t truly be an Italian curated memorial if they didn’t have at least a few expertly crafted works of art to put on display. And this memorial didn’t disappoint.

The first room we entered in the memorial was the Map Room. I’m not sure how often a collection of maps would be described as breathtaking, but this room earned that title. From a painted mural depicting the invasion at Anzio on the wall to a scale model of the entire Mediterranean campaign, each told the story of various sites and battles throughout the fight for Italy. Each piece was accompanied by inscriptions with interesting factoids that informed the reader of the “hows”, “whys”, and “whos” that made each engagement significant.

After studying the Map Room with fascination, we then entered the Chapel. In the center is an altar piece crafted from white and golden marble. Carved in the tablet atop the altar is the archangel Michael sheathing his sword while four archangels below him declare victory. Beneath this visual is the inscription – PEACE ON EARTH GOOD WILL AMONG MEN. On the other side of the tablet is a carved representation of the Angel of Peace.

Surrounding the altar on all sides was yet another sobering site. The panels of the interior walls are filled with the names of 3,095 servicemen and women who went missing in action during the campaign. It goes without saying that it would be devastating to know of a loved one who died during the war, but I can’t imagine the mental anguish you’d suffer with never knowing their fate.

The 22-foot in diameter ceiling dome sculpture is complex, striking, and packed with symbolism. Zodiac signs represent the constellations as points of light. Mars and Jupiter occupy the same relative positions they would have been in at 2:00am on January 22, 1944 – the very moment Allied forces landed at Anzio. Perhaps this immaculate piece residing above the names on the wall panels serve to guide these missing heroes to the heavens.

Leaving the chapel, we exited the enclosed part of the building into the peristyle – a courtyard surrounded by columns or some such…hell, I don’t know, I had to Google the word, too. Anyways, this courtyard area was all done up for an annual celebration. We were fortunate enough to be visiting close to a special time – Memorial Day (the American one). Still honoring the sacrifices of Allied soldiers made nearly 80 years ago, the Italians spare no effort to celebrate the ones who helped liberate their country.

We were technically there the day before Memorial Day, so they were still setting everything up. Rows of chairs were neatly lined up for visitors to listen to presentations. Wreaths from different organizations that support the memorial (and the overall memory of those who sacrificed so much) added color to an already beautiful setting. Multiple display boards highlighting individual stories of Allied servicemembers in Italy were proudly erected for viewers to indulge in additional learning. Lastly, small Italian and American flags were carefully placed before each gravestone.

With little time left before we had to catch a train back home to Rome, we embarked on the final leg of our self-guided tour towards the visitor center. Naturally, we took a roundabout route with a little detour through another grave plot to repeat my earlier activities of strolling and snapping pictures.

Entering the visitor center, you could instantly tell a lot of thought went into this small but mighty museum. It was immaculately designed, modern, and packed full of interesting stuff. It included neat displays with military equipment and artifacts – from helmets to hand grenades (deactivated hand grenades of course). It was covered with dozens of panels about the campaign in Italy – describing the bird’s eye view battles and individual soldier’s stories. They even offered up fun little side notes to the war, such as how the GIs introduced baseball to Italy – probably no coincidence there is a stadium near the cemetery.  

Among the information on the panels, they took great care to highlight the often-overlooked heroes of the war – African Americans, Native Americans, Japanese Americans, and other important groups in American culture who were shown unjust prejudice before, during, and after their service. These folks represented some of the bravest, most dedicated, most highly decorated members of armed forces, and these memorials help preserve proof of their noble deeds.

Among the bravest of the brave, 17 female servicemembers are buried in the cemetery. Serving in non-combat roles – mostly medically related – these courageous women never shied away from putting themselves into harm’s way to help their fellow countrymen. Throughout the entire cemetery complex, multiple displays celebrated their accomplishments.

One of the most heartwarming things we witnessed during our entire visit, was observing a few other visitors. A small group of Danish teenagers (at least we think they were Danish) carefully examined everything in the museum with absolute awe and respect. We even noticed they wrote a long, thankful note in the visitor’s book. I’m sure the spirits of the fallen servicemembers resting in the cemetery would greatly appreciate the fact that their sacrifices are still being honored by a generation so far removed from their own.

Knowing it was time to head out, we left the visitor center and exited through the beautiful entrance gate – leaving the peaceful dome of rest and re-entering the vibrant life of Italy.

Our visit to the Sicily-Rome American Cemetery was simply spectacular. To the Italians, I applaud you (with a standing ovation) for erecting and preserving such an impressive memorial. It left a profound impact on me, and I look forward to visiting other such memorial sites throughout Europe in the future.  

To the fallen Americans who now rest in this place – infantrymen, Rangers, paratroopers, artillerymen, airmen, sailors, coast guardsmen, Jews, gentiles, believers, atheists, agnostics – you are my heroes.

Regardless of their military designation, background, religious or political beliefs, the deeds they performed – or did not perform – they all shared one common trait. The simple fact is they were there and put themselves in harm’s way. Whether they were drafted into service or volunteered is irrelevant. They were there, pursuing a cause to rid the world of one of – if not the worst – tyranny it had ever witnessed. They gave their lives for that cause. Because of that, they should be forever celebrated, honored, and remembered. And until I find myself in a grave, I plan on doing just that.

Oh, and don’t worry, Liz and I did in fact make it to the beach.

Shout out to https://www.abmc.gov/Sicily-Rome as an irreplaceable reference for additional information about the cemetery and memorial!

SHONKTOBER: Theorosa's Bridge

“Theorosa…Theorosa…I have your baby!” No, this isn’t the cry of one of the Bravo Housewives bragging that she stole someone else’s man. And as soul-rotting and spooky as those abominations of human beings can be on Bravo, the story you are about to read is far creepier!

So, who is this Theorosa person? Or what is she...[insert ghoulish laugh]. Theorosa is the key subject in a local tale of terror just outside of my hometown of Wichita, Kansas – represent! In a suburb called Valley Center, stands a haunted bridge where the ghoulish apparition of a distraught and decaying mother lurks in search of her lost infant.

Stories about the origins of this otherworldly disturbance are a plenty. Like most legends, many of these stories are passed on word of mouth by drunken teenagers, so of course a lot of the details are skewed or just completely made up. So, if any of you are reading this and saying “Nuh-uh! That’s not how the story goes, Mark” – forgive my gullibility and take your gripes to the inebriated high schoolers who shared these stories with me all those years ago.

The most common story I personally heard as a youngster went something like this. A young lady back in late the 1800’s went on a wagon ride or some such with a married man, and as it turns out, this wasn’t a “covered” wagon ride if you know what I mean. Unsurprisingly, the uncovered wagon lovin’ lead to an illegitimate little one. Naturally, a married man making a youngin with someone who wasn’t his wife was a no-no – especially in the 19th century. And though this sinning sir didn’t have social media to worry about spreading rumors regarding his infidelity, he wasn’t going to take any chances of letting this extracurricular activity ruin his good name. Instead of doing the fatherly thing and pampering this little bundle of joy, this candidate for worst-dad-ever pitched the baby over the bridge and into the frigid waters that ran underneath it.  After learning what the man had done, Theorosa rushed to the bridge in search of the child. She looked up and down the rushing creek, under the bridge, in the woods, and every other possible spot the baby could be. Neglecting the cold Kansas elements, she too, fell prey to death’s grip that night.

Another story typically associated with this haunt is that a tribe of Native Americans ambushed a wagon train. They kidnapped Theorosa’s baby and delivered the same violent fate as the previous rendition of the story – throwing the kid over the bridge and into the deadly waters below. Desperate to save her child, Theorosa dove in after the infant but died in her brave motherly attempt.

Regardless of the specifics, the fact of the folklore is that a ghost mom is in search of her deceased baby, and her soul will not rest until she finds it and/or punishes the one(s) responsible.

Now, back to the first line of this story – “Theorosa…Theorosa…I have your baby!” Like many haunted locations, there is a ritual in place to conjure the resident spirits. It is said that if you park your car on the middle of the bridge at night, turn it off, stand outside, and recite “Theorosa…Theorosa…I have your baby!” that her very spirit will manifest in various forms. There have been multiple reports of bright floating orbs, silhouettes, the disembodied cries of a distraught woman, and even full-bodied apparitions. Rumors of cars not restarting and even the vehicles shaking were not uncommon.

The creepiest tale about the bridge I can remember hearing involves a grandpa and grandson on the hunt for some lighthearted spooky fun ended up getting a heavy dose of terrifying horror instead. Following the rules of this ghoulish game, the pair parked their car, stood on the bridge, and together chanted, “Theorosa…Theorosa…I have your baby!” several times in a row. Nothing happened. Just eerie silence and a thick lingering fog. The pair turned and shared a giggle at the excitement of partaking in the legend.

The grandpa then nodded to his grandson, and asked if they should give it one more shot. The grandson eagerly nodded in agreement. They turned towards the end of the bridge and shouted “Theorosa…Theorosa…I have your baby!” Before they could finish fully enunciating the last word, a screaming specter manifested out of the fog near the edge of the bridge. With arms violently clawing, the ghoulish form raced towards the pair of now frozen spectators. Ol’ Gramps finally grabbed his grandson by the arm and rushed back to the car with terror close in tow.

In one fluid motion, they hopped in the vehicle, locked the doors, and tried to fire up the engine. But the car wouldn’t start. Over and over again, Grandpa tried as the ghostly figure continued its wraithlike charge. Theorosa’s spirit then leapt atop the hood and began clawing at the windshield. Finally, the car kicked in and Gramps stomped on the gas in reverse. As soon, as the car left the bridge, the violent apparition disappeared, and the eerie silence and stillness returned. Grandpa and Grandson sped off – assumingly in search of a fresh pair of pants.

Okay, so now that we are all done with the backstory of this legend, we can move on to the true heroes of this tale – donkey-brained-18-year-old me…and, more importantly, my much braver friends. Seeing how this was like two decades ago, I can’t quite recall who all was with us, but the usual crew included Kyle, Behnam, Luke, Cameron, Ronnie, and Bober. So, dudes, whether some of you were there or not, you’re getting credit for it in this story.

After hearing the tale of Theorosa’s Bridge and experiencing a huge pang of cold Kansas weather boredom, we decided to investigate the infamous local landmark for ourselves.

But first, we needed to decide who was driving. We would’ve drawn straws, but we didn’t have any. And we would have flipped coins, but the only once we had was a bent Canadian quarter. So, we improvised by grabbing a bottle of mustard from the fridge, standing in a circle around it, and giving it a spin to see who it would land on. It turns out French’s brand mustard picked Kyle and his SUV for our fateful journey.

On a dark cold winter night, this handful of 18-year-old paranormal investigators loaded up in our version of the Mystery Machine and hit the road to drive the dozen or so miles north. Along the ride, we discussed the possibilities of what we might see, hear, or feel. We did an excellent job of conjuring up each other’s collective imagination by continuing to one-up each other’s descriptions of the terror we might witness. By the time we pulled within a short distance of our destination, we had properly scared the crap out of each other.  

Since this was before the time of smartphones and widely available GPS – plus the fact that we were too lazy to print out the instructions on MapQuest – we relied on hastily scribbled directions on a post-it note. Given the lack of technological assistance, and the laziness, it took us a little while to navigate our way to the exact location.

During our trek, streetlights, buildings, and civilization itself seemed to fade away. Afterall, this was a rural suburb of a rural-ish city, so it wasn’t unusual to drive a bit in any given direction and find a lot of nothingness. But this nothingness was different. Perhaps it was the knowledge that we were heading to a supposedly haunted location, but the surrounding atmosphere was thick with bleakness, darker than a usual winter night, and exceptionally silent.

Finally, we tracked down the poorly marked intersection where we were supposed to turn. And with enough nervousness to fill an oversized trick-or-treat bag, we drove down the dreaded road. Looking out into the darkness, each of us searched for the bridge ahead. That is until we realized something. We were already on it. Gasp!  

After our spines finished chilling, we discussed what to do next. Asking for volunteers to chant the creepy words tin order to conjure this haunted mistress, I was the first to speak up. And confidently proclaim that I was absolutely not going to do it. With my cowardice firmly cemented, the bravest of the bunch, Behnam, declared he would volunteer as tribute. Always calm and collected, he didn’t give off any hint of fear as he prepared himself.

Beginning the believed-to-be-true ritual, Kyle turned the car off with the rest of us tucked inside behind locked doors. Behnam opened his door. He stepped out into the remnant snowfall on the ground. He strode out to the middle of the bridge. After a brief pause, he unleashed the words.

“Theorosa…Theorosa…I have your baby!”

Silence. The boys in the car held tense with anticipation.

A little louder this time. “Theorosa…Theorosa…I have your baby!”

Nothing. Still “puckered”, the guys continued to hold their breath.

One last time, shouting this go around. “Theorosa…Theorosa…I have your baby!”

Aaaaaand still absolutely nothing. Only silence. We all breathed a sigh of relief and perhaps let out a nervous laugh indicating that we were totally tough and knew it was all BS from the start.

Seeing that the coast was clear and our knight in shining armor, Behnam, was unscathed, the rest of us exited the vehicle and began poking around on the bridge. Though no imminent otherworldly threat seemed to exist, I must say that the location was thick with an oppressive ambiance. Still fearful of the spooky setting, we let our eyes wander towards the woods, under the bridge, and down the road in search of our specter. But other than a few graffitied four-letter words and wiener drawings, we didn’t encounter anything else particularly intriguing. Given the state of the bridge, we were more likely to encounter a skittering crackhead than a ghost our ghoul.

Having received our fill of the nothingness on the bridge, we decided we would load back up and head home. We entered the vehicle, strapped on our seat belts, and waited for Kyle to start the car. In the back of each of our minds, we all thought perhaps this is where the creep factor will kick in. Will the car not start? Will a ghost shake the Mystery Machine?

But no, Kyle started the car in one try and we were on our merry way.

Relieved and disappointed at the same time, we voiced our opinions of the experience as we made our way back. Phrases like “Ugh, so lame” and “The only deadly apparition on that bridge came out of my ass” were possibly uttered.

Thoroughly underwhelmed and overly cold, we punched up the heater and sat with our own thoughts for a few moments after sharing our silly banter.

Remembering we’d turned the radio off during our approach to the bridge, the rider in the front passenger seat hit the power button.

And then it happened.

I spit you not – the very first words from the very first song that played through the speakers…

“All that she wants is another baby, she’s gone tomorrow…”

That’s right, Ace of Base came through in the clutch to deliver a one hell of a scare on behalf of Theorosa. Though her presence did not find us from the shallow waves of the creek under her bridge, she stalked us through the vast airwaves where she can reach just a little bit further. And Theorosa let us know that she was still searching for her baby.

As we sat in the car properly speechless, our spines tingled, infinite goosebumps emerged, and other things puckered up. All we could do was share shocked smiles with one another and sit in silence as we traveled home.

So, if you’re looking for a good bit of Halloween fun – or possibly a completely full tank of nightmare fuel – hop in your buddy’s car and head on over to the 109th Street bridge…Theorosa’s Bridge. Though a different structure now stands where the original bridge burned down, you still might find a lost spirit burning brightly, ready to greet you in her own spooktacular way.

"My (horror) Hero!"

The year is 2020, and it’s the middle of March. Beware of the Ides of March amiright?! A deadly virus has begun to spread across the globe. Because some dude ate a bat. People are panicking and madly scrambling to buy survival supplies. Putting and extra emphasis on buying an ASS-load of toilet paper. A reality show host turned President of the United States ordered the entire population to shelter-in-place. Not getting political here, but that just helps with the theme, so go with it.  

It sure sounds like the makings of a B-grade horror movie right? Wrong. This is our reality. And it’s been dragging on for 10 long months. Or years – honestly, I’ve lost track. With the majority of us having to shelter in place for at least some stretch of meaningful time, most of us have undoubtedly experienced a big twinge of cabin fever. For me personally, that cabin fever translated into big fat doses of insomnia for the first few months of the pandemic. Sure, I could watch regular old TV, Netflix, or Korean baseball in the wee hours of the morning. But after a while, sitting there watching the TV talk at you in the depressing hours of two or three in the A.M. got a little lonely. I needed a little help to get me out of my funk. Something to take my brain, pet it a little, and say “everything’s going to be okay.”  

And when my cabin-fevered, sleep-deprived mind was nearing boost or bust, fate was right there waiting in the form of an iTunes billing glitch.

A month or so before the pandemic started pandemic-ing, my good pal, Andrew, visited from Houston. We’d always enjoyed kicking back and watching good old fashioned bad horror movies, and this weekend was no exception. Andrew heard about a new movie that was exclusive to Shudder, a streaming service solely dedicated to horror movies and shows, and suggested we watch that. In order to access the flick, I had to sign up for a free week-long trial for the service and allow access to my iTunes for potential future billing. I didn’t think much about it, figuring I would simply cancel after the free trial and not be charged. Easy peazy. Expect it wasn’t. Even though I cancelled as planned, I was still charged for a month of the service – a whopping $5.99.

Frustrated at losing out on six bills that could’ve bought me a 6-pack of Lone Star, I figured I’d at least get some use out of the damn thing. After browsing and watching a movie or two, I finally stumbled upon one of the greatest American treasures I’ve ever laid my two eyes and one functioning ear on – a show called The Last Drive-In.

Who would’ve thought that one of the best remedies for those witching hour woes, worrying about this low-budget, nightmarish movie world we are currently living in would be…well…low-budget, nightmarish movies. But these weren’t just any poorly scripted flicks with plots featuring more wholes than swiss cheese. In fact, the movies weren’t even the main attraction. They were just the source material for the real show – the host, Mr. Joe Bob Briggs.

