CHAPTER 171 A DEATH IN THE FAMILY 1993 - 194
Reba Greenleaf called that my Uncle ben had been taken to the hospital with a badly infected arm. My parents drove to the hospital on January 24, 1993 to see him. He looked terrible. The Doctor’s had no idea what caused the infection, so didn’t know how to treat it. They were calling in a specialist.
On the 28th the hospital called saying if anyone wanted to see Ben they better come right away because he was going to die. We contacted my Uncle Francy and Aunt Doris and all met up at the Lancaster Hospital. Ben was sleeping from painkiller, so they all went out to dinner. When they came back Ben had been moved to a different room, but he hadn’t died.
On January 30, my parents went to visit Ben. They were shocked
to fine him alert and trying to talk. He was even moving his bad arm about. He still complained about having trouble getting his breath.
The next day, the 31st, my parents were awoken at 7:00 AM and told Ben had passed away. My parent’s had to go to MacLean’s Funeral Home in Coatesville and make arrangements. The viewing was held at the funeral home of February 3. The funeral was on the 4th in a cemetery on a hill in Coatesville.
It was a military funeral. Uncle Ben had been highly decorated during World War II. He served in the Army Air Corps (the Air Force was not yet in existence). The flag was handed to my father and now I have it atop a bookcase in my office.
On February 20 there was a Karate tournament held in the Edgemore Community Center (later renamed Bellevue Community Center and where my church, Iron Faith Fellowship held their services for their first five years). My parents were down for it. Laurel took 2nd Overall and Noelle got 3rd Overall. Darryl just got to be disappointed he didn’t win a trophy.
For some reason I felt tired all the time. I had tests, but everything came out normal. The doctor didn’t know what me problem was unless it was my medication. He told me to stop taking my thyroid pill every day.
Other than my fatigue, things were normal. Little League season started.
Manager was a man named Chris Lacy. Chris's son pitched and played shortstop, pretty typical positions it seemed for the Managers' sons. Mr. Lacy seemed a good Coach in the beginning when the Angles were doing well, but he changed as they began to lose games. He was especially hard on his boy, constantly berating him. You could see Chris Junior was unhappy and only playing because his father made him.
When I became a Bench Coach the next year and throughout Darryl's career, I determined never to be like a lot of the coaches. I would never yell at my son or put his play down in front of others. If he did something wrong I left it to his Manager or the other Coaches to correct him. I would discuss with him anything needing discussion in private. It is a kid's game for kids and they should be enjoying it. If you are a frustrated ballplayer as a man, don't take your own disappointment out on your kid.
As it was Darryl got named to the All Star team. He played left field that year.
Laurel was in another Horse show at Gateway Stables on May 15. My parents came down for this. Odd how my parents made so many of my kids events when they had seldom found time to come to mine when I was a child. Laurel competed in three events. She took a First, Second and a Third.
On the right is Laurel receiving her First Place Blue ribbon.
We had been on our trip in May 1992. Soon after we returned I was greeted at home by my children, jumping about me yelling. “We’re getting a dog!”
I thought, “Two cats aren’t enough?” I didn’t know then that two cats would not be enough either.
My wife said, “I just thought we should have a dog.” I was surprised by that, especially after the experience with Charlie. I had also never heard Lois express much feeling toward dogs, except grumble about a neighbor’s hound that constantly barked. She hadn’t grown up us with dogs, as I had. I thought it would be the last thing she would insist we were getting.
We drove into the Delaware Humane Association shelter on A Street to look at pooches. There in one of the cages, between a dozen or more barking beasts, was this little Yellow Lab puppy. He came home with us and his name was Tucker. My wife’s dog, eh?. She promised to care for him and to walk him. I would not have any responsibility. Yeah, right! We brought Tucker home on June 15, 1993.
also full of energy and strength. It wasn’t long before Lois asked if I could walk him. She couldn’t control him. He was too strong for her. Good grief, he was only a puppy! Thus for the next 17 years I lost my free walk every evening to being a dog walker.
