By Carl Nelson
This past Mother Day has rekindled some precious memories of my parents. Their unconditional love filled my mind again. It’s funny, I was always a ‘mom’s boy’ but my memories of dad have been foremost on my mind.
In the years at home before college Dad worked for the Florida Power and Light Company as a shift forman and union rep. In his youth his family owned the shrimp dock next to the Main Street bridge in Daytona Beach. He was well known as a semi-pro baseball player in the old Citrus League. When the Great Depression hit he was needed full-time as a shrimper and had to give up the sport as well as high school graduation. What missed opportunities dad had lost in his youth made him determined that I would get a good education.
When I was in ninth grade Dad strengthened my love for baseball by building me a pitching mound on the side of the house. We had a chicken wire backstop, a real home plate and an old catchers mitt. Balls were plentiful as I was the batting practice pitcher for the local professional team. Stan Musial, Rocky Colovito had gotten their start there playing for the Islanders.
I couldn’t throw hard but had a late breaking curve ball that was hard to catch. Dad’s ankles and knees always had a new bruise. After each session he would rub down my arm with rubbing alcohol. He didn’t know if I would ever make the high school team but my dream became his as well.
Later that year when I had made the team, he would show up at every game he could even if it meant driving fifty miles after his shift. All the players knew him. Often I would find him on the field after the game shaking hands with each boy with a “nice game kid”. That’s not the story I want to tell, however. That same year I had a paper route with one hundred and sixty customers. I made the basketball team but every now and then there was a conflict with my paper route.
Because of that I had to tell Coach Foster I would be missing an out-of-town game. When Dad heard about it, he told me, “You’re going to play, I’ll take your route”. Well, we got in the car and we traced my route several times so he knew who got the paper and who didn’t. I said to him, “You’re sure you got this?”
“Go be with the boys,” is all he said. Looking back now I can just see Dad on the curb with several teenagers at six thirty in the morning waiting for the truck to drop off the packaged newspapers.
He had to roll papers and bind them with a rubber band and stuff them in the sack positioned over my handlebars.
Each paper cost me four cents, and I would sell them for a nickel. If I missed someone and corporate had to deliver I was charged thirty five cents. The next morning I asked Dad how he did. He said everything went well but he did break a jealousy window at the motel. I asked what he did about it and he said, “I just peddled faster”. He told me that one lady who was out watering the grass threw it back at him saying, “I don’t subscribe, it’s not worth the money”.
Dad also had stopped subscribing, calling the paper the daily disappointment or a mullet wrapper. That week my bill from the paper company included five and a half dollar charge for complaints. I never told Dad. He never expected any thanks. He was just being Dad. Soon the ball could be heard hitting the mitt again and we were both doing what we loved.