Some of us Millennials may recognize the name from our days of staying up late watching cable movies and eating Pizza Hut at sleep overs when we were kids. Joe Bob Briggs is a renowned movie critic, writer, and horror host best known for his days as the bolo tie-wearing, Lone Star-sipping, comedically rant-prone king of Monstervision on TNT. As the host, he guided viewers through movies – most often horror or horror-esque – with segments in between commercial breaks.

I’m sure I watched dozens of movies back in the day while he was hosting Monstervision, but I was too young at the time to appreciate the commentary and personality he brought to every movie viewing.

Fast forward 17 years after his final TNT appearance to 2018, this horror hero was resurrected and given the keys to The Last Drive-In on Shudder where he breathed new undead life into his hosting persona. The gist of the show was the same as Monstervision, but even better:

·      Open with Joe Bob sitting on his favorite rusty lawn chair outside of his trailer in front of and old tube TV with a trusty, ice-cold Texas juice – Lone Star – in his hands. Sometimes he’s inside the trailer on his favorite long-horn adorned recliner too. From here, he introduces the movie we are about to see in his comforting Texas twang along with a good long rant that may or may not have anything to do with the flick.

·      Deliver the Drive-In Totals for the movie – including body count, bare breast count, styles of action/violence/combat we are about to witness via adding “-fu” to the end of many a random nouns (Ex. Chainsaw-fu, Vending machine-fu), types of limbs we will see rolling, awards for quirky performances, etc.

·      Throughout the movie, it cuts back to Joe Bob commenting on the story – or lack thereof – unfolding while sharing fascinating fun facts about the films. From background info on the directors to production fiascos and even interviews with cast members, his knowledge and delivery never disappoint.

·      After the credits roll, close with a “dirty old man joke” from Joe Bob while Darcy the Mail Girl, his partner in crime, rolls her eyes.

Speaking of Darcy, I’d be remiss if I didn’t emphasize her importance to the show. Her official title is “mail girl,” but she delivers so much more. She adds balance, humor, and a benevolent sweetness to each episode. Beyond her on-screen time, she is the queen of interacting with fans on social media and making them feel like they are important. Because they are! She encourages fans to share their love for the show and put their own content and creativity on display. Most importantly she delivers an unforced presence that says, “It’s okay to like weird things.” Here you have a cool and darn good-looking gal sharing her love of the genre by dressing up like some of the characters we see in the movies. This serves to help tell all us weirdoes that it’s okay to have our own brand of fun since there is an entire community of people who support our quirkiness. The Last Drive-In wouldn’t be the same without her. Thanks Darcy!

Given everything we’ve covered so far, The Last Drive-In has put together a pretty awesome little formula that puts a big fat smile on horror movie fans’ faces. But the soul of the show – what makes it truly special – is Joe Bob’s personality. Simply put, he’s just fun. He doesn’t take himself too seriously, he’s not pompous (even when he goes off on an opinionated rant), and he is mighty genuine. He’s the kind of guy you’d like to hang out with and enjoy a beer or thirteen every Friday night. Joe Bob creates an experience that just goes beyond. Beyond what you ask? Beyond casual viewing. Beyond expectations. Beyond what we deserve. When you click the play button to start a Last Drive-In episode, you aren’t watching Joe Bob. You are watching with Joe Bob.

So far, The Last Drive-In has given us two full regular seasons plus several holiday specials. To me personally, the show has given me the following:

·      An invaluable way to connect with my best friends from afar during a time when we can’t be together in person

·      Inspiration to put together a drive-in themed movie setup in the garage

·      A Cameo appearance on my bachelor party

·      A social media interaction that led to an inquiry of Joe Bob officiating my wife and my wedding after multiple officiants had to cancel because of the pandemic

·      My final movie experience as a single man (along with several Lone Stars) just before tying the knot – the flick was Sleepaway Camp

One of the aforementioned holiday specials was called “Joe Bob Saves Christmas.” Like all the other episodes, it was fantastic, and my friends and I had a blast watching it together through a video call. But Joe Bob, my friend, you’ve done more than just save Christmas. You’ve saved the sanity of myself and so many others during this trying time. You’ve given us a friend to hang out with when nobody else is awake. You’ve entertained us and you’ve made us laugh – and damn near cry a few times. You’ve given my friends and me, and I’m sure many others, a way to connect from afar when circumstances haven’t allowed us to socialize like we used to. You’ve given us something to look forward to. You’ve delivered a sense of hope that allows us to drop our guard and enjoy a few carefree and stress-free hours amidst a time when those are few and far between. You’ve delivered words, anecdotes, and takes that really matter to us.

Joe Bob, you matter to us.

You, sir, are our horror hero!

Jump into Hell

Staring blankly forward with his mind adrift,

The young trooper knows this is finally it,

For two years he’s trained, and tonight is the night,

Where he’ll jump from a plane and join in the fight,

The engines’ hum gives off a calming sound,

From his C-47, flying high above ground,

With boots laced tight and ‘chute ready to go,

The trooper steels his heart for the battle down below,

But fear creeps in when the hum is drowned out,

By exploding shells and his sergeant’s shout,

The plane shakes as shrapnel riddles the cabin,

He can only brace and wait for fate to happen,

A small puncture here and a big puncture there,

The craft can’t take much more before it falls from the air,

It’s “stand up and hook up” as a light turns red,

Knowing any moment he could soon be dead,

Seconds are eternal as he waits for the green,

The signal to flee from this doomed machine,

After moments of mayhem, he hears, “Let’s go!”

He turns in the door where his body will throw,

It’s his turn in line, and it’s now or never,

“Do I have what it takes for this great endeavor?”,

He inhales deeply and fights off a lump,

But with courage in his soul, he’s ready to jump,

He lets out his breath and leaps through the door,

Immediately yearning for his feet on a floor,

His canopy deploys as he descends through the night,

Fearing a German bullet will jump up and bite,

Jerrie machine guns and cannons light up the sky,

Before touching the ground, many GIs will die,

The further he falls, the trooper’s hope rises,

That he’ll avoid getting hit by these deadly surprises,

Just before he lands, his luck runs out,

As he gets hit by a rifle aimed by a Kraut,

Bleeding from his belly, he shouts out in hurt,

As his injured body slams into the dirt,

Dazed and scared and unsure what’s next,

His assailment is close, he did suspect,

Fighting not to faint, he pulls out his knife,

Prepping for a last stand against final strife,

His instincts are pure, and his enemy appears,

With bayonet on his rifle, a modern-day spear,

The German lunges forward with all of his might, 

As the trooper musters the will to stay in the fight,

With a sweep of his arm, he blocks the bayonet’s tip,

And clutches the Kraut’s collar with a mighty grip,

He takes a final blurry look at this threat to the West,

And drives his trench knife, right into his chest,

Falling against each other, life slips away,

Neither will live, to fight another day,

The two soldiers lay quiet, gripped in death,

As hell burns hotter for those who are left,

This trooper’s war was short, but his legacy is long,

He stood firm with right as it battled against wrong,

No matter how long he fought before he fell,

Those he helped save will remember him well,

And by his sacrifice, laying buried in France,

His heroic efforts give liberty a chance.

Shenanigans-in-Place

Well hey there, everyone! It’s been awhile since I’ve put anything up here, but given the shelter-in-place business, I figured this would be a good time to put a random jumble of words on here again. Honestly, it’s been so long, I’m not sure how to start a blog post anymore. Do I start out with a wave from an emoji? Do I make a pop culture reference about tiger kings and cool cats and kittens? Do I keep 6 feet between each word? Hell, I’ll just start typing and see what happens.  

So, the COVID-19 pandemic is alive and well, and we are currently in week 7 of lockdown. I always thought of 7 as one of my lucky numbers, but all this week has brought me is a dropped/exploded Lone Star can in the kitchen, the discovery of a possible allergy to Slim Jims, and many bouts of insomnia. I remain optimistic that this week will get luckier by Friday…when I drink the rest of the unexploded beer and eat the reminder of my snack sized Slim Jims, allergy be damned.

The luck I have experienced during this 7 weeks though is that I have yet to walk in front of any work video chats without pants on. And with my track record of being bare-assed at home, this is an accomplishment in itself. I’ve been keeping a list of quarantine achievements, and this triumph is prominently listed.

Speaking of work, we’ve been pretty darn busy in the marketing world. Even with the world ending and all, people are still hurtin’ for a ‘gurtin – buying up a bunch of yogurt, milk, candy, and probiotic products. As for probiotics (the stuff that helps you stay “regular”), what a heck of a time it must be a marketing/advertising writer for a toilet paper company. Those folks must be making a killing. I can see the headlines now: 

“One Mega Roll for every undercooked quarantine meal” 

“2-ply to pair with microwaved fries!”

“A clean ass today keeps the Corona at bay”

“Hoard me or you will die.” 

I think I smell a yogurt/TP partnership in the near future. Or at least that’s what I hope I’m smelling…

Overall, Liz and I have done a pretty good job of keeping our sanity and making sure to have a lot of fun. Which isn’t too hard, because Liz is the most fun person on the planet. We created our own mini golf course (I won. No big deal.), we opened the Quarantine Cantina on our patio, we took a time machine back to the 90’s and played Super Nintendo while eating feet’s-worth of fruit snacks (quite literally…Fruit by the Foot…get it?!), and we’ve just embraced out typical weirdness to keep ourselves laughing…and only occasionally crying. Heck, we even learned a new skill – iPhone video editing – and made super professional looking videos of these activities. 

Actual, real time machine from science.

Not only have we enjoyed creating our own entertainment, but we’ve enjoyed some spirit-lifting from Netflix, Disney+, Shudder, and every other streaming service known to mankind. I mean we have watched a butt load of TV shows and movies. Naturally we watched Tiger King, and I am now inspired to sport a mullet on opening day of our baseball league this season. We watched Waco, which also served as an inspiration for a sweet mullet. By the way, did anyone else think that Rory Culkin in that show looked like some spare actor who would portray Emilio Estevez in a Lifetime biopic of his career? Also, I am an avid horror movie fan, and I’ve been spending many a insomnia spells watching all sorts of interesting stuff on Shudder. Through this horror streaming service, I FINALLY watched the Exorcist. It was pretty damn scary, but ironically, that was the best night’s sleep I’ve had all quarantine. 

Obviously, there are more important things to worry about than grown men playing a game, but a selfish silver lining of this delay-all-the-sports-and-keep-your-ass-inside order is that I’ve had more time to rehab my throwing shoulder after surgery. I’ve turned our garage into a down and dirty baseball training facility, complete with a hitting/throwing net, resistance bands, and lots of Craig’s List purchased steroids. It’s been a very welcome distraction, and I’m happy to report my shoulder is feeling pretty darn good. 

Our neighbor is a creep. He just keeps wandering into our garage. But he was a creep even before all this happened, so I guess that helps things feel more “old normal” when he goes about his typical creepy behavior – i.e. touching our Amazon packages, installing hidden cameras in our bathrooms, etc. 

Though I haven’t been able to see my pals in-person, we’ve had a blast on video chats. We have guys from across the country who will join our weekly sessions where we talk about random nonsense, watch basketball games from when we were in high school on YouTube, and press play on a VCR wielding a different rated R VHS tape that we weren’t allowed to watch as kids (mostly thanks to boob scenes) each week – because we’re scandalous like that. 

That’s all I have for now. I hope you all are staying safe, healthy, and at least partially sane! 

All is quiet...

0530 - December 16, 1944

Private Peterson hunkered in his foxhole, deeply enjoying the small bit of warmth emanating from the little twig fire heating his watered down coffee. It was the little things like these that a soldier has to look forward to during the long, boring lulls in war. Fires were forbidden in foxholes, but after a month straight of being exposed to the elements on the front lines, Peterson didn’t care. He needed this. 

This was the sort of time a soldier could lose himself in his thoughts, even if it is only briefly. For this particular soldier, thoughts drifted towards home. Home for Pvt. Peterson was a large farm in the Midwest that had been in his family for two generations. Home meant his mom, dad, little brother, and older sister. For just a moment, Peterson thought he was actually there. 

Just the week before, the mail had caught up to his battalion, and he had received a package from his sister, Mary. Its contents were a batch of crumbled, stale cookies and a letter with a little something written by everyone in the family. Peterson reached into his pocket, retrieved the letter, and began reading it for what must have been the hundredth time. His sister began the letter with some news from their hometown. It turns out Mary had been selected to help with the Christmas parade that next month, and she couldn’t have been more excited. She had wanted to help with the parade for the last two years, and finally the committee had selected her for “Concession Coordinator.” Peterson could picture the pride on his sister’s face as he read her words.

Next, his mother wrote her usual worrisome note. Every letter he ever received from his mom was always along the lines of “Harold, we are worried about you and praying for you every day and night. Stay safe and please don’t do anything foolish and get yourself hurt. We couldn’t bear the thought…” 

“Blah, blah, blah, I get it, Mom,” Peterson thought each time he read her part. 

Tommy, Peterson’s 11-year-old brother’s poorly grammar-ed portion followed. Peterson always loved hearing from his brother. He always felt like some sort of super man with the way his younger sibling addressed him. It was no secret that Tommy saw his older brother as his personal hero. “Harold the other day I told our new neighbors about how you were fighting the Nazis and that you were really important to the Army and that the war would be over pretty soon because you were over there now…” Peterson could feel a little grin crossing his face as he read.

Lastly, his father, a World War I veteran, said his piece. “Son, be careful and keep your head low. Write to your mother. She worries.” Never the sentimental type, Peterson came to expect this sort of thing from his father. 

Peterson put the letter back in his pocket, scanned the terrain in front of him, and let out an exaggerated sigh. Back to reality. 

Crack!

The rifle round entered Peterson’s head just above the brow and left a gaping hole in the back of his helmet. Peterson was dead.

Brrrrrrrrrp! Kaboom!

Hell just broke loose on the front.  

“Get up! Get your asses out of this barn! Kraut armor is headed right towards our line. This is nota goddamn joke!” Staff Sergeant Wals repeated this sobering message over and over again until every member of his depleted unit was scrambling to get his boots back on and rifle back in hand. This was finally it. After weeks of mind-numbing and uneventful outpost and patrol duty, the Germans had finally decided to take the offensive. This American infantry unit would soon be engaging in combat with hardened German forces on this icy soon-to-be battlefield.

Private Don Crowther shot upright from his crudely made bed of wet straw after the sergeant’s voice finally woke him from his short but badly needed slumber. He had been manning an outpost for several hours the day before and hadn’t had a good night’s sleep for as long as he could remember. After a moment, he gathered his bearings, tightened his boots, and grabbed his rifle. 

As he stood up to head to his post, the sudden realization of what was happening finally set in. This was the real deal. He had only been a part of 2ndPlatoon for a little over a week now and had never seen combat before. His only experience “under fire” had been during exercises back in basic training.  It was time to see if he had what it took to face the enemy. Will I be able to pull the trigger? Will I cower under fire? He thought to himself. He tried to shift his focus. 

“Private Crowther!” His platoon sergeant shattered his train of thought. “Get moving! We are under attack, son.” 

“Roger that, Sarge!” He said in as confident of a reply as he could muster, hoping that his superior couldn’t see his trembling hands. He shouldered his weapon and double-timed it towards his foxhole. 

Since there was such a lull in combat since the fresh private arrived, the platoon had been rotating squads back to the comfort of a partially destroyed barn, fifty yards or so back from the line. The sad-looking shelter did wonders for the unit’s morale. But now it was back to their freezing foxholes.

As Pvt. Crowther made his way out the door, he saw his squad mates heading in the same direction and caught up with them. Don was part of a heavy weapons crew, and it was his job to carry ammo and cover the .50 gunner and his assistant while they directed fire at larger targets. He found the gunner, Corporal Burg, and his assistant, Private Chance, and slowed down to keep pace with them. 

Burg had been at war for some time now, and he’d grown quite accustomed to hearing shots fired in anger.

Chance was brand new. He’d only been in the Army for a few short months. After a hurried basic training, he was shipped overseas to beef up units depleted by savage combat. He looked like he’d never even shaved before. From what Don could gather, he was a good kid and seemed to be a team player. He just hoped that would be the case when the bullets started flying. 

The .50, or Ma Deuce as they called it, was heavy and awkward and was most certainly a taxing piece of equipment for any man to carry. Despite Burg’s large build, the weight of the weapon coupled with the fact that they were walking on slippery, partly snow-covered ground slowed him down considerably. He grunted and slightly adjusted the weapon every ten steps or so. His labored breathing produced puffs of icy breath through the thick scarf covering his mouth. Fortunately, the weapon’s tripod was detachable and traditionally carried by the assistant gunner. This crew was no exception, and Chance was able to alleviate some of the burden.   

Normally, they would have had another crew man the weapon while they were off the line, but the weapon was in a sad state so they took it to the barn for some crude maintenance. Burg did what he could to make repairs and prayed that it would fire when they needed it to.

As they slowly trotted to their battle stations, Don glanced at his crewmates. He wasn’t sure whether to feel more confident or more terrified when he saw the look on Chance’s face. He was ghostly white and his lips were trembling. The only comforting part of it was that Don wasn’t the only one who was scared.  

After several minutes of labored travel, Don and the .50 crew broke off from the rest of the squad and headed towards their foxhole at the left flank of the main line of resistance. The rest of his platoon took up their positions several yards to their right. They were the end of the line. 

Every day for the past several weeks, each unit had to march out to their holes and ensure they were in combat-ready condition. Thanks to the snowfall in the area, they continuously had to dig out the excess buildup of hardened snow. It was certainly a workout each time they had to perform the task and helped keep them in shape. Or at least the soldiers joked that it did.