But he also learned not to go to the bathroom on his walks. He was quite good at this, meaning I never had to carry a scoop and plastic bags. If he had the urge to go, however, he would make a beeline for home, dragging me behind.
I wondered what was coming next.
Darryl’s Little League team held a swim party at one of his coach’s homes to celebrate the end of the season.
had the car radio turned on when it was interrupted by a social news flash. It was June 17 and helicopters were following a bizarre police chase through Los Angeles pursuing the Legendary football star O. J. Simpson. When we got home my wife had the TV on and he sat watching this surreal slow-motion chase.
Orenthal James Simpson had been accused by the authorities of the brutal slaying of his wife, Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ron Goldman, at Simpson’s Brentwood home on June 13 at 12:10 A.M. He was supposed to turn himself in on the 17th, but instead fled in a White Bronco driven by his friend, another former football player named Al Cowlings, thus the strange chase. Simpson was arrested that night and the murder trail began on January 24, 1995.
Well, our June Birthday celebrations and Mom and Dad’s 53rd Wedding Anniversary and Father’s Day of course. We all went to Chrishere’s Restaurant for dinner.
Then came the annual Independence day backyard games. I made up several competitions for the kids to do.
In August my parents joined us as w
e took the kids down t the The Wildwoods on the Jersey Shore.
To be honest, I mainly went now for the Boardwalk Fries. I get a big bucket and then we’d watch the kids
not with my fear of height. Merry-Go-Round and the Teacups and Tilt-A -Whirl were about it for me. I sure didn't go on that swing thing with the kids (you can just see them on the thing.. Of course, that was n 1993. Today I am content to just walk about and sit and watch. It is also true, now that the kids are grown, we really don't go down to Wildwood anymore.
at Delaware Technical Institute (DelTech) as a Tutor in the Computer Center. (By the way, people think their Driver's License photos are bad, that DelTech Id photo is awful.) Very interesting that Lois became an instructor in a technical college teaching students how to use computers.
We had left Highlands Episcopal Church at the end of 1992 and returned to the fold at Bethel Baptist. We were back in the groove, more comfortable being somewhere that the Bible was the center of preaching and teaching. We were going Sunday Morning and Evening and to Wednesday night Bible Study and Prayer meeting. We were headed for the church on September 8 when disaster struck.
Little League had there opening ceremonies and first season game on April 20, 1994. They introduced each team and had a parade down Darley Road from the elementary school to the ball fields that lay just below the school grounds. Darryl had been drafted onto the Orioles that year. He was on a team with that name in the instructional league, but this one was actual Little League.
Baltimore Oriole Hats instead of the Claymont Little League with the big C on the front. This caused some controversy because these weren’t office league caps. One of the coaches had purchased the caps for our team and we did wear them all season.
In the photo you see me standing to the back. I was the bench coach. Darryl is standing in front of me. the tall boy not wearing his cap. Mark Tracey, Sr. was the Manager and is on the right. The Tracey’s had just moved into the “death house” behind us, where the man shot his wife and held police at bay for 24 hours. Someone bought it, repaired the damages, then rented it out. I was over at Tracey’s when they moved in helping out when his youngest son came running in the front door yelling, “ It’s a jungle out there.” He was referring to the animals in our neighbor.
Well, it kind of was a jungle. Besides the usual flocks of birds and the many squirrels, we had regular stray cats, raccoons, opossums, turtles, hawks, and even a fox lived back in our weeds for awhile.
The Tracey have since moved from that address. I don’t know where they live now.
I hit a kid.
I was angry at that boy for a long time. He caused me to get the only traffic ticket I ever got.
I had turned down Veale road going toward where the church stood. A DART (Delaware Authority for Regional Transportation) Bus was parked on the narrow shoulder just before the first cross street in Arden. I slowed way down as I passed the bus. Just as the front of my car came even with where the bus driver sat, a boy dashed from in front of the bus into my path. He hadn't checked the road, he just ran out and saw me too late for hm to retreat or for me to stop.
