I used to go to a playground after dinner when I was young to watch guys play horse shoes in deeply worn pits. It was a deserted field basically. In one corner was a swing set for the grade school kids during recess. There was a baseball backstop at the far corner of the field…before Little League and no permanent bases. The ground was covered in small gray rocks compacted to a hard surface you didn’t want to fall or slide on. When a buddy of mine and I went there to practice fielding grounders with the school as the backstop, a brand-new hard ball would be reduced to shreds after one session. Next time out we would have to cover the ball with black friction tape (white adhesive tape didn’t last). Hours of repetition on what, back then, seemed like acres of open space, now looks more like half a city block. Which was a welcome lure to the wide-open spaces for us compressed neighborhood dwellers. Too bad there wasn’t any greenery on site. Still, it was unobstructed room to run, to breath. No cars.
Sunday mornings offered another use for Italian men in our unofficial ghetto as soon as their wives left for the 9:00 mass. They slid over to the playground with a sack of bocce balls and the studied art of launching a heavy ball, underhanded, with a shuffling trot to knock aside opponents crowding the little ballino. Then sticks would come out to measure the closest to the target ball. In all, it was a great chance to hang with some old-world buddies, smoke some twisted, foul, Perogi cigars, chat in the mother tongue, reach back for childhood games from the old country and basically let the women fulfill religious obligations.
If we used our imaginations we could create a ball diamond with scraps of cardboard for bases. It was better than trying to play ‘home runs’ in the allies dissecting our blocks. Not to mention losing balls that sometimes launched into close-cropped backyards. The trouble was you had to walk four blocks to get to the school playground. You had to gauge the level of group interest and available free time before dinner. So, the alley on our block often served for short term versions of the national pastime.
The A. L. Holmes playground on Detroit’s Eastside served many purposes. You just had to pick the right time.
Retired trainer, and writing instructor, Joe Novara lives in Kalamazoo, Michigan. Writings include novels, short stories, a memoir and various poems, plays, anthologies and articles. Read more at https://freefloatingstories.wordpress.com/