Thankful to see their foxhole required no additional maintenance, the crew jumped into the protective space. The gunner snapped the Ma Deuce back onto the tripod and set it up in its firing position towards the enemy’s approach. Don checked his M1 Garand and made sure the action was free of snow and other debris. He placed some extra clips and a few grenades in little crudely made dirt shelves he’d dug when they first prepared their position. Up and down the line, all of his comrades did the same.

After double and triple checking his equipment, Don looked out into the snowy opening in between the two wooded areas that separated him from the enemy that was about to try and kill him. The ominous feeling of impending chaos loomed in the air. He saw an empty plot of barren land that was soon to be engulfed in bullets and artillery fire. But for now, there was only silence. 

For what seemed like an eternity, no one said a word. The unsettling thought of being outnumbered and outgunned was surely entering the minds of veterans and inexperienced troops alike. They waited.

The silence was violently destroyed. A series of booms emanated from the distance and followed up with deafening explosions up and down the American line.

German 88’s.

Branches, cold dirt, and several severed limbs flung into the air. The men who hadn’t been obliterated by the artillery hunkered down in their holes as low as they could go. Terrified, men closed their eyes and prayed – for that was their only defense against a weapon so callous and brutal.

After an eternal few minutes of shell fire, the artillery fell quiet. Again, there was silence. Minds ran wild with fear and anticipation. Fear-stricken soldiers began to muster the courage to peer out of their holes, just enough to where their eyes could scan the horizon.

And in the distance, they heard another sound. It was a low rumble. The rumble turned into a roar. And as the sound grew louder and louder, the tension in the American foxholes grew higher and higher. Each man knew exactly what that sound meant. 

Tanks.

Unsure whether or not he would be alive or dead in the next several minutes, Don tried to distract himself by focusing on his job. Hold the line. Fire your weapon calmly and efficiently. Don’t go wasting rounds on things you can’t hit. Listen to your platoon leader and stay calm. Stay calm, Don. 

Minutes passed, and still, they couldn’t see anything. Some started questioning whether or not the assault would actually come at all. Are the Germans just harassing us? Is this a diversion? Are they going to hit us from somewhere else?Uncertainty spread amongst them like a virus. 

Finally, they saw something. From the fog, hard metal shapes began to emerge into view. 

“What the hell is that?” Don whispered to himself. Despite asking the question, he already knew. He could feel the hair on the back of his neck stand straight up. He had had enough training to know that he was looking at German tanks. Lots of them. 

“Okay, boys, off your asses and into the fight!” Sgt. Wals shouted from his foxhole off to the machine gun crew’s right. “Hold steady, men. We have a job to do, and we’re going to do it. Let’s make them regret showing their ugly faces. Hold your fire until they’re in range and then let’s slaughter the sons a bitches.” 

Other NCOs began barking orders to their men, trying to instill some confidence before engaging with the enemy. It certainly roused Don, and he felt a bit more inspired. 

Another boost in confidence came in the form of friendly mortar rounds and arty rounds sailing over their heads and landing in the thick of oncoming Germans. The troops cheered loudly from their holes as the explosives detonated. Those rounds were smashing into those Krauts and tearing them to shreds. Or so they hoped. 

The soldiers watched the front, praying that their artillery had broken the German’s will and driven them back. Their prayers would not be answered this day. The steel behemoths surged forward. They were now through the wooded cover and out in the open, heading right towards the hunkered down GIs.  

The Americans’ collective fear was distracted – temporarily – when one of their shells scored a direct hit on the lead Tiger. It knocked out one of its treads and rendered it immobile. Cheers erupted along the line.  

Boom!That sliver of optimism was quickly blown to bits with the impact of the wounded Tiger’s 88mm cannon blasting instant death into one of the foxholes near Don’s crew. The rest of the tanks opened up as the Americans crouched in their holes. 

As he looked over to see the cannon strike the fortification, Don could see mangled body parts fly from the space formerly occupied by two of his squad mates. A lightning bolt of fear struck his heart. Keep it together. Keep it together, he thought.

Boom! An explosion rocked the snow just in front of Don and his crew’s trench, knocking all three of them on their backsides. Their adrenaline had kicked in long ago, and without a moment’s hesitation, they were all back on their feet and manning their posts. The blast had knocked over the gun but had done no additional damage to it. Chance and Burg righted the weapon and prepared to get into the fight. 

The GIs hadn’t seen any Kraut infantry yet, but they knew they were concealed behind the menacing tanks. Minus a few low hills and impact craters, the terrain in front of them was mostly flat. There wasn’t a lot to offer the approaching enemy in the way of cover, which was exactly how they’d designed their battle strategy. If the Germans wanted to take this position, they were going to have to cross through a kill zone and risk heavy casualties. 

The Americans showed their discipline and held their fire until the armored infantry showed their faces. They didn’t have to wait for long. 

As the giant enemy machines continued to light up the line with their heavy weapons and machine guns, Kraut troops fanned out and began to charge forward. They were shouting inaudible, but authoritative commands. Dozens of unmistakable shapes of enemy soldiers began to surface through the fog and smoke.

“Let these bastards have it!” Sgt. Wals yelled at the top of his lungs. He lined up the sights of his Thompson sub-machine gun and triggered off a burst at an onrushing German. Two of the rounds found their mark, tearing through the soldier’s throat. He collapsed forward and bled to death within moments.

The fight was on.

All along the line, rifles and machine guns erupted and barrage after barrage was sent towards the oncoming enemy troops. Several rounds hit their mark and left troopers dead in their tracks. The enemy infantry didn’t let up either, sending a mass of return fire.

Don looked over at Cpl. Burg and saw a look of pure rage in his eyes. The gunner racked the bolt back and charged his weapon. He pressed down on the butterfly trigger and let loose with a little payback. 

Having difficulty pinpointing a target, Don fired his rifle wildly into the masses. From what he could tell, he wasn’t hitting anything, but he hoped he was at least keeping the enemy at bay with his fire. 

Chance was helping Burg select targets for the crew served weapon. He shouted and pointed in the direction of an oncoming group of soldiers. “Light ‘em up!” Chance yelled. Burg lined up his shot on the lead soldier and pulled the trigger. His weapon boomed loudly and found its mark. The large rounds hit the enemy soldier square in the chest. The now deceased combatant’s rib cage blew apart and left a gaping hole where his breastplate used to be. Chunks of bone and splatters of blood covered the ground around his body. 

Burg and Chance continued to fire on new targets, but Don couldn’t stop staring at the corpse of the freshly destroyed enemy soldier. He had never seen anyone die up close like that before. It was even more grisly than he could imagine. 

“Don, to your left,” Chance instructed. Off to the left of their emplacement, three troops hit the deck and began firing in a prone position. They hadn’t seen Don and were directing their fire elsewhere along the line. Don checked his rifle and rested it on the edge of the foxhole. He put his eye up to the sights. He saw the blur of an enemy soldier come into focus. He could see rounded shape of his helmet tilted forward. What does he see? What is he thinking right now? Don asked himself. He took a deep breath and slowly exhaled. He applied pressure to the trigger. The rifle kicked. As he watched through his iron sights, time seemed to slow down. He saw the round exit the barrel and head towards his enemy. Time sped up. The bullet hit the trooper right above his nose and exited out of the back of his head. He saw blood and gray matter splash out the back of the soldier’s helmet. He had taken his first life. 

A surge of adrenaline flowed through his body. He shifted his rifle and fired rounds at the next trooper. They found their target. He shifted again and dropped the remaining member of the group. All three lay dead in the snow. They looked as if they had simply collapsed and fallen asleep. They would not be waking up.

With his newfound confidence, Don became intoxicated with bloodlust. He was about to prove he was quite the proficient killer as he adjusted his position in the foxhole to get a better view of the oncoming soldiers. 

“Watch it!” Burg said as Don squeezed past him. After his brief annoyance, he returned his focus to his .50, selected a new target, and destroyed it. 

Don witnessed a group of four Krauts heading in their direction. Without even taking the time to properly aim his weapon, he began squeezing off rounds as quickly as his finger could pull the trigger. A few found a target and dropped a fresh corpse onto the ground. The remaining members of the enemy fire team desperately spread out and blindly returned fire. 

Don took their scramble for cover as an opportunity to put another ally into the fight. He grabbed a hand grenade, pulled the pin, and tossed it into the mob. Boom!The grenade blast peppered the group, but they all kept rushing forward. Without hesitation, Don threw another explosive in hopes of taking out the enemy unit. Having ducked after throwing the ordnance, he slowly brought his eyes back up above ground level. He saw two smoking dead bodies where his targets had been. One victim made a futile attempt to crawl back to his own line in retreat. One of his legs had been badly mangled by the blast and he was quickly bleeding out. He didn’t make it far.

As Don and his squad mates continued to pick out targets and eliminate them, the rest of the American line wasn’t having as much success. The bulk of the enemy infantry was concentrated on smashing through the center of the main line of resistance. Companies of Krauts rushed the trenches and unleashed fury. US infantrymen were dropping like flies despite their desperate attempts to battle the approaching onslaught. 

One soldier had his rifle blown to pieces after receiving a direct hit from an enemy round. Undeterred – and a little delirious – he leapt from his foxhole and charged toward the nearest soldier. With all of his might, he lunged and sent him crashing into the frozen ground. He sat on the enemy’s chest and delivered violent blows to his head. In the middle of his fist fusillade, another German approached him at point blank range and let loose with a burst from his MP-40, making the man a martyr. Other American troops fought with equal intensity and met the same fate. 

Some soldiers, paralyzed by the shocking terror of combat, couldn’t bring themselves into the fight and simply kept low in their holes. Pvt. Sanborn – whose friends back home called him Sandy – was one of them. 

Fresh off a truck and into the frontlines, he didn’t even have time to learn his own squad leader’s name. Once that first enemy round ripped through the sky, planted itself into the frozen earth, and sprouted an explosion of shrapnel, Sanborn was overcome with panic. He could feel his heart tense as it raced with increasing fear. It felt as if a demon’s hand reached into his chest, gripped his soul, and squeezed all the hope out of him.

He clutched his helmet with violently trembling hands and attempted to pull it further over his head. Sandy was crouched so low that his knees were over his head. His brand-new rifle lay at the bottom of his foxhole. And though he could feel his face burn with hot tears, he didn’t even notice that he’d urinated in his pants. His mind shut down and refused to let him operate. 

A German rifleman, hardened with the bravery of a few sips of Schnapps, approached Sandy’s hole with his bayonet-fixed Mauser pointed towards it. He peered into the hole and noticed a set of quivering shoulders covered in olive drab threads. Before his slightly inebriated mind could process this non-threat, he had squeezed the trigger of his rifle and lunged forward with the edged weapon affixed to his K-98 and struck the meaty part of the American’s shoulder. The kraut stumbled backwards, feeling a twinge of guilt. Wide-eyed, he looked forward and ran as fast as he could to try and escape what he’d done.  

Pvt. Sanborn slumped against the wall of his foxhole as the life poured out of him from the two torso wounds. As a few remaining tears dripped from the corners of his eyes and labored grunts fell out of his mouth, he thought about how he’d like to go home now. 

War isn’t for everyone.

Sgt. Wals tried keeping his fighting platoon in order, but thanks to the overwhelming infantry and tank fire, the situation was rapidly deteriorating. It became increasingly clear to him as the battle raged on that this was no ordinary German attack. The war was not almost over. The Krauts were not about to give up.

Don continued his one-man barrage against the enemy. Seeing the incredible number of soldiers approaching the line, he wasn’t having difficulty stacking up bodies. Ting!Another spent clip ejected from the top of his rifle. He turned back to his lot of grenades and hurled the remaining explosives towards the enemy. 

As the explosions went off, he crouched down in the trench and slid a fresh eight rounds into his rifle. Before he could return to blasting away at enemy ground troops, a thunderous explosion rocked the team’s foxhole, knocking everyone off their feet. 

Dazed, Don sat up and looked around for his rifle. He saw it lying a few yards away and crawled over to retrieve it. As he grabbed his weapon, he turned his attention to his crew to make sure they were okay. They were not. 

Chance had a giant gash in his forehead and blood was pouring down his face and into his eyes. Burg was clutching at his left hand and cursing louder than the gunfire fire. Don made his way over to Burg, who was the closest to him, and asked to see the wound. Burg, reluctantly extended his left hand. It was badly hurt with part of his lower hand, including his pinky, being blown off. Don quickly removed his scarf and wrapped it tightly around the injured man’s hand. “Keep pressure on it,” he shouted over the sounds of battle.

Having done what he could for Burg, he crawled over to Chance. The wounded infantryman was a little dazed and bloodied, but otherwise, Don found that he was in better shape than he originally thought. Removing the other man’s scarf, he wiped away the blood from his face and then tied it tightly around the man’s forehead in hopes that it would stifle the bleeding. Chance gratefully announced that he could see again. Don let out a brief laugh of relief at his squad mate’s comment. 

His laughing quickly stopped when a German jumped into the foxhole. The enemy soldier hadn’t realized there were live troops still occupying the position. This gave Don an opportunity to grab for his weapon and pull the trigger. Click! The explosion had knocked the .30 caliber clip out of his weapon before he could fit it securely in the action.

Without hesitation, he lunged at the Kraut before his enemy could squeeze off a shot. They struggled on the floor of the foxhole for what seemed like forever to both combatants. Neither man seemed to have the advantage over the other until the German head-butted Don with his helmet. He lay on the floor with a bloodied nose and the trooper on top of him. Thinking this was the end, Don closed his eyes as the enemy infantryman leveled his weapon at him. 

Boom! Don heard a weapon go off and felt a splash of warm liquid spray over his face. The weapon he’d heard did not belong to the German. It belonged to his injured squad mate, Burg, who’d raised his sidearm and squeezed the trigger just in time to save his friend’s life by ending his enemy’s.

Before he had the chance to thank his friend, Sgt. Wals’ commanding voice boomed through the sounds of combat. “Fall back! 2nd Platoon, get your asses outta here!”

Wasting no time, Don helped his two squad mates to their feet. “We gotta go,” he said as they struggled to get up. Don picked up the remaining clips from the ice shelves and stuffed them back in the ammo pouches on his cartridge belt. Burg took a look at the .50 and realized it was damaged beyond repair, which didn’t bother him too much since it would have been too heavy to retreat with anyways. He gave the busted weapon an appreciative pat and turned to exit the hole. 

Don helped push the two wounded men up out of their trench and quickly followed after them. Crawling on their bellies, they began making their way back towards the rear of the line, terrified that an onslaught of fanatical Germans was right behind them. Without looking back, they ran like hell towards any semblance of hope…

A Purple Heart for Pops

*Disclaimer– This is a work of historical fiction. It is my tribute to my my great uncle, Emil Bame, who served in Company A, 1st Battalion, 143rd Infantry Regiment, 36th Infantry Division during World War II. Thanks to extensive research by my Uncle Jim, also a veteran, I was able to learn a lot about him. Unfortunately, however the stories of his service are lost to history. We do know he earned 2 Bronze Stars and 2 Purple Hearts (one from a wound received exactly 75 years ago today), but we don’t know the specifics of the actions behind them. Again, other than a few details this story is complete fiction, but I hope that in some small way it serves as a “thank you” to this particular veteran and all those who served. Happy Veteran’s Day!

November 11, 1944. Somewhere in France…

Lifting his right hand up over his shoulder, the lieutenant motioned for his platoon behind him to stop and get down. He walked the dozen or so yards up to the top of the hill, ascending the last few yards slithering on his belly. As he approached the crest of the hill, he took a deep breath and cautiously lifted his head over to scan the front. Just beyond the hill was a downward slope of mostly flat land sprinkled with a few trees and rolling lumps that lead to a forested area about seventy-five yards out.

Building up a shaky sense of confidence after not getting his head shot off while lifting his head above the hill, the lieutenant removed his field glasses from their case and put them up to his eyes. He carefully scanned the area, especially the tree line to check for any sign of the enemy. After walking his vision back and forth several times, he couldn’t see anything out of the ordinary on this chilly November morning.

But still. That tree line bothered him. It looked like the perfect place for a Kraut machine gun team to set up shop and ambush an American unit like his. He let out a big sigh and realized what he needed to do – send men to scout it out.

Though there were a lot of loathsome duties that came along with the role of platoon leader, the thing he hated most was having to send men into vulnerable positions with the intentionof drawing fire. The idea was for those couple of men scouting to get shot at so the rest of the men could locate where that shooting was coming from and then return fire. But one way or another, they needed to find out what was down there so they could continue advancing on their objective – Hill 701.

“Keller. Pops. Get up here,” the lieutenant issued the order in a shouted whisper.

The tall, lanky Emil – or Pops as the others in Able Company called him – rose to a crouch and headed towards his lieutenant. “Pops” was the name given to him because at 36, he was an old man compared to the teenage kids that filled out the majority of the unit. Usually when they encountered a man his age in the military, they had to call him “sir” and give a salute. But 36-year-old Emil was just an enlisted man who volunteered for the infantry. After learning that he’d volunteered for this, his comrades thought about changing his nickname to “Crazy Old Man,” but that had too many syllables.

Keller followed suit, and cautiously approached the hill along with his elder squad mate. He was shorter than Emil and carried a few extra pounds. Having sported a big bushy beard in civilian life, he would show his rebellious side against Army regulation by letting his stubble grow until an officer reprimanded him for it. He scratched at his hairy face as he climbed the hill and could sense his lieutenant watched with a “chewing out” in mind.

That chewing out would have to wait until later though. The lieutenant had other things on his mind other than minor regulation infractions. He continued to observe the terrain in front of him as the two men crawled up next to him to await orders. He stuffed his binoculars back in their case, picked up his M1 Carbine from the grassy hill, and laid out the plan.

“Okay boys, we need to find out what’s in that tree line down there. I want you to descend the hill from the right and leap-frog your way up those little rolling hills and trees until you can get a good look. Don’t play hero. If Krauts start firing at you, hit the deck and take cover. We’ll lay down fire from here and flush them out.”