I hit the brake, but what was there, two feet between us, if that. He jumped in the air and next crashed across my windshield, smashing it inward, a cobweb of shattered safety glass. Lois was screaming; my three kids in the back seat were screaming. I don't think I screamed. I eased the brake pedal down. I feared any sudden stop would send him flying. He had rolled up off the windshield onto the car roof. One foot dangled down in view.
I didn't follow the road around the coming curve, but kept a straight path ahead until coming to a stop. When the car stopped, he rolled off the roof, down the hood and into the road. My first thought was, "I killed him". I got out, hoping no vehicles came about the curve ahead from the other direction. The boy lay on his back upon the macadam and he began to get up. I knelt and gently pushed hm back down.
"Stay still," I said, "don't try to get up".
But he was trying. "I want to get up," he said. "I want to go home." He pointed to some home on the cross street. "I just live back there."
I wouldn't let him get up and thankfully in want seemed like only a couple minutes we were lit by flashing red and blue lights. Response vehicles came from everywhere and filled the street. There was a cop car, a rescue van, an ambulance and even a fire truck. Some paramedics had surrounded us and took over tending to the boy. I stepped back. A policeman in a patrol car motioned me over. I walked over, glancing back as they lifted the boy onto a gurney. They put one of those restraining collars around his neck and that worried me.
I leaned on the patrol car window. First question the officer asked was, "Have you had anything to drink.”
That annoyed me, I was on my way to a Bible study at a basically fundamental Baptist Church; I was hardly going to be drinking. I realized they had to ask that; they have to try and pin alcohol to everything.
He asked me some routine questions, than said he was giving me a ticket for passing in a no-passing zone. I looked at him. "I didn't know it was illegal to pass a parked vehicle, " I said as he handed me the citation.
"It is if the parked vehicle forces you to cross the center line," he said.
Seriously, because the bus was too wide for the shoulder and I had to go over the white line while going by, I was considered passing in a no-passing zone.
I didn't take us to church. I drove home with my shattered windshield. All of us were in a state of shock. I called the insurance company first. They said not to worry, they would take care of everything, which they did, even my windshield replacement. I then called my minister. I was as shattered as the windshield. I didn't know where to turn. I was scared. And God's shepherd was the only one I felt I could turn to.
I knew I wouldn't get him, of course, because the Bible Study was still in session. I got someone in the office, explained what had happened and asked to have Pastor Ryle call me as soon as he could.
He didn't call me that night.
He did not call me the next day, or the next.
What had made thing worse that night was my oldest kid , Laurel, knew the boy, His name was also Larry. He was 15 years old, the same as Laurel and was in some of her classes. On Friday, two days after the accident, Laurel reported that Larry was back in school. He was fine. He had spend one day in the hospital for observation and that was all. What a relief!
Pastor Ryle still did not call.
He finally stopped by the house two weeks later, almost like a routine social call. He had little to say. It didn't matter anymore. I needed the solace and comfort two weeks prior, not as a week old afterthought, which his visit appeared to be. I stopped going to Bethel for quiet a time after that. I didn't lose faith in God, just in my minister.
I still had a court date. I showed up. It was a magistrate. He was very friendly. We catted a bit, then I plead "no contest, neither guilty or innocent, paid my $56 fine and left. I didn't raise any objection about being ticketed for passing a parked vehicle, even though I felt it was unfair. One concern, given the times as they were, was this was a Black kid I hit. I feared a fuss or protest if I got off Scott free, even though I felt it was the kid's own fault, not mine. I was angry at that kid for many years because he caused me to get my one and only ever traffic ticket.
I hear he was a nice kid. I'm glad he suffered no injury, but I hope he learned his lesson about running into traffic from behind parked vehicles. This was not a school bus.
I went to work as an M&M on Halloween.
Thanksgiving was celebrated at my parents and Christmas at our place.
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