The lieutenant paused. “Sorry, guys, you know I hate sending anyone out on a limb like this. Nothing personal. It’s just your turn.” He tried letting out a little laugh at his last comment. All he got in return was a slight chuckle from Emil.

The two men nodded to their superior in acknowledgement. They checked their M1 Garand rifles and made sure they had extra clips and grenades easily accessible. Returning to a low crouch, they made their way over to the right side of the hill.

As the two scouts got into position, the balance of the platoon crawled up on the hill on line with the lieutenant. They remained out of sight, but if a gunfight erupted, they would be ready to spit death into the woods in front of them.

Keller and Emil looked at each other, and without saying a word, Emil indicated that he would go first. Clutching his rifle tightly, he raised his head over the hill and began a crouched sprint over the hill. As his legs kicked towards the first mound, everything seemed eerily quiet. All he could hear was the sound of his heavy breathing and his pounding heart. The brief thought crossed his mind that the Germans and his friends behind him had all run away, leaving him all alone in the woods. He knew better.

Knowing at any moment, a machine gun could cut him in half, he clenched his teeth in anticipation. Emil felt the rest of his muscles tighten with fright one by one.

He quickly approached the first mound, and he prepared to dive forward for cover. With an over ambitious effort from his left leg, he tripped over himself while trying to leap head first. He banged his knee on the ground and inhaled a crisp breath inspired by the stinging pain. After this blunder, he didn’t feel alone any more. He was sure all eyes – allied and enemy alike – saw him tumble like a ragdoll.

Knowing he had to keep moving, Emil scooted backwards on his butt until he was safely behind the mound. He took a deep breath and looked up to where Keller would soon be coming over the hill. He turned over on his stomach and aimed his rifle forward to cover his fellow scout’s approach.

Keller sprang over the hill and ran towards his friend. He made a much more graceful journey than Emil, and easily covered the ground with a beautiful slide behind the mound. Emil looked at him and could already see beads of sweat dripping down his face from all the stress.

“My turn again,” Emil whispered to himself. With rifle at his hip, he ran towards the next small hill and kept his eyes searching for any movement from the dense tree line. Nothing yet. He more cautiously settled behind one of the trees for cover this time. He put his M1 at his shoulder and scanned for targets.

Keller’s turn. He hightailed it towards Emil, swinging his rifle from side to side, clutched in his hands. Now his teeth were gritted in fearful anticipation. Every step he took could potentially be his last, and that was not a settling feeling.

The pair of scouts continued their leapfrog for the what was likely only several minutes. But to Emil, it felt so long and strenuous he thought he may have turned 37 since coming over that hill.

After reaching the second to last tiny hill, the two paused to catch their breath. Even though the November air was cold, the two men were hot and sweating profusely from all the effort. Emil reached for his canteen to take a swig.

Having slowed their breathing down to a reasonable pace, they were ready to head towards the last mound. They both peaked up to examine the tree line. Nothing. But the closer they got, the thicker they realized the foliage was. But just because they couldn’t see anything, didn’t mean nobody was home.

Trying to be optimistic, a thought crossed the older soldier’s mind.Maybe we are getting all worked up over nothing. Maybe no Germans were in the wooded area at all. Maybe they’ve pulled back a way and today will be easy. Maybe.

Satisfied that they still couldn’t see anything, Emil prepared to continue his progress forward. He positioned his feet to launch himself forward. Another deep breath and off he went. He pumped his legs as fast as they would go and could feel a burning sensation in his thighs. After traversing the ground, he crashed into the ground behind cover. Despite his fatigue, that was probably the fastest he’d ever run anywhere. Fear was one hell of a motivator.

Before he could get settled in to cover his squad mate, he saw Keller prematurely start his run.

RATATATATATAT!

Before Emil could turn to cover his friend, the ripping sound of a German machine gun roared through the air and sunk several rounds into the still running Keller. After a few more steps, the young GI collapsed forward.

His unmoving body lay only a few feet from Emil. The shocked older infantryman pushed his rifle aside and crawled towards his fallen comrade. He hooked his hands on Keller’s web gear suspenders and yanked with all his might. The still man’s bloody torso fell atop Emil as he crashed backwards behind the small hill. He fumbled around to get Keller’s body lying prone next to him with his stomach up so he could inspect the wounds. But he quickly realized there would be no need to check his injuries. Keller was dead. The machine gun bullets stitched him all the way up his chest and right into his heart. Keller’s eyes were glazed over with the unmistakable shade of death.

Emil reached for his M1, unsure which was motivating him more right now – his quest for survival or the burning rage he felt in his heart after seeing his young friend killed in front of him.

The machine gun continued spitting lead in his direction and towards the hill where the rest of the platoon took cover. They tried returning fire to help take the pressure of Emil, but it didn’t have much effect.

In addition to the machine gun, Emil could hear two more rifles firing a round at a time from near the emplacement. He began slithering towards the side of the hill furthest away from the enemy to see if he could peak his head up and take these sons of bitches out.

Ever so slowly, he began raising his head a centimeter at a time. He looked into the foliage and could see the flame from the barking machine gun, but it didn’t look like he could get a shot. Instead, he reached for a hand grenade, pulled the pin, and chucked it as hard as he could towards the gun.

Understandably nervous, he didn’t take the time to set up a great throw, and the result showed. The explosive clanged off a tree and blew up harmlessly away from the crew. All German weapons quickly shifted towards him, and he was barely able to roll out of sight. He could hear and feel the dirt flying up all over the short hill from rounds intent on killing him.

More fire emanated from his platoon-mates and gave the old soldier a break. Without thinking, Emil popped up on one knee to look for a target. After realizing that was a bad idea, his body tensed up as he swiveled his rifle in front of him. His kept looking, but his wide eyes couldn’t find a thing.

Nothing. Nothing. There!After a few eternal seconds, he caught one of the German riflemen in the middle of reloading his Mauser. Pops took careful aim and squeezed the trigger twice in rapid succession. Time seemed to slow down for a moment. He witnessed one of his bullets tear through the man’s cheek and send him crashing to the earth, never to move again.

Time sped up. And so did the firing rate of the machine gunner sending rounds towards Emil. Unsure what stupidity caused him to pop up like that in the first place, he quickly dropped down behind cover, lucky to have avoided half a belt of ammo ripping him apart.

All fire shifted towards Emil now. He could feel more dirt kicking up from his protective mound. He was pretty sure they would soon shoot the whole hill away and leave him defenseless. Realizing if he didn’t do something fast, they would likely find an angle to hit him or kill him with potato masher grenades. He unhooked his three remaining pineapple grenades and laid them out next to him. He decided that the next time his platoon mates laid down fire, he was going to chuck all three explosives towards the enemy, praying they would find their mark.

He loosened the pins on all of the grenades so he could hurl them quickly. He lay on his back and waited for his moment. Pop’s friends must have been listening because they answered the first part of his prayers by laying down the thickest volley of fire towards the Germans yet.

Emil hopped to his knees and chucked his ordnance like he was Bob Feller firing fastballs to a catcher behind home plate. All three were out before the first one landed. Emil went back to ground and covered his head.

BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

He waited for several seconds with his head still down. Nothing.The machine gun was silent. Slowly, he lifted his head back above the crest of his new favorite patch of protective dirt. He couldn’t help but let smile crawl out of his mouth. He saw the smoking remains of the machine gun and its crew sprawled out in death. What a hell of a thing to grin athe thought.

CRACK!

Pops’ smile vanished. What felt like someone hitting him with a baseball bat crashed against his left shoulder and he fell backwards. Looks like the grenades didn’t take out everyone.

On his back and helmetless, he looked at his shoulder and saw blood flowing from a gunshot wound. He scrambled to look for his M1, but it was nowhere near him. Finally, he spotted it a few yards away and began crawling towards it. But before he could make it to his weapon, the last German rifleman approached from around the hill. The Kraut hadn’t seen him at first, but Emil knew it was too late to reach his rifle before he was spotted.

The German shifted his gaze towards Emil, who was propped up on his elbows facing him. The eerie silence from when he was coming over the hill at the beginning of his scouting mission returned. The seconds stretched out into painfully long moments. The German aimed at Pops. Accepting his fate, he closed his eyes.

Pop! Pop! Pop! Pop! Pop!

Emil didn’t feel that same sensation that he did when he was first shot moments ago. In fact, he didn’t feel anything at all. Because he wasn’t the recipient of those last bullets. He opened his eyes to see his assailant dead on the ground with blood pooling around him.

Looking over to his right, Emil saw the lieutenant with his Carbine at his shoulder and smoke billowing from the barrel. The junior officer had rushed down to come to his aid, and not a moment too soon.

Emil, remembering the wound he did receive, rolled over on his back to rest. The adrenaline began fading immediately and the pain set in. The stress of combat had left him completely mentally and physically drained.

He heard the lieutenant’s boots stomping towards him, but he didn’t have the strength to lift his head and acknowledge him. So he just laid there bleeding.

The lieutenant knelt over Emil and examined his wound. He quickly pulled out his first aid kit and poured sulfa powder over the bloody shoulder. As he broke out the bandage he said, “Hang in there. You’re gonna be just fine. Hell of a job taking out that Kraut buzz saw. We’ll get you a medal for it Pops.”

Emil looked over at Keller’s still body and realized he couldn’t care less about that medal.

The Ballad of Baseball Jamie

I had the honor - and sadistic satisfaction - of roasting my high school baseball coach, Jamie Fowler, this weekend. With nearly 20 years of material to work with, here are the words I so kindly wrote for him:

With so many stories, oh where should we begin,

A berating in the outfield or a forced run in the gym,

I guess it should start with Fowler’s first Panther bout,

Hired to teach science, of which he knew nothing about,

My own first encounter sure left me aghast,

“Who the hell is this guy? And why’s he such an ass?”

He coached us 7th graders and was strict as can be,

We had to polish our cleats and ask permission to pee,

The very next year, he took on a new quest,

We 8th grade boys really put him to the test,

With respect levels low and our confidence high,

Our middle school minds were anything but shy,

We were quick to make fun of anything in sight,

There was zero hesitation to bring up one’s height,

But Fowler stood tall and made it clear,

That he was the boss, ruling with fear,

When high school started, freshmen were in for a shock,

We were swinging big time with batting stance cocks,

He taught us terms that made our mouths callused,

From hitting the pink to disrobing Alice,

Whipping us into shape, he didn’t mess around,

Running our asses ragged all about town,

From Harrison Hills to triangle runs,

Fowler conditioning could be oh-so-fun,

We’d board the bus rocking with Tenacious D,

Rides to the games were filled with glee,

On the road, traditions were passed to us newbs,

Learning to make signs that read, “Show us your boobs,”

Whether in the dugout or out on the field,

You better show class or wrath he would wield,

Don’t walk anywhere or dare miss a sign,

‘cause Fowler will ream you and make you ride pine,

Though most times were great, some times were hard,

Leaving many of us wanting to kick him in the nards,

After a disastrous defeat, we were marched to right field,

Where he inflicted mental damage that still hasn’t healed,

But Nate Koch had had enough and expressed his reproach, 

“Man, fuck you Fowler, I want a real coach!”

It would be irresponsible and I’d be totally remiss,

Without acknowledging the king of getting Fowler pissed,

With shenanigans galore, my hat’s off to Jeff,

It’s a miracle that coach has some sanity left,

But in 2004, his team’s talents amassed,

And we Panther league champs beat some Knight ass,

All-Conference and All-State, his rosters were loaded,

He fought for his guys to get awards noted,

My senior regional, we almost won it all,

Despite me playing with only one ball,

And though we lost, the memory won’t diminish,

The way that we battled with a balls-out finish  

Though at times, your style was hard to swallow,

There was no other leader that we’d choose to follow,

You left an impression that will forever remain,

Showing with hard work, much can be gained,

You lead us to victory more often than not,

And left us with a pride that cannot be bought,

After so many years I still follow along and cheer,

When you won state, I chugged a shot and a beer,

You’re a master of the game, and taught us all well,

Despite all those times we muttered “Oh, go to hell!”

The last 20 years has sure been a trip,

That’s more than 400 games with you as the skip,

And no matter how many years pass or new journeys approach,

Jamie Fowler will forever be our coach.

A Day at the Beach

“Hendersen! Neema! You make sure you hustle your butts up the beach with those Bangalores. If the Navy fucked this up and didn’t knock out those obstacles, we’re gonna have to do it ourselves. But that would just be typical wouldn’t it,” Capt. Bocek yelled aloud. He continued to issue playful orders to individual men in an effort to both remind them of their jobs and keep the mood as light as possible. Which still amounted to being as light as an anvil attached to a boulder. But still he tried. “Burg, you cover those two as they lug those heavy, explosive bastards up the beach. Give me some discipline with that BAR. She’s a lady, so treat her like one.”

Corporal Burg laughed at his captain’s words as he looked up into the cloudy sky. He couldn’t help but think how chilly it felt for a June day - even if they were on the sea under an overcast sky. He thought about summer months back home in the Midwest and how hot they would be at this point in the year. He closed his eyes for a moment and considered what he would have been doing during this time of year the last time he was home. He felt a slow grin crawl across his face. He remembered what he’d been doing. He was on the baseball field – Harrison Park – with eight of his best friends.

It’s funny, usually he had trouble remembering specific dates, and especially when it came to sports. But that day, June 6, 1943, was a special day. He had the game of his life at the plate against the defending state champions. Burg collected four total hits including a walk off single in the bottom of the final inning to bring home the win. He’d never felt more alive in his entire young life than when he rounded first base only to get mobbed by his onrushing teammates. He remembered that day well. The sun was hot. The grass was freshly cut. The stands were packed. And they had one hell of a celebration afterwards that included a “liberated” bottle of whiskey from one of his teammate’s dad’s liquor cabinet.  

His stroll down memory lane was rudely interrupted when the squadmate – and good friend – behind him projectile vomited all over Burg’s back. “Dammit, Hendersen! If you’re going to get seasick, puke on the deck or in your helmet,” he said in frustration.

He wished he could say that was the first time he’d seen his buddy in such a state, but that just wouldn’t be true. Granted it was a much different situation than approaching a hostile beach – more a of a mischievously innocent one. During one of their 48-hour passes in England, Hendersen had enjoyed knocking back drinks a little too much. Always the life of the party, he made friends with every single patron in any establishment he found himself in. One of the side effects of his excessive friendliness was free-flowing drinks from his newfound pals.

As his pass neared expiration, Hendersen drunkenly sauntered back to the base and hit the sack with only a few minutes before reveille. Being in this raw state, he was the last to make it out of the barracks and fall in line with the rest of his unit. No sooner had his platoon sergeant begun his inspection than when he noticed a wavering Hendersen in the back. The sergeant intensely strode over and laid into him with a barrage of insults that would make a deaf-mute blush. After finishing his tirade, the sergeant leaned in and asked, “Anything to say for yourself, Private?” what came out of Hendersen’s mouth next were not words.

While grinning at the thought of his friend throwing up all over a platoon sergeant, Burg unslung his BAR from his shoulder to make sure that the more recent incident hadn’t shot some of his friend’s former breakfast in the breach of his weapon. The last thing he needed was a malfunctioning firearm thanks to blown chunks. This made him rethink his decision to remove the BAR’s plastic cover intended to keep sand and salt water out of each soldier’s weapon. He examined the automatic rifle carefully, and after he was satisfied it was in good working order, he slung it back over his shoulder.

Not only did his buddy’s seasickness awaken a second memory in as many minutes, but it also brought him back to the reality of the situation. Instead of thinking about a warm sun in a familiar setting back home or a funny anecdote in the safety of a basecamp in England, he was now very aware of his current and unsettling whereabouts. He was in an assault craft under an overcast sky on his way to engage in mortal combat in a country he barely knew anything about.

He took a look around at the rest of the men in the boat and took note of the mixed looks on their faces. Some of the older veterans wore a blank stare. Having seen combat before, they knew what was coming. The looks on those soldiers who had yet to taste battle had a different look. Their faces showed a blend of anxiousness and fear – some more so than others.

Burg found his emotions somewhere in between. He’d seen a bit of action at the end of the Sicilian campaign as a replacement – including a few small firefights and more than a few artillery barrages. It was at least enough exposure under fire that his company commander saw fit to promote him to corporal prior to the invasion they were currently undertaking – it also helped that the company’s depleted ranks called for hasty elevations in rank.

After thinking about that promotion, he turned to look at his commander, Captain Bocek, near the ramp at the front of the craft. The captain must’ve felt his ears burning because he turned around to look at Burg. He gave him a subtle smile and a confident nod before returning his eyes ahead.

Lastly, he turned to the man standing next to him. The man he considered to be his best friend – Pvt. Neema. They had arrived together as replacements and felt right at home with each other from the moment they met. It didn’t hurt that they were both from the same Midwestern state and had practically grown up in identical households as youths. The other men in the unit even joked with them about being twins, despite the fact that they looked nothing alike – Burg being tall and burly with dark blonde hair, and Neema being short and thin as a rail with jet black hair. Burg knew he could handle his fear as long as his buddy was next to him.

He returned his gaze forward, squinting to avoid the splash of salt water from getting into his eyes. He could still hear the waves hammering the craft as it surged forward. But he could also hear a more ominous sound in the distance. The unmistakable sounds of artillery rounds shaking the earth. Knowing that those were Allied shells crashing into enemy emplacements, Burg hoped that the sound would give him a boost in morale. Instead, it just sobered him even further into the realization that he was about to be shot at by a determined and lethal enemy.

“One minute!” the coxswain steering the boat yelled to his passengers.  

Burg gave the coxswain a glance after the announcement could see the man was noticeably trembling. He wasn’t sure if it was from the cooler weather and even colder ocean water splashing into the craft or if it was from overwhelming panic regarding what was to come. He couldn’t help but believe it was the latter.

If putting a timestamp on the commencement of combat wasn’t terrifying enough, machine gun rounds panged off the sides and front of the Higgins Boat. And the crashing waves received some assistance from German mortar rounds in dowsing the GIs with ocean water. It was as if the water was playing a cruel joke and teasing the infantrymen with shards of water that would soon be shrapnel.

Capt. Bocek started barking out last second reminders of their mission in a reassuring tone. Though still scared, Burg appreciated his leader’s words.

Eternal seconds dragged on. Men fidgeted with apprehension. Some continued to vomit. Capt. Bocek kept talking.

“Ten seconds! Good luck!” the coxswain yelled.

Burg closed his eyes and tried to calm his escalating nerves. “Okay. Okay. Okay. You’ll be fine…” he whispered to himself. He could feel Neema’s eyes on him.

The ramp at the front of the craft began to drop. Everyone tensed.

Clunk. The ramp was stuck about halfway down. Now everyone began to panic.

“Get that fucking ramp down!” a sergeant screamed. “We’re sitting ducks here!” someone else said. And one less-ambitious soldier demanded, “Back the boat up and let’s get out of here!”

But before anyone could react to any demands, fate made a decision for them.

Boom! A mortar round struck the rear of the craft, liquefying the naval crew and killing ten or so men at the back.

This time, something else splashed against Burg's back. It wasn't vomit, but it did originate from the same head as the aforementioned sick. Hendersen's brain matter sprayed all over his field jacket and helmet, knocking him forward.

 In a twist of cruel irony, the explosion did the bidding of the soldiers trying to lower the ramp only moments before. No sooner had the front of the ship dropped than machine gun fire began chopping up the soldiers up front like meat through a buzz saw. Without as much as a step toward the beach, Captain Bocek received what seemed like an entire belt of MG42 rounds in his upper torso and head. He was dead before his body even began dropping to the deck of the craft.

From left to right, the rounds ripped into the ranks of assaulting GIs. A round went through one man’s throat. He collapsed backward clutching to his jugular in a fruitless attempt to stave off death. Another NCO witnessed his own entrails exit his stomach after a burst of machine gun fire opened him up. One man became unrecognizable as his face was smashed inside of his head with the impact of the powerful rounds. It was a sight straight out of hell.

Burg struggled to get back on his feet after the force of the blast knocked him to the deck. Thanks to Hendersen’s mauled corpse draped across his legs and the slippery boat surface, his initial efforts were useless. Fighting off pure panic, he looked for a way to free himself and get off the craft. He grabbed the web belt of a nearby dead comrade and pulled himself out from under Hendersen’s body. He was finally able to get his footing, and without hesitation, he sprung to the front of the craft and went face-forward into the water.

A feeling of near calm took hold of him as he slipped further and further under the waves. The equipment he was wearing was so heavy that it didn’t take long for him sink and hit the beach floor. Since he dove in head first, his pack hit and then his head followed with a bump causing him to lose his helmet. Awaking him from his odd calm, the impact set him off into a desperate swimming frenzy. His arms and legs flailed with fury as he tried to get his head back above water.

Full panic kicked in, and he felt the lack of oxygen hit him hard. He kicked and he thrashed for what seemed like minutes, but in reality, only a second or two had passed. Seeing the air bubbles exiting his mouth and nose rapidly beating him to the water’s surface gave him a further feeling of hopelessness.

Close to passing out and succumbing to death, he finally broke the water trapping him and sucked for air. Instinctually, he kept kicking his legs to stay afloat and realized that the water was only about five feet deep. Feeling a small sense of relief that the weight of his equipment would not pull him back under the waves, he gave a near maniacal laugh of relief.

That relief didn’t last long. Burg heard dozens of rounds whiz by his head, and he ducked back under water for a brief moment. As he broke the surface again, he realized he was facing away from the beach. In front of him, were the smoking remains of the landing craft that had brought him and many of his now dead platoon-mates to shore. The flames emanating from the rear of the boat highlighted the gore filling the inside of the ship. Burg immediately knew that scene of blood, guts, and severed limbs would be burned into his brain for as long as he lived. At the current moment, he wasn’t sure how long that might be.

With panic-stricken eyes, he looked into the slaughter in the boat to see if he could find Neema. Even if he was in there, Burg wasn’t able to discern who was who in the mess of guts and limbs. As hard as it was, he forced himself to focus on the task at hand – getting off the beach alive.

He turned around in the water and began wading his way to a nearby obstacle to seek cover, sans weapon and helmet. As he continued to wade into shallower water, he could feel his pace ever-so-slightly quicken with every step. He was soaked to the bone and still wearing sixty-plus pounds of equipment, so every step, he thought, felt like he was carrying the weight of the world on his back. What a hell of a thing to think of on the dawn of a battle that could shift a world war, was his counterthought.

Finally, he reached dry land – if you count murky sand sloshing with bloody water as dry that is. As he exited the waves, he fell face forward onto the ground and began to crawl towards the obstacle. He could feel his heart beating against his rib cage with rapid intensity as he continued his advance. Once he made it to the Czech Hedgehog, he hugged up against it as closely as he possibly could. So close that his body begged to become a part of it. He buried his head into his arms and began to scream.

The sounds of battle seemed to bark straight from hell. The whizzes and snaps of small arms fire sounded like teasing whistles of demons. Exploding mortar rounds were like the growl of the devil himself. And the cries of wounded and dying men sucked all hope out of the air. He closed his eyes and continued to scream until his throat burned. Burg couldn’t fathom that such fear was even capable of existing.

He reached to pull his helmet down over his face as an added measure of fruitless protection, but once his wandering hands passed through the phantom cover and touched his scalp, he remembered that he’d lost it on the wade in.

The rational part of his mind that still remained told him that if he didn’t move, he’d soon be killed. After some internal convincing, Burg allowed his eyes to open, and he began to cautiously look around his surroundings as the sounds of chaos continued to rain up and down the shoreline. A patch of empty beach lay beside him where a trickle of a wave slowly splashed up and down. It was almost a peaceful sight. Whatever serenity it offered was immediately destroyed when a soldier dropped dead on top of it, leaking blood from half a dozen machine gun holes.

He trained his eyes on the fallen man’s helmet. It appeared to be just out of his reach, but if he scooched out from behind the obstacle he was using for cover, he could grab it and place it atop his own exposed head. He took a deep breath and began to crawl towards it.

No sooner had he begun to crawl out than he heard the impact of approaching machine gun rounds stitching their way in the sand towards him. He felt a violent yank on his webbing and his body jerked back behind the cover of the Czech Hedgehog. Thinking it was divine intervention that had saved him, he looked back, expecting to see an angel. Instead, he saw his buddy, Neema. Burg reached over and gave his friend an abbreviated embrace as a small gesture of thanks.  

“C’mon! We gotta move our asses off this beach!” Neema shouted. Helping, Burg to his feet, the two soaking wet warriors began a crouched run towards the enemy. Whizzes, bangs, and booms erupted all around them as they labored forward.

Weighted down by their wet clothes and burdensome equipment, they dove behind another obstacle so they could catch their breath. A burst of machine gun fire panged off the hedgehog. Huddling behind cover for only a few moments, they hopped up and continued their charge forward.

Neema still clutched his M1 Garand in his hands, but Burg’s arms swung freely at his sides as he ran. He felt naked without his weapon and began to scan the beach for a replacement BAR. The thought of taking a dead man’s weapon sickened him, but he knew it was necessary if he wanted to get through this day alive. His eyes wandered for a fallen automatic rifle, but all he could see were other busted weapons, scattered gear, and spilled guts.

During his on-the-run search, he abruptly tripped over something and fell face first into bloody sand. Lifting his head up, he spat with disgust and rolled over onto his backside. He looked down at what he had tripped over and felt crippling fear begin to creep its way back into his mind. His leg had snagged a dead man – well, half of a man. The former rifleman’s upper torso – from his left hip to his right shoulder –  had been blown away from the lower part of his body by a gruesome mortar blast. Fearfully, Burg began to crab walk backwards until he lifted his weight from under him, turned around, and began to run forward again. He felt his pace was quicker than before.

He caught up to his friend and they continued their march to the seawall under the hail of gunfire.  His eyes continued to scan for a weapon as they ran. Finally! He spotted the rifle he was looking for a dozen yards directly in front of him. Without breaking stride, he scooped up the weapon and clutched it as if he were afraid it would fly away.

With exhausting intensity, the pair waddled their way from obstacle to obstacle, pausing to catch their breath at each spot. They couldn’t have been moving for more than ten minutes at this point, but their lungs were desperate for relief. Burg cursed the man who thought it was a good idea to load down the infantrymen with so much gear while they assaulted a beach. How many people would die today because they were too tired and slow in making their way to cover?

All that separated the men from this final obstacle and the seawall were ten or so yards of unbloodied sand. Neema looked back at Burg as if to ask permission to make a dash for it. The two nodded to each other and mustered one last sprint out of their exhausted legs. They held their breath and gritted their teeth as they dashed forward. With twin thuds, they threw themselves against the cover of the seawall. They’d made it through the gauntlet. But their worries were far from over.

Burg lay on his back and looked up into the sky gasping for air. After several seconds of rest, he looked back down at the beach. He saw expensive equipment blown to hell, thunderous explosions, infinite bullets slamming into the sand, and mangled dead bodies as far as the eye could see. His mind couldn't quite comprehend the amount of gore. His eyes were seeing it, but his brain wasn’t accepting it.

After removing his “borrowed” BAR from its protective plastic cover and inserting a fresh magazine, Burg looked to his left and right and saw men huddled tightly against the sand, clinging onto it if it were a child’s safety blanket. Many men had made it up through the murderous fire, but many more were still on the beach. Burg had no idea how they would be able to succeed.

A skinny kid weighed down with all of his gear lay several yards away from Burg. He was shaking and screaming at the top of his lungs, clearly terrified at the events unfolding around him. Burg watched and briefly entertained the idea of joining in on the screaming.

His thought was interrupted by a mortar exploding on the other side of the skinny kid.  Whack! The helmet formerly atop the kid’s head flew horizontally and smacked Burg on his bare scalp and landed right in his lap. If that wasn’t some sort of sick and twisted divine intervention, Burg wasn’t sure was. But at least he had a helmet now. He looked over at the smoking remains of the previous owner as he put the helmet on his own head.

Neema was doing his best to fight back against the onslaught. Keeping his head down, he raised his rifle towards the concrete pillboxes and fired off a quick eight rounds. He was more likely to hit a passing bird than a German, but it at least felt good to fire his rifle. He removed a fresh clip from a bandolier pouch, slammed it home, and turned to Burg.

“What do we do, man?” Neema asked his friend. Burg had no good answer so he just didn’t say anything. He was hoping an officer or a senior NCO would step up and take charge of the situation. Knowing that someone was still in command would make him feel a little more confident in their chances of surviving. Or so he thought.

Out of the corner of his eye, Burg could see some action happening down the seawall to his left. Soldiers were putting together Bangalore torpedoes to burst through the barbed wire entanglement that was preventing them from moving up towards the enemy bunkers.

Burg hit Neema’s shoulder with the back of his hand to get his attention. He then pointed towards the guys with the “bangers,” indicating they should head that way. “Beats the shit out of staying here. Let’s go,” he said.

Both men began crawling to their new destination. When they were about half way there, the Bangalores were detonated and sent sand and mangled barb wire into the air. Burg looked up to see men pouring through the newly made entrance. This gave him a surge of adrenaline. He felt the urge to stand straight up and run through it with his BAR blazing. Fortunately, his rational side kept him in check and on the ground.

They finally reached the hole in the wire and hopped up into a low crouch to go through it. As they went through, Burg looked up to his left and saw the opening of a pillbox spill flashes of machine gun fire towards the beach, and he couldn't help but feel relieved that he wasn’t still making his way up. Burg and Neema stayed low as they followed their comrades up a debris-ridden trail that ascended up a hill towards the enemy in staggered single file.

Ratatat! A burst from an MP40 smashed into the man in front of the column. He dropped dead, but the troops behind him unloaded their weapons into the offending Kraut soldier at the top of the hill. After downing the German, the Americans had their weapons trained forward as they continued to advance. They abandoned their crouching and made a mad dash up to seek the nearest defilade.

After reaching the top of the bluff, the men - 15 or so -  fanned out and fired their weapons. They didn’t care if there were Germans in front of them or not, they just kept pulling their triggers as a means to feel more in control of the situation. A staff sergeant in the middle of them noticed the lack of discipline ordered the others to cease fire.

“Quit wasting your ammo!” He shouted and then began issuing loose orders for this mixed unit of troops. “You five, go to the left and secure that pillbox! You guys,” pointing to another group, “head to the right and clear out that trench. You four, follow me,” Burg and Neema were among those four in the last group the sergeant pointed to.

The makeshift fire teams spread out and ran to their new objectives. Soon after being issued the save-your-ammo order, Burg could hear the group to the right open up again. As he followed his own group, he looked to the squad at the right and saw them pumping rounds into the trench. The sergeant recaptured his concentration and told his crew to hop the trench and head for the sandbag bunker 30 or so yards to their front.

As Burg began leaping over, he saw a German running in the trench under him. Surprised by the sight, he lost his footing on the way down from his leap and tumbled forward. He quickly recovered, gripped his BAR fiercely, and scrambled back to the defilade. He saw the oblivious Kraut continue his attempted escape and lined up his sights. He squeezed the trigger with more effort than was needed and poured a volley of rounds at the German. Two rounds went wide, two entered the German’s back, and one punched through his helmet and into his skull.

Burg stood their wide-eyed, staring at the corpse of the the first life he’d ever taken. He felt nauseous.

“Don!” Neema yelled at his friend. “Let’s go! You’re gonna get shot if you don’t keep moving.” Burg took his friend’s advice and caught up to the others. He looked over his shoulder one more time as he ran.

The five men dashed towards the abandoned sandbag fortification while keeping their eyes peeled for more Germans. From what they thought was an unmanned position, two enemy soldiers popped up from behind the sandbags and fired their rifles at the onrushing Americans. Both rounds missed, but before the US troops had a chance to return fire, the German soldiers rammed back their bolts, loaded new shots, and planted two bullets into the chest of the closest charging soldier.

The remaining four infantrymen raised their weapons and let lead fly towards their comrade’s executioners. So many rounds impacted the two defenders that the Americans couldn’t tell which of their weapons had downed them.

Just before reaching the sandbags, a rogue round from off to the fire team’s left hit one the Americans in the midsection. The man buckled over, collapsed to the ground and began writhing in pain. The remaining men - Neema, Burg, and the sergeant - crashed against the bunker for protection. They scanned the surroundings for who shot their friend, but couldn’t identify where it had come from.

As an added measure of safety, the sergeant pulled the pin on a grenade and dumped it on the other side of the sandbag wall. After it detonated he swung his Thompson over the top to scan for any live enemy. Finding none, he hopped over the bags and into the dirt bunker. Neema and Burg quickly followed him.

Each man took up a field of fire and scanned for targets - sergeant to the left, Neema in the middle, and Burg to the right. Burg could hear the man who’d been hit outside of the emplacement. He was a good ten yards away, and Burg told himself that he was needed right where he was to fight back against any approaching Germans, and that he couldn’t try to help the man. The truth, though, was that he was just scared.

It didn’t take long for more Krauts to show up. A full squad of Germans rushed out of a pillbox located more inland from the Americans’ newly secured position. Seeing the threat at the same time, the three tired infantrymen unloaded their weapons into the tightly bunched enemy soldiers. Eight or so fell dead in their tracks, but the remaining four retreated back into the bunker.

“Cover us while we reload,” the sergeant said to Neema. The rifleman, needing to reload himself, quickly slammed home a fresh clip while keeping his eyes forward. Burg and the NCO ducked down to replenish their ammo.

As Burg reached to unsnap  a pouch on his ammo belt, he could feel his hand trembling uncontrollably. He forced his hand to find a fresh magazine and slap it into his weapon. He took a deep breath, racked the bolt, and returned to his firing position.

For several eternal minutes, the three soldiers continued to scan the area for threats and steadily fire off rounds. Return fire from all over hit against their sandbag protection. They all hoped more Americans would show up soon to support them. They couldn’t hear the wounded man’s screams anymore.

The sergeant peered over the wall of bags to get a look at something off to the left, but all he found was a rifle round to the face. He slumped forward and did not move again. It took a few moments for Burg and Neema to even realize that he was hit, but as soon as both of them saw his lifeless form, they felt nauseatingly tense.

Before fear could grip them too tightly, a German potato-masher grenade struck Neema right in the chest and bounced into his lap. The shock of the situation caused Neema to pause, but after a second or two, he tried to pick up the grenade and dispose of it.  Burg watched as his friend tried to fling the deadly explosive out of the sandbag bunker. It detonated in his hand.

When Burg came to, he saw stars and had a painful ringing in his ears. A man hovered over him, an American. “He’s not dead yet,” the man said as he rested his rifle on a sandbag next to Burg, turning his attention to the still raging battle.

Burg looked around and saw several new Americans filling out the emplacement he and Neema had defended. He had no idea how long he’d been out, and he had trouble focusing on anything.

Feeling something warm near both of his ears, he reached up to see what it was. When he pulled his hand back in front of his face, he saw fresh red blood. He then remembered the grenade going off in his Neema’s hands.

Still hazy, he forced himself to concentrate long enough to look for his friend to make sure he was okay. He wasn’t. Burg shifted his gaze to the side of the bunker and saw his best friend - someone closer than a brother -  awkwardly sprawled against a wall of sandbags. Neema’s eyes were open, staring into nothingness. The life had been forever extinguished from them.

Reverchon Redux

Imagine waking up early on a Saturday morning after a night of imbibing a gallon or so of Lone Star, eating well-beyond a recommended serving of belly-ache inducing snack(s), and going to bed only a handful of hours before the sound of your alarm clock surged into your eardrum and made it feel like a Mötley Crüe concert were playing inside your head.

Now, tack on the fact that the reason you were waking up early was to head out into the dreary, drizzling, 40ish degree weather to perform physical labor for multiple hours in a park known for aggressive homeless folk encounters, public fornicators, and hastily jogging yuppies.

A sane person might say this sounds terrible and ask “Why would anyone do that?”  This isn’t just any park though – it’s a park sporting an aging baseball field. Why would we do this? Well, we’re baseball players, and our unadulterated love for the game leaves our sanity in question every now and then!

Sanity issues aside, this was a fantastic opportunity for the gentlemen of the North Texas Amateur Baseball League to both give back to the community and spruce up one of the beloved fields on which our teams play. The name of this field is Reverchon Park – a baseball diamond that has seen 100 birthdays and hosted countless levels of play from high school to pro barnstorming games.

Though we love the park, the field itself most certainly needed a lot of work. The base paths down the 1st and 3rd base lines were so crooked, you practically had to ballet dance your ass down them in order to avoid running out of the baseline. Excess dirt was surrounding the infield grass, causing uneven surfaces and lots of bad hops during games. The ground itself was so hard that you could practically skate across it with your metal spikes – or sprain your ankle so badly that you had to wear a boot for 6 weeks (believe me, I’d know). The bullpens were essentially foxholes better suited to fend off an enemy infantry attack than to warm up a pitcher. The paint in the dugouts was chipping away, revealing a color that could only be described as “depression.” And if the clouds so much as spit on the dirt with rain, it would flood the field and turn it into a glorified swimming hole.

So, yes, this field had a few issues.

But that didn’t hinder our determination!

Armed with piles of dirt, pallets of sod, 50 lbs. bags of red topdressing, hand tools, and good old-fashioned elbow grease, our mission was to whip the infield, dugouts, and bullpens back into fighting shape. And we did just that!

We didn’t waste any time getting down to business. The event leaders laid out the plan for the day and then we grabbed our tools and hit the field. I must say, for a group of folks who have fairly limited field maintenance experience, we looked like a well-oiled machine. In less than four hours, we had the infield covered with a new dirt surface, cut straight lines in the base paths, laid down fresh sod, painted the dugouts, and made the bullpens operable again. Last but not least, we uprooted the old rotting AstroTurf in the batting cage and avoided getting stuck with rusty nails or used needles while doing so!

Some of the big highlights included the following:

Kirk Pruitt leading us in a pre-work ZUMBA class.

Chris Cec giving us a lesson in geometry.

DJ Shawn Lee bumping some Def Leppard and keeping this blog post author’s morale sky high.

Patty Evans showing off his mad sod laying skills.

Chris Corbeille lifting six 50 lbs. bags of dirt with one arm.

And many more thrilling ballpark maintenance plays! 

I was proud of the way our league to come together. Despite the crappy weather conditions, I didn’t hear a single person complain. We are too in love with this game not to enjoy the simple act of being on a baseball field, much less putting our stamp on it by helping with its renovation.

Hell, we plain flat out had fun too. Guys from the Spirits, Bulls, Hurricanes, Brewers, Modoc, Pelicans, and The Old Fashioneds (sorry if I left anyone out) were all joking around with each other, getting some exercise, meeting new league mates and other volunteers, and drinking all the free RC Cola our bladders could hold. Not only were we having fun, but you could feel the excitement emanating from all the players that this signified the beginning of the 2019 season.

I believe each one of us will walk on this renovated field standing a little taller this spring, knowing we helped become a small part of its amazing history. If you ask me, I’d say we (run) ruled the event. 

Lastly, it would be downright irresponsible of me if I didn’t give a well-deserved shout out to the super-hero caliber leadership of Gerry Mecca and Kirk Pruitt. Not only did they make this ballpark cleanup opportunity possible, but they make our entire league possible. You guys are the heart and soul of the NTABL, and we’d be lost without you. Thanks for leading the way, Skip(s)!

A GI's Why

As many of you may know, I am a HUGE WWII buff. I mean NO disrespect by posting about something that I have never experienced, but this is my effort to honor those who have served and seen combat with the knowledge that I’ve acquired over my time studying the subject.

Trained, armed, and sent off to war,

He’ll jump from a plane and invade foreign shores,

Certain to face danger from things that go boom,

And see friends’ foxholes transformed into tombs,

The death count climbs and the GI may wonder,

When a life-taking bullet will call on his number,

He fights, he fights, and others question “Why?”

Is it a commitment to duty or a wish to die?

The GI knows that when he is asked,

He can give an answer he’s lived as fact,

“Why put myself in front of enemy bullets?”

“You wouldn’t understand until you’ve been through it,”

After a first brush with death, he realizes then,

His brothers in arms mean more than his kin,

Sharing a shallow hole to fight off their foe,

While forming a bond that no other could know,

As the war drags on and Death gives chase,

The GIs back each other and try to outpace,

The Krauts hit hard and with a loud sounding “crack,”

The GI looks left to see a friend on his back,

When ordered to retreat and leave wounded behind,

The GI turns to his leader and faithfully declines,

“You go ahead, I’m staying here,”

“And giving my brothers nothing to fear,”

Bullets whiz by and he hears bombs blast,

But he is fully prepared to fight ‘til his last,

He sees life escaping, as breaths turn to gasps,

Offering a hand for a comrade to desperately grasp,

He turns to the enemy and points his rifle ahead,

To make the Germans pay with a pile of dead,

Outnumbered greatly and sure to die,

He so clearly sees his reason “Why?”

“This is no quest for glory nor a flex of might,”

“It’s about the man to my left, and the man to my right.”

Shrieking Short Stories: The Fog of War

Karl plodded through the heavy fog in the deep snow, cringing with every crunch as his Wehrmacht jackboots knifed through the hardened moisture. That sound had always bothered his ears. To him, it sounded as if he were stepping on crushed, wet bone. It wasn’t just an irritation, it was a maddening obsession. He hated it. But he gritted his teeth and continued on.

Serving as his unit’s runner, he was tasked with making his way back to battalion headquarters to update the commander on their progress. He was eager to report that they’d caught the Americans by complete surprise, surged through their lines, and put the enemy in full retreat. The German attack in the Ardennes was off to a winning start. Perhaps the Christmas of 1944 would be a merry one for Germany after all. He felt a warming smile stretch his face at the thought.

But his smiling mouth quickly turned to sagging corners of concern as he approached an open stretch of ground after traveling through a densely wooded area. The moonless night made it difficult to see much, but he didn’t need his vision to know what lay strewn about this former battlefield…

Karl had been there only hours before while they rounded up American prisoners after overwhelming their defenses that morning. He had been leading a pair of GIs to a POW cage in the rear.

He remembered their faces well. The first was a man who looked to be in his late twenties with sunken eyes and dark hair. He figured the American had seen his share of combat given the thousand-yard stare he held throughout the entirety of his short captivity. That was the hardened gaze of a veteran.

The next man was different. “Man” was probably too strong of a word to use to describe this baby-faced blonde soldier. He didn’t look a day over twelve and likely had never even held a shaving razor. His entire body seemed to tremble with fear as he held his defeated hands atop his head in surrender. There was no question about this boy’s non-veteran status.

Karl kept a careful eye on them as they marched through the thick snow. There it was though – that annoying crunching sound. At first, he could only faintly hear it and was encouraged that perhaps their recent victory would distract him long enough not to let the sound get on his nerves too badly. But instead, it got louder. And louder. It reached the point where it felt like small hammers were pounding at his ear drums. He stopped in his tracks, but still the sound persisted.

He looked forward and saw the older GI heavily plodding forward through the deep snow. It’s that American. He’s doing it on purpose, Karl thought to himself. He thinks he can defy me like that?! I’ll show him…

Finally, something within him snapped. Perhaps it was the sound alone. Or perhaps it was the roller coaster of emotions from stressful combat. But without even realizing what happened, Karl did a very bad thing. He leveled his submachine gun, aimed it at the older POW’s back and pulled the trigger. Several rounds tore into the GI – including one through the back of his head – and sent him sprawling face-first into the frozen ground. In a swift instant, the GI’s status shifted from “prisoner of war” to “killed in action” – even though cold-blooded murder did not usually fall under the category of KIA.

The crunching noise in Karl’s ears immediately stopped.

“What have I done?” he said aloud in German. “What have I DONE?!” he repeated even louder.

He shifted his eyes from the dead soldier on the ground to the violently trembling youth still standing with his hands raised over his head. The boy was shaking his head with pure fear in his eyes, repeating over and over, “Don’t shoot!”

Karl looked down at the fresh corpse he’d just created. He felt panic take over his breathing. Every breath felt like a labored effort. Slowly, he shifted his eyes to the frightened boy’s. He held his terrified gaze for what seemed like hours, but was in actuality only a few moments. Without even knowing that his weapon was pointed at the young soldier’s midsection, he squeezed the trigger. Half a dozen bullets entered the kid’s stomach. The young American clutched his abdomen and fell over into the cold snow as the life leaked out of him.

With his last worldly effort, the boy looked into his enemy’s eyes and communicated one word without uttering a syllable: Why? Karl turned his back to his second victim and ran as fast as his legs would carry him, through the crunching snow, in an attempt to flee his misdeed. He hadn’t told any of his comrades what had happened during his failed attempt to transfer prisoners. He simply nodded when his sergeant asked if he’d completed his task.

A distant artillery explosion brought Karl back to the present moment where he stood facing his secret killing ground engulfed in fog and darkness. He took a deep breath and began walking forward into the lifeless patch of ice-encrusted earth.

Crunch. Crunch. Crunch. It began again. Only a tickle in his ears at first, but then it began to amplify with every stride.

As he made his way across the open field, his thoughts were haunted by his maniacal episode with the American prisoners. Karl did his best to trick himself into believing he had done no wrong. That it was just an accident. I didn’t mean it. I was confused! I would never gun someone down in cold blood like that. I’m a good man. A German hero even! I earned a medal for bravery in a previous campaign. Heroes don’t do things like that on purpose.

Crunch. Crunch. Crunch. He could feel his teeth grind together with every step he took.

His internal convincing only comforted him for a few moments until the other half of his brain took over and slammed him with guilt. He began to panic and his breathing sped up to a violent rate. I’m a murderer! I should be lined up against a wall and shot by a firing squad. They were unarmed men that caused no threat. And that young boy…

Crunch. Crunch. Crunch. The sound made his soul cringe.

He stopped in his tracks to calm himself down. Crunch. Crunch. He heard two rapid footsteps after he’d stopped. He spun around to investigate behind him.

Nothing but a thick layer of fog was visible.

“Oh great, now you’re so paranoid you’re hearing things that aren’t there, Karl,” he said aloud to himself.

 Karl closed his eyes, and tried to slow down his breathing. After several deep breaths, he could feel his heart rate return to normal. He made one more attempt to rationalize his actions. You were scared and your adrenaline was running high after a fierce battle. You shouldn’t have done it, but at least you know it was wrong. A murderer wouldn’t admit that, right? War is a confusing thing and terrible things happen. Nobody will ever find out about this. Yes. His questionable actions would all be lost in the dense fog of war. Too much had happened across such a large front for any one man to be pinned for war crimes. Yes. He could still return home a hero and nobody would ever know.

Somewhat comforted by his reasoning, he lifted his leg to continue his walk towards headquarters. But before his first step could penetrate the snow, he heard more steps. This time, the sound came from the front.  

His eyes widened and he scanned his front for any signs of movement. Again, only the fog. Perhaps it’s just an animal or a friendly patrol, he thought.

Crunch. Crunch. Crunch. He continued forward – but with a quickened pace. He clutched his submachine gun in both hands, prepared to fire a burst at anything that may pose a threat. He could feel his palms begin to sweat at the thought of having to shoot someone again.

CRUNCH! CRUNCH! CRUNCH! CRUNCH! Several footsteps crashed through the snow all around him. And they were not his own. Karl’s panic returned with a vengeance and he shot forward as fast as his legs would carry him.

Crunch! Crunch! Crunch! The steps were right behind him now. He lost his balance and fell forward. Screaming with fear, he rolled over on his back and faced his rear and pulled the trigger on his weapon all in one fluid movement. The echo of automatic fire cut through the cold night.

The crunching stopped. The smell of spent gunpowder filled Karl’s nostrils as he lay in the snow looking in the direction where he’d emptied his weapon.  He could feel his head getting colder, and he realized his helmet had fallen off in all the commotion. His increasing fright prevented him from looking for his head cover, and his fearful eyes remained trained forward.

Crunch. He heard a singular footstep in the snow behind him. The hairs on his neck stood straight up. And then he felt, one by one, five icy-cold fingers lay across the top of his head. They were so cold.

Suddenly, the slow-moving hand grasped Karl’s hair and pulled with the force of a dozen men. Karl could only scream and look up into the fog as his body was dragged across the frozen ground by this unknown force by his scalp.

After what seemed like an eternity of being pulled into a hellish nightmare, the hand released its grasp. Running on fear-fueled adrenaline, Karl sprang to his feet to face his attacker. For what he saw next, no amount of army training could prepare him. In front of him was a gruesomely mangled former American solider. His skin was icy blue and his jacket was riddled with exit wounds from a submachine gun. The ghoul had a familiar shade of dark hair and a hole through its head. The figure began crunching towards Karl. Karl turned and ran.

But after only a few steps, he ran smack dab into what felt like a tank and collapsed to his knees. Compared to the image that stood before him, Karl wish it had been a tank. A man – really more of a boy – stared back at him with empty, lifeless eyes. He had half a dozen bloodied holes in his jacket. He too had icy blue skin. And his hair was all too familiarly blonde. Karl knew who – or rather what – he was looking at.

Exhausted and too scared to move, Karl simply looked up and began to weep. The ghoul extended its hands towards Karl and begin to grip his throat. From behind him, Karl heard one final set of crunches before feeling icy cold “breath” on his neck. And once he felt the teeth sink into his skin, he began to scream.  

Karl – what was left of him – was swallowed by the fog of war, never to be seen again.  

The Drive-in that Gave Us More

It appears that yet another one of our favorite Wichita childhood haunts is heading to the graveyard. Yes, unfortunately, the Starlite Drive-In is packing up its old-school tinny sounding speakers, feeding its leftover funnel cakes to stray dogs, and closing its gates for good to join Joyland in B-grade entertainment heaven.

But what a place it was! Hell, the jingle alone is enough to spark fond memories:  

“The Starlite Drive-in gives you more! Call 524-2424!”

Hearing that little jig saturate the 316 airwaves every summer made it virtually impossible to forget. I don’t even know my own work phone number, but I sure as shit remember how to dial that movie hotline. There was even a time in middle school when a girl at All Star Adventures asked for my number, and I instead – thinking I was super funny – gave her the Starlite’s digits. (Not the smoothest move, considering that I wasn’t exactly getting lots of attention from the ladies while sporting my bowl cut and multiple spare chins at the time).

But what “more” did it give us exactly?

Well, first of all, it gave us more bang for our buck. On some nights, you could bring a whole carload to a triple feature for like $10. And on the nights they charged per person, we just buried a half dozen or so teenagers under a giant blanket in the back of someone’s mom’s “borrowed” van, significantly cutting down on the cost…and likely helping lead to the demise of the establishment.

Though you could bring your own food and drinks, you still felt obligated to hit up the snack bar to “grab ourselves a treat.” I mean, if you didn’t wolf down a reasonably-priced funnel cake and a monster dill pickle, did you even actually go to the drive-in?

Secondly, Starlite gave us variety. We could start the night off with an animated Disney movie and end it with a bloodbath horror movie. And if you didn’t like what was playing on one screen, you just rolled on over to a new spot at Screen #2 and annoyed a new set of neighbors.

If the variety of cinematic adventures wasn’t enough to keep you entertained, then you better believe that the collection of weirdoes and garbage humans on display was amusing enough to make even Tom Green blush.

Last, but most certainly not least, The Starlite Drive-in gave us more precious memories than we probably deserved. Memories like seeing one of my first big-screen boobs. I can remember it like it was yesterday, being one amongst a gaggle of hormonal teenage boys turning their heads to the R-rated screen playing American Pie in the distance to catch a glimpse of larger than life, on-screen hooters.

Memories like not making out with anyone in the back seat while my cooler friends did.

Memories like seeing Twister for the first time and developing an intense fear of tornadoes and causing me to think that tying myself to a pipe would actually prevent me from being sucked up into one. It probably didn’t help my fear that a storm was a brewin’ while we watched the flick.

Memories like celebrating my 16th birthday with friends who really stretched their wallets out to treat me by buying a funnel cake.

Though the gates of this nostalgic establishment may be closing, it won’t close us off from remembering all the fun we had there. Thanks for keeping that outdoor movie magic alive for so long, Starlite. You’ll twinkle forever in some of our favorite memories.

'Neds 2018 Season Preview

Winter is gone. Spring has sprung. People are finally starting to feel less like mutants and more like human beings again after last weekend’s St. Patty’s day festivities. That can mean only one thing:

Baseball is back!

But forget those prima donna ass clowns in the Big Leagues. Are you looking for real action? I’m talking hardnose, balls to the wall, leave it all out on the field kind of baseball? Watch players smoke cigarettes and settle arguments with their girlfriends in between innings kind of baseball? I mean the passionate embrace of dugout dreams for no other purpose than loving the game kind of baseball? Then look no further than the North Texas Amateur Baseball League.

And if you’re looking for an extra interesting cast of characters, then you’ve come to the right place.

Welcome to the The Old Fashioneds NEW 2018 season preview.

From a personnel standpoint, we are welcoming back the core of our 2017 squad.

Here is a breakdown of returning ‘Ned brethren:

Mr. Old Fashioned himself, Dan Gross, looks to continue his outstanding play in from his team MVP season last year. Look for lots of hits, steals, and beautiful centerfield snags from this fella. They say that 2/3 of the earth is covered with water. Well, the other 1/3 is covered by #18.

When he’s not chowing down on 4,000 calories worth of the weirdest collection of food anyone has ever seen in the dugout, Rob Bush will be bashing the baseball all over the diamond like a man possessed.

You bet your baseballs that Jake Berman is coming back to wield is elite level of play all over the field. Quite literally. He can play anywhere – even positions that don’t even exist yet. He aims to hit a few dingers, make too many awe-inspiring plays to remember, and possibly get in an argument or two with the umpires.

Chris “King of Scoop” Corbeille will hold down the one-bag and serve as a double-layered brick wall, snagging every errant throw sent his way by some of the more-than-enthusiastic infielders (*cough Jake Martin cough*).

Much to the dismay of our opponents, Tyler “The Heaver’” Keever will be starting on the mound, making fastballs dance and sidearm sliders glide out of eager batters’ reach. He just may squeak out a few solid hits too.   

Garrett Vascil returns as our resident heart taker with his long-flowing, gorgeous mane of blond hair and a heartbreaker with his high K/9 ratio on the mound.

For you opposing runners on second base, don’t you dare try to collect that run and dart for home on a base hit to left field, because Austin “Laser Arm” Bazar will gun you down with plenty of room to spare.

I hope you have two claps and a Ric Flair ready, because Jake Martin is back to smack the ball around and hold down the hot corner. That and make a lot of nonsensical ramblings that earn a lot of head shakes from his teammates.

Patrick O’Keefe, our own personal roadrunner, will be back to steal no less than 100 bases. This guy is so fast, he literally outran his pants one time and had to slide into second bare-assed.

Eric “Big D” Dzurisin will be bringing back his army of loud, raving fans to watch him dominate the mound with his loud left arm. He may even tell a whiny opponent or two to pipe down after he hangs a backwards K on them.

If the Bengay and Brett Favre sponsored CopperFit can hold his old ass together, Mark Shonka returns to chew up some innings on the mound and rock a bitchin’ “Wild Thing” haircut when the playoffs roll around.

Eric “Eazy E” Barton will be getting down and dirty behind the dish. With two healthy thumbs in tow, he will be calling great games for his pitchers left and right (pun intended).

“Moped” Marc Galland will be hopping around the infield, doling out straight heat on the mound, and smoking line drives all over the park. He was fast already, but he’ll be even faster this year thanks to his losing a few ounces and being more aerodynamic.

Kirk “Captain Infield” Williamson is back to make short stop and 2nd base look easy. That and he is just a really nice guy with a really nice beard. And he could totally beat up Jake Martin in a fight.

We also welcome a handful of new ‘Neds to the mix:

Our #1 draft pick, Cory Reynolds, plans to live up to his huge signing bonus by bolstering our catching staff and smoking line drives.

Ashley Olivier looks to become a more likeable version of Jake Martin, playing corner infield spots and rocking moonshots that won’t land until 2019.

I haven’t met Tristan yet, but he seems like a good dude. I am told he hits near 1.000 in the playoffs, so something tells me he will help our team batting average.

When he’s not hurling Hans Gruber from the top of Nakatomi Plaza, our very own New York cop, Jeff, will be hurling sick heaters from the mound and hitting dingers over fences.

We sadly announce the (fingers crossed only temporary) departure of some of our beloved bros:

Longtime ‘Ned Dan Killilea started a mercenary-for-hire business and is currently squashing an uprising somewhere in South America.

Logan sold a box of live hand grenades to kids and is currently facing trial.

Tre’ Harden is taking over the Strongest Man in the World competition and putting Arnold Schwarzenegger to shame.

Jacob Ingram got really into the ‘60s and no one ever saw him again (free Lone Star for anyone who can pick up that reference without Googling it).

Next up (Are you even still reading this?), we have a shakeup in teams this year.

Several squads return intact – Orioles, Braves, Indians, Pirates, The Old Fashioneds (duh), and defending champs, Spirits.

These tried and true teams are what make the NTABL so great. Made up of excellent ballplayers who simply love the game, they are a fun bunch of squads that make every matchup a blast. Not taking it too seriously – but most certainly not taking it too lightly – these guys understand the balance of playing with fierce passion and recreational spirit.

Boston, I plan on entering the game to throw you one fastball. But that’s all you get, man.  

But we also have a few new – or at least newly mixed teams – including the Reds, Fighting Squirrels, and the Spartans.

We’ve had the privilege of playing against most of these guys under different teams, and I’m excited to see how their newly formed squads come together.

There are also a few departing teams.

Reid, I don’t know what the Tube Sox are up to this year, but I miss you man. How’s the mustache?

Lastly, I am sad to report that Patty’s Pelicans will be moving on to a different league that plays only on weekends this year thanks to so many of their players fathered children. Best of luck dudes!

Almost done…

The ‘Neds are locked in and ready to get nasty this year. We look forward to hoisting that championship hardware high and dousing each other with a celebratory Lone Star bath when all is said and done.

Phew! Thanks for sticking this out with me, guys and gals. We can’t wait to see you all in the stands this season! 

"I don't wanna grow up..."

The chubby little kid – reminiscent of an even less handsome Chris Farley – races through the elementary school gym exit. His breathing is labored thanks in part to his heavy backpack full of school supplies and the lingering effects of too many Happy Meals and Fruit Rollups…but also because he is so excited he can barely contain himself.

As he pops open the door and hustles towards his mom’s giant conversion van, the rush of air created by his desperate sprint catches his blonde, fashion-filled (hauntingly wiener-like) chili bowl haircut and sends it dancing amok above his head.

He leaps into the back of the van and before he can even sit down in his seat, asks the question he’s been dying to ask all day.

“Mom, can we go to Toys R Us?! [Insert friend’s name] said they have the new [insert totally bitchin’ toy from the early to mid-90’s]! Please! PLEASE!!!”

With a defeated sigh and why-the-hell-not smile, Mom agrees to take her little Pillsbury Dough Boy to his favorite store in the whole wide world.

Upon reaching the destination and seeing that glorious, colorful sign, the kid shoots out of the van like a damn cannon before the van is even properly parked, followed by shouts from his mother to watch for cars.

With eager legs moving up and down in place like a jogger at a stop light, the boy waits for his mom to catch up, grab a cart, and lift his not-so-light frame into the wheeled merchandise wielder. At the front of the cart, leaning forward in triumphant fashion, the boy felt like Leonardo DiCaprio in Titanic communicating with his big smile that at that very moment he felt like the king of the world! (The boy may have been a lot younger when he rode in the cart than when he had the haircut, but for nostalgic purposes, we’re mashing all these memories into one. So just roll with it okay?)

Rolling through the aisles was like an adventure straight out of a dream world. All the colors, sights, sounds, and even smells created an experience that quite possibly used magic as the key ingredient that tied it all together. From giant stuffed animals, Power Wheels, Nintendo games, roller blades, and anything and everything in between, it was quite simply a kid’s paradise.

The boy loved it all. But what he loved most were the action figures. He spent countless hours on the floor playing out fantasy battles with his GI Joe’s, transforming laser-toting robots into cars, and exploring a galaxy far, far away with his Star Wars toys. They opened his mind to an imagination that would serve him later on in life (but was far less tainted by odd perversions back then).

And once super mom completed her quest to ferry her son to the aisle of action figure Valhalla and helped the not-so-little-boy out of the cart, it was as if the welcoming gates to toy heaven opened up – complete with angelic background music and glowing white light behind the items he so craved. There was nowhere else the boy would rather be.

He looked through row upon row of different carded packages to look for characters he didn’t have. The anticipation of discovering what he would reveal on every peg put his excitement into maximum overdrive until he had searched through every single item. And then he would do it all again to make sure he hadn’t missed anything. He could’ve spent hours in there, and probably, on more than one occasion, actually did.

After this chubby little champion selected his brand spanking new plaything, he hoisted it high in the air as if it were a trophy and put it in the cart formerly occupied by him. And just as eagerly as he went into the store, he was now twice as eager to get out so he could get home and enjoy his new imagination enhancer (toy).

Once he finally arrives home, he can barely keep his hands still as he races into the living room, plops down on the floor, and begins to tear away at the packaging – but still being careful enough to preserve the box since it’s totally rad – to reveal his new action filled figurine.

From there, it was all imagination for hours and hours. And hours. Plus a few minutes after that.

This may come as a shock to most of you, but that joyous, flabby little young’un experiencing the pure happiness of a Toys R Us visit was none other than this now super chiseled (not even close) man boy writing this very sentence.

I would call it an understatement that the recent bad news surrounding my former favorite store gives me a deep sense of sadness. Granted – since I’m a grown ass man and all – I don’t have much of a relationship with the retailer any more other than a few visits around Christmas to look for presents for my nephew and Salvation Army Angel Tree kids…and to soak up some nostalgia for myself every now and then. But much like Blockbuster before it, Toys R Us was a huge part of my childhood, and to see it dying before my very eyes, makes my child like heart ache something fierce.  

But those happiness-filled experiences as the ones described above will always be some of my favorite memories. They remind me of simple, innocent times when using my imagination and simply embracing the joys being a kid were my only responsibilities.

Hearing about the organization’s impending doom prompted me to go give the store one last visit earlier this week. As I got out of my car and looked up at the big, colorful sign, the familiar tingly feelings from long ago made a little cameo. That made me smile. When I walked through the automatic door to enter the building (pretending like I was using The Force to open it like I used to) and took in the vast view of the toy kingdom, another wave of nostalgia reared back and slapped me in the face and left me with another smile. I strolled through the aisles and took it all in. I would occasionally close my eyes and imagine what the store looked like when I was a kid.

Then my favorite thing about my visit happened. I saw little elementary school-aged kids running around with looks of wonder and excitement stamped on their faces. Rampaging through the store like little maniacs, they looked at the biggest toys in every aisle and made overenthusiastic comments about how amazing they were. I heard a lot of “Whoa!” and “Mom, can I get this one?!” and “This is so COOL!” Oh, and one little kid even looked at me and asked “What’s this creepy ass Kmart version of Matt Damon looking bastard doing in here?”

More smiles.

After making the rounds and experiencing these magical aisles one last time, I decided it was time to leave. I walked through the door (didn’t use the Force this time) and turned around to look at that big beautiful sign from up close for quite possibly the last time ever.

I felt one final nostalgic smile crawl widely across my face. Then I felt my mouth move. And heard myself whispering a familiar jingle.

“I don’t wanna grow up, I’m a Toys R Us kid…”

The Super-est of 'Stitions

Sprint – don’t jog – out to the mound.

Hop over the foul line – don’t you dare touch that thing.

Throw warm up pitches, and after the last one when the catcher throws to second, squat down and remind yourself to have fun.

After the infield throws it around the horn, catch the ball from the 3rd baseman, slap gloves with him and let out a Ric Flair “Woo!”

Take off your hat, take a wide semi-circle back to the mound, and look out above right center field and think. (“Think about what?” you ask, generous reader. I’ll keep that one a secret.)

Approach the mound, look inside your hat and read quote from Major League written inside. Put your hat back on your head and fidget with it until it’s in just the right place.

Hit the mental play button on Eazy-E’s We Want Eazy to get yourself in a rhythm.

Step up on the rubber, let out a deep breath, and begin your windup.

Phew! Talk about a lot of effort to start a baseball game – let alone every inning. But this is the routine I go through before every single frame I pitch. I have no idea where the hell these habits originated from, but for some reason they stuck, and I perform them before I start hurling lukewarm heaters.

But why do baseball players find themselves bound to a set of rituals like these? How do our minds trick us into thinking that they actually matter? Why are we so scared that if we don’t submit them, we will fail miserably on the field? Though I may not have the super-est of stitions, those mischievous little voodoo-like entities take residence in my brain, and I rely on them to some degree to help my mental preparation.

The way I see it, baseball players are susceptible to superstition by the very nature of the game. It’s an incredibly mental sport (riding on massively swinging mental highs and lows), it requires the ability to manage a high percentage of failure, and it is dependent on sequences of the smallest actions going perfectly right to successfully hit a ball or pitch one. And because of this, we can let the smallest of things get into our heads.

For example, I can strike out a batter – which is rare – and feel a jolt of fire sting my heart with electric joy. Such an incredible high! Then, I can do something slightly different than I did before facing the previous batter (i.e. step on the rubber half an inch further to the left) and throw a ball for the first pitch to the next batter. Then my mental state crumbles to pieces – the fire vanishes, I feel my “giblets” pack their bags and take a vacay back up into my stomach, and allow my psyche to tell me I’m an impotent loser. Such an incredible low. And this transformation takes only about one second. Now, that may be a bit of an extreme example, but silly mental things like that do happen.

How these rituals form is likely a result of how we analyze our success and failure. When we succeed, we ask ourselves “What all did I do before, during, and after it happened?” On the flip side, we ask ourselves the same question when we fail.

Did I take one or two deep breaths before that last pitch? Was a I wearing a different pair of sliding shorts last game? Did I touch the bill of my hat, flex my right butt cheek, lift my left heal up, and look at the short stop’s girlfriend in the stands before beginning my windup? (Yes, some of these rituals can be that sequential and ridiculous).

If the habit "works," we tend to repeat it like clockwork. But if it fails, we avoid it like the plague!

In conclusion, these superstitions and rituals are pretty damned silly. But hey, if it helps us feel a little more confident in what we are about to do, then why not go ahead and own ‘em. As long as you don’t allow these weird tasks to become mentally crippling and prevent you from overcoming adversity, then there’s usually no harm – unless it involves some sort of ritual sacrifice, then maybe steer clear.

Truth be told, I have a deep appreciation for these rituals. They are but one of many interesting things that keeps this game we love so much so incredibly unique.

So, guys and gals, keep up the weirdness!

Shrieking Short Stories: The Creature

Boom! Another lightning bolt pierced through the dark sky, immediately followed by the sinister growl of thunder. Though the storm had been rumbling all night long, Pete still tensed up as its sound continued to intensify while he typed away on his laptop.

“What a hell of a way to spend Halloween night,” Pete said to himself as he continued his work at the desk in his home office. Given that he was finishing up the final chapters of his horror novel, the menacing storm on All Hallows Eve couldn’t have provided a more inspiring setting.

Though he had a deadline to meet and a lot of work yet to do, he was a little disappointed that more trick or treaters hadn’t visited. He’d purchased several bags of candy to hand out, and if the trick or treat traffic didn’t pick up soon, he joked in his own head that he’d be gaining a few extra lbs. soon.

He typed out a fresh sentence and began reread it aloud, “The creature lurked in the darkness, searching for…”

KNOCK! KNOCK! KNOCK!

His heart skipped a beat thanks to the loud banging at his front door. He let out a small laugh at his startled behavior and rose from his chair to go welcome what he thought to be costume clad guests. “Careful what you wish for I guess,” he said to himself. As he approached the front door, he picked up the large Jack-o-lantern themed bowl that was filled to the brim with a variety of sweet treats. he balanced the bowl in one hand and used the other to pull his heavy wooden door ajar.

“Happy Hallo…Hello?” As he looked outside, he saw no one standing on the door step. He poked his head out the door frame and looked around with a puzzled look on his face. “Hmph, probably some little jerks just playing a prank.” He walked back inside, set the candy down on the entryway table and settled back into his chair to write more of his story.

He reread where he’d left off. Looking at his screen, he read the words: The creature lurked in the darkness, searching for Pete. “Searching for Pete?” he asked himself aloud. “I didn’t type that did I? Must’ve been subconsciously thinking about myself when I typed that before the knock at the door. Talk about a narcissist!” He chuckled to himself and hit backspace until his name was erased from the screen.

Before he could continue his gruesome tale with another keystroke, another set of knocks struck the door. BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! They were louder this time.

Letting out a frustrated sigh, he quickly hopped up, grabbed the candy, and opened the door. But again…no one was there. He strode out onto his front lawn to investigate where those little brats were hiding. He looked left. Nothing. He looked right. No one. He was frustrated but also impressed. How the hell could they get away so quickly?

A rain drop smacked the tip of his nose, reminding him that he was getting soaked by the storm. As he turned around to reenter his home, he said in a subdued shout, “Knock it off you little jerks!”

He hustled back inside, sat at his desk, and opened up a piece of candy from the large bowl. “See if those little ass clowns get any candy now…”

Putting his hands back on the keyboard, he again reread his last sentence. And felt his jaw drop. The screen read: The creature lurked in the darkness, searching for Pete. Through the office window, the ghastly ghoul watched his prey and salivated through a set of carnivorous teeth.

 “Now I know I didn’t type that,” Pete said nervously.

Tap! Tap! Tap! The sound came from the office’s window. Pete could feel the hairs on his neck stand straight up. He nervously gulped, emerged from his desk chair, and carefully walked towards the window. He could see large beads of rain quickly sliding down the window, but beyond that it was too dark to see anything else. He took a few more steps, cupped his hands against the glass, and pressed his face up to them to try and get a better view. His eyes scanned outside but he couldn’t see a thing.

Crack! A quick flash of lightning lit the sky for the briefest of moments. But it was long enough to deliver a sight so frightening that it caused Pete to stumble backwards and fall to the ground. Pete was wide-eyed and stunned with fear as he lay on his back with one arm lifted in front of him as if to shield against the image he’d just seen…

The flash revealed a hooved creature standing at least 7-feet tall on two legs. Resting atop its hulking, grotesque torso was a head featuring a long, pointed chin that flowed up to a wide grinning set of razor sharp teeth. Red sludge oozed through the predatory smile and dripped down that ghastly chin. A set of crimson horns rested on the beast’s massive head. But worst of all, eyes darker than devil’s soul stared right back into Pete’s.

As instantly as he hit the ground, Pete scrambled on his butt backwards under his desk. His heart thundered against his chest as his mind swam with fear. Wrapping his arms around himself, he tried giving himself a false sense of security. It didn’t work.

“No! It can’t be!” Pete exclaimed to himself in a near maniacal whisper. He’d seen this creature before. It was the exact image he’d conjured up in his head and sketched out when he thought of the idea for his novel.

He remained under his desk for minutes that felt like hours as he tried to calm down. He closed his eyes and began shaking his head as if to wake himself from a bad dream. He breathed in deeply. And then exaggeratedly exhaled. Pete repeated this process until his pulse finally began to slow to a more normal pace.

Slowly, his mind began to function like a sane person’s again as he convinced himself that his mind was simply playing tricks on him. After all, he was writing a scary story during a storm on Halloween. Yeah. That was it. His imagination was getting the best of him. His heart rate returned to normal.

He shook the rest of his nervousness off with laughter. “Damn, Pete, if you’re scaring yourself this badly, this book is going to be a bestseller!” He shamefully climbed out from under his desk and confidently strode over to the office window. He aggressively shut the blinds and laughed once more.

He plopped back down in his desk chair. “Whew, let’s finish up this page and call it a night, Pete.”

With fearful anticipation, he reread the last typed words. They read: The creature lurked in the darkness, searching for… A sense of relief entered his brain, and he felt it travel throughout the rest of his body. Those were the last words he knew he’d typed. He let out a thankful sigh.

He slowly placed his fingers back on the laptop. He felt his fingers brush over the keys as he thought of what to write next. Capturing an inspiring line in his mind, he began to bang away on the keys.

But the words wouldn’t type. He tried typing again, applying more pressure on the keys. He pressed escape. He clicked the delete button. He hit restart.

But nothing.

Throwing his hands up in frustration, he couldn’t figure out what was happening. He put his hands on top of his head and let out another sigh as he looked at the screen.

With hands away from the keyboard, the screen began to light up with freshly typed words. And those words were not his.

“…the creature skulked in the darkness of the living room as Pete looked at his screen in frustration…”

A violent chill went right down the writer’s spine. The phantom screen typed on…

“…step by step, the creature closed in on its prey…”

Pete could here footsteps behind him.

 “…darkness overtook the room…”

Every light in the house went black except for his computer screen. Pete was frozen solid with absolute terror enveloping every fiber of his being.

On the back of his neck, he could feel a long, slender finger slowly lay across his shivering skin. It was followed by another. Then another. And then two more. He could sense the pressure of sharp claws poking into his goose bump riddled neck.  

He saw one final phrase emerge on screen.

“…The storm drowned out Pete’s screams.”

The screen went black.

Strange. But True. Part 3 - Terror at the Trianon

Uptown Dallas – the (unfortunately) undisputed center of nightlife in all the Metroplex. This area of town is most certainly known for a lot of things. From the vile and gruesome to the very essence of pretentious evil. Things like the $40,000 millionaire who loves to brag about how his dad got him a job at his rich friend’s dealership without an interview. Dallasite princesses wearing skirts so high you can see the tops of their ass cheeks who decide to cut the unisex bathroom line because “Ladies go first.” Vagrants who shamble towards you at the pace of a zombie begging for chili cheese dogs from 7/11.

This is the place where nightmares are made.

In short, Uptown is known for a lot of unconventionally scary things. It is not known for those more commonly creepy occurrences: crimson-eyed demons, ghastly ghouls, possible poltergeist activity at the first apartment you ever lived in by yourself … you know… the usual. But, unfortunately for me, that last example may have been the case when I moved into an apartment complex called the Trianon in the summer of 2013.  

This dwelling, nestled into the northwestern part of Uptown, had none of the familiar signs of being home to paranormal activity. It wasn’t an old building with lots of history. As far as I know, it wasn’t constructed atop an old Indian burial ground. Nobody was savagely mutilated in my unit. I hadn’t played with an Ouija board or offered my soul to the devil for an unlimited supply of chicken fingers from Chicken Express. It seemed to be a pretty ordinary place.

Though I am very interested in the paranormal, I should say that I am pretty levelheaded when it comes to hearing about people’s experiences. I’m not one to jump the gun and cry “Ghost!” when someone hears an eerie noise in the night or finds their leftover Panda Express magically disappeared from the fridge after a night of drinking. Most of the time, creepy occurrences can be explained away with a rational explanation. But that being said, I experienced a few disturbing events that to this day I cannot explain.

The first incident happened almost immediately after moving in.  One of my friends was going for a run nearby and decided she’d swing by to see my new place. It was getting close to sunset when she arrived and after giving her a tour of my new digs, we sat in my living room and caught up on all the hottest gossip about our group of friends. She was in mid-sentence when all of the sudden, we both heard a noise coming from my front door. At first, we couldn’t even tell what the noise was. Was it a knock? Was someone trying to open the door? The sound was so low, we couldn’t tell. After looking towards the origin of the noise, we gave each other a puzzled look and went back to our conversation.

RATTLE! RATTLE! RATTLE!

Our conversation was interrupted again, but this time with a violet jiggling of the handle at my front door. We exchanged an even more puzzled look, this time with a hint of fright in our eyes. I stood up and slowly started approaching the front of my apartment.

RATTLE! RATTLE! RATTLE!  The door handle rapped again, this time even more aggressively.

My feet paused in place, and I felt my torso retreat after hearing the noise. I loudly said, “Hello!” and the rattling temporarily stopped.  I then continued inching may way closer to the door.

RATTLE! RATTLE! RATTLE! 

The door handle jiggled again when I was only a few feet away. Not only could I hear the handle, but now I could see it violently shaking like it was possessed. I challenged whoever…or whatever…was on the other side again, “Can I help you!?” The noise stopped again.

I raced to the door and paused for half a second to look through the peephole on the door. After seeing nothing on the other side I yanked the door open and looked left down the long hallway.

Nothing.

To the right of my apartment, the hallway breaks to the left after a dozen steps or so from my door. I immediately exited my unit and went to investigate down that part of the hallway.

Nothing.

Unless someone was sprinting away from my door with blazing 3.40 40-yard-dash speed, there was no way I wouldn’t have seen him or her…or it...given how quickly I went to inspect what was happening after the last rattling of the door. The nearest exit either way was at least 30 or 40 yards away, and at the very least, I would have seen those doors closing upon their exit. But I didn’t see a damn thing.

I reentered the apartment and went back to explain to my friend that I had no idea what had just happened. But as I began walking back towards the living room, I paused, turned around, and went back to double lock my door with a mildly trembling hand.

Talk about a hell of an introduction to a new place.

After that first incident, everything was quiet for awhile. No inanimate objects inexplicably moved on their own. No strange sounds emanated from under the bed. Really the only scary occurrence in my apartment during this stretch of time was what took place in the bathroom after eating a bad batch of convenience store chicken wings.  So I chalked that door handle event up to something rational.

But a few months later, the eeriness poked its creepy head above the surface and lurked in my apartment once again.

One weekend, a friend came to visit me from out of town. And after a Friday and Saturday filled with many libations, laughs, and failed attempts to talk to girls, it was time for him to head home. I had somewhere to be that morning, so we said our goodbyes while he was packing, and then I headed to the bathroom to shower and get ready for the day.

My friend shouted out a final “Later dude,” and I heard him open and close the door as he left. I hopped into the shower a few moments later and then heard the door open and aggressively close a second time. I figured perhaps he forgot something and came back in to grab it. At the time I didn’t really think much of it. That is until I spoke with him a few hours later on the phone while I was sitting on my couch.

“Hey man, why did you slam the door so hard when you came back into my apartment earlier?” I asked with a jokingly perturbed tone.

“What do you mean? I didn’t come back in,” he responded.

“You mean you didn’t come back in to get something after you first left? I heard the door open and slam,” I countered.

“Wait, that wasn’t you? I heard the door slam too and figured it was you locking the door or something,” he said.

After hearing that, I felt the hairs on the back of my neck stand up and slowly turned my head to look at this ever mysterious door. “This place is starting to scare the bejesus out of me,” I whispered to myself.

That made two unexplainable events in my home. And each of those events had two witnesses, so I knew I wasn’t just imagining things.

Again, months passed before something else happened. But when that something else did happen, it was perhaps the scariest thing I’ve ever experienced in my life.

It was late one October night. The moon was out and was shining with menacing intensity.  The air was cool, and there was a thickness to the evening that made for a perfectly creepy Halloween season night. So perfectly creepy in fact, that a friend and I decided that it was appropriate to watch a scary movie.  

As we sat in my living room watching the show and talking about potential upcoming Halloween plans, something interrupted our train of thought.

Rattle. Rattle. Rattle.

We both looked down at my heavy glass coffee table in a state of surprise. The table was vibrating. It was subtle at first, but still noticeable.

Rattle! Rattle! Rattle!

The vibrating changed from a mild clatter to a wickedly violent clanking.

“What in the hell is going on here?” we both thought.

Was it an earthquake? Was a loud truck rumbling in the garage below my unit? Trying to search for a rational explanation, I looked around to other items in my apartment to see if they were moving as well. Nothing else. Not a single item – including bobble heads on my TV stand only a few feet away – was moving. At. All. It just didn’t add up that something would cause the table to tremble like that without making other things to shake as well.

Our eyes returned to the table, which was still viciously vibrating. I was in a mild state of shock seeing this very heavy glass table being rattled by an unseen force. It must have been going for a solid thirty seconds at this point. Unsure of what to do, I knelt down in front of the table and grabbed onto it. I could feel the tremors vibrating through my hands, up my arms, and into my body.  My eyes and my one good ear were not playing tricks on me. This was really happening.

I added more force behind my grip and the table temporary halted its animated behavior. I inhaled deeply, slowly exhaled, and then removed my hands from the table.

Rattle. Rattle. Rattle.

Slowly at first.

RATTLE! RATTLE! RATTLE!

The table amplified its assault with maximum force. All we could do was sit there with shocked looks on our faces and watch as this seemingly possessed piece of furniture made a mockery of the laws of physics.

Finally, after seconds that seemed like hours, the table finished making its point. The vibration slowed to a trickle and then abruptly stopped.

There was only one thing left to say at that point.

“Whoa.”

After the night of the living table incident, the unexplainable occurrences sauntered back to the grave. I lived there for several more months, but that was the last time anything truly creepy took place in the apartment.

Perhaps there was a rational explanation for everything that happened. Maybe it was just a wonky set of circumstances that lead to my friends and me perceiving things happening in a certain way. And it’s possible that I was just getting Punk’d by Ashton Kutcher. But I know what I saw, and I know what I experienced.

But if you’re skeptical – if you think that this is all just a load of silly-assed nonsense – then I challenge you to spend a night in room 2015 at 2820 McKinnon Street. You may just experience your own terror at the Trianon!

10-15-1

“10-15-1.”

“Ten, fifteen, and one.”

“We won ten and lost fifteen this year. We tied one too.”

Any which way your say it, a record like 10-15-1 doesn’t exactly sound super impressive. It’s not a winning record by definition. It means we left the field in defeat more often than not. And it means our resolve was tested on more than a dozen separate occasions.  Again, on the outside, this record leads one to think our team had a mediocre season. 

But they couldn’t be more wrong.

After each one of those losses, our determination was indeed tested. And with every test, each and every Old Fashioned stepped up to the plate (pun intended), stared adversity in the face and declared, “You can’t beat me.” Of those losses, seven were lost in the final inning in gut-wrenching, purely heartbreaking fashion. An unfortunate error here. A potential game-winning hit caught there. There was no doubt that we had a rough run of luck in the first half of the season.  But where our luck was lacking, our grit was overflowing. We practiced, we hit the cages, we watched Rocky IV on loop – everything a tested team does to stay in the fight. Quite simply, we never gave up. Not on ourselves and not on each other. And that was a special thing to see.

Then something funny happened. Our determination started paying off, we kicked the struggle stretch to the curb, and we started stringing wins together. Some of which were pretty dominating wins. As one eyewitness in the dugout – me – observed, we were playing hungry. We wanted to win so badly we could taste it. We played with the confidence that we hang with the best in the league. And dammit, we could! And we did.

This lightning bolt of resolve couldn’t have struck at a better time as the playoffs we’re just about to start. As the top four teams competed in the overall championship series, the remaining teams battled it out in the inaugural President’s Tournament. And from game one of that tourney, The Old Fashioneds came out the gates swingin’, slingin’, and singin’. Quite frankly, the ‘Neds got downright nasty. We collected four more wins in truly exciting fashion and came up 90 feet short of taking the championship series to a final game.

It was a truly magical postseason – and regular season – filled with baseball moments that I will never forget for as long as a live...

Coleman McKinney toughing through what should be a season-ending injury to give us some hard-fought innings on the bump.

Patrick O’Keefe delivering a fiery speech that not only got the team pumped up, but also left most of use curiously aroused.

Eric Dzurisin using his loud left arm to shut up one opponent’s loud mouth.

Tre’ Harden hitting a bomb with a broken bat.

Eric Barton stepping up and filling badly needed roles he wasn’t familiar with and doing it in grittily beautiful fashion.

Jake Berman showing leadership behind the plate and at it.

Dan Killilea smoking a baseball and almost recording an in-the-park home run until that sniper picked him off while rounding 3rd.

Mark Shonka somehow finding a way to throw a 1-hit, complete-game shutout in the playoffs.

Chris Corbeille picking balls left and right at 1st like he’s Eric Hosmer. 

Jake Martin making amazing plays that would make Ric Flair say “Woooooo!”

Marc Galland returning midseason from a severe injury and promptly hitting .333.

Jacob Ingram sailing in from Navy adventures to be a brick wall behind the plate and give our offense a boost.

Tyler Keever appearing out of nowhere midseason to simultaneously punish the baseball with his stick and throw it like a left-handed Nolan Ryan.

Rob Bush eating tons of food in the dugout and collecting tons of hits at the plate.

Dan Falkin instilling pure confidence in his pitchers and calling an amazing playoff game behind the dish.

Dan Gross making everything from catching well-hit balls in centerfield, hitting line drives, stealing bases, and scoring runs look easy.

Garrett Vascil mowing guys down from the mound by the dozen with beautifully flowing blond hair.

Kirk Williamson sucking up hard-hit ground balls like he was a damn vacuum.

Austin Bazar catching everything hit his way and gunning runners out who thought they could make it home.

Last but not least. In a season filled with Logan Zike making too many great plays to count, he made one that none of us will ever forget. In the semi-final game of the President’s Tournament, the ‘Neds were down by two in the top of the ninth. With two down and the bases loaded, we made a switch in the lineup and told Logan he was pinch hitting at the very last minute. Normally an amazing hitter, he hadn’t had much luck in the previous couple of games. Logan stepped up to the plate and took a deep breath. The pitcher kicked his leg up and delivered the first pitch. Ball one. Then a second pitch was delivered, and it went right past the catcher. The runner on 3rd scrambled home and scored a run while the other two runners advanced. I was on deck at the time and looked right at Logan. I saw pure, unadulterated confidence radiating through him. And I absolutely new he was about to do something special. He didn’t disappoint. A fastball came right down the pipe and Logan beat that baseball’s ass like it owed him money. He lined it up the middle, knocked in two runs, and gave us a lead that we never relinquished. I’ve never seen a dugout more electrified in my whole life.

By the time we looked up at the record book at the end of the season, we had accomplished a lot. In our last 11 games, we emerged victorious 7 times. We collectively hit .315. Our pitching staff was stupid good with a sub-3.00 team ERA. We earned a 2nd place finish in the President’s Tournament. And last but not least, we tallied something that can’t be jotted down in a stat book – we had an unshakeable team bond. We picked each other up when we were down, we remained determined despite long odds, and we never ever quit on each other. None of those measurable stats would have been possible without our immeasurable camaraderie.

So, the next time you run into one of us Old Fashioneds, I encourage you to ask us “What was your record this year?” And you will hear the following reply filled with nothing but hard-earned pride…

“We were 10-15-1.”

Get Up

I was pretty ashamed of myself earlier this week – no not from all the stuff I did at the bachelor party last weekend…though that didn’t help. No, I was ashamed for a different reason. A baseball reason. For a fraction of a second, I found myself having a defeated attitude about our current season.

It’s been a slow start, and the ‘Neds have yet to put a W up in the standings. We have some amazing talent on this team and we put in a lot of offseason work, but for some reason, we just haven’t put a complete game together where our pitching, fielding, and hitting are all in sync. And it doesn’t help that we’re about to play a three-game stretch against some of the best teams in the league. *Sigh*

So on Tuesday evening, for about three-quarters of a second, I thought about mentally giving up.

And just as quickly as that thought entered my head and tickled my brain, not one, but two metaphorical boots kicked me right in the metaphorical ass. What the hell was I thinkin’?

I was so ashamed for allowing that thought to even cross my mind that I immediately went to the gym and ran for a few miles to help build pitching stamina. During that (sweaty, flailing armed) run, I got my head back where it belonged.

When something doesn’t start well, when you find yourself in a hole, when things just don’t seem to be gelling the way you think they should –  you have two choices.

Accept it.

Or you get up and you f*cking change it.

Find a way to change it. Claw, scratch, fight, push, kick yourself in the ass, and you find a way.

Those are the traits of true competitors. And that’s what these ‘Neds are.

So, boys, let’s get up. And let’s change it.