Big Time Tales

Where is my popsicle?

Editor note: Two to a package and guests get first dibs.
One of the great joys of writing this blog is the responses I receive. I have made connections to people long lost to me. And people I have never met. A gift. It keeps me motivated to continue writing and also from straying too far from truth. Perhaps my most faithful watchdog is my childhood buddy, Big Time. He has shared some 1950's-60's Lowry memories with me. (He should write a book.) With his permission, I am quick to add, I pass along some "Big Time Tales".

This is your old buddy Big Time. Been reading your stories on Lowry. Pretty darn accurate. You and I played a lot together. You were about 5 years younger. You and I played a lot of cowboys in the back alley behind the hardware and my dad's tavern. I had lots of toy guns. So if one of the other kids didn't have a gun I would furnish one. {Editor note: Also played Army in the sandbox with toy soldiers and firecrackers as hand grenades.}

I was in your house a lot. One of the things I remember is sitting on the floor in your house playing the game of Cootie.  If I remember right had to put this big bug together. That was the game. Your sister was really little.

Also played a lot of baseball on the skating rink. Used the chimney as a backstop. Remember when we used to perfect our curveball with a rubber baseball. Was real easy to throw a curve with a rubber ball. {Editor note: Hank Brandt's garden was just behind the rink house. It took courage to retrieve a foul ball from that garden - see below}

You and I use to practically buy out all the Topps baseball cards Leo Dahl would get in. Every time they would get a new box we were there. {Editor note: Also, Vrooman's Grocery. Boxes of baseball cards on the checkout counter. I didn't like it when they switched from single card to 5-packs. There was a lottery feel to picking one-by-one.} If I remember right your favorite team were the Dodgers Sandy Koufax. My team were the Yanks Mantle, Yogi, Enos Slaughter. Ryan Duren would to throw so hard he would practically fall off the mound on every pitch. I suppose you cashed in on all your cards or did your Mom throw them away like mine? {Editor note: She threw them away. Dodgers until they moved to LA. Ryan Duren often pitched drunk}.

Do you remember when they had a Poppy poster contest for the kids for Memorial Day. Had to draw a poster on the wars and have a slogan. Prizes were $3 $2 and $1. I won first prize that year must have been about 12. Anyway I won $3.00. The poster was on the window in the Hardware. I was pretty proud I tell you.

You talk about Gary Thompson having pigeons. I use to be up in the barn a lot where he had them. So was Bennie. Bennie and I would get roped into helping him catch them. Gary used to pole vault & had a long pole about 16 feet long. Used that to scare the pigeons off their roost at night. Anyway on this particular night we made a trip by bike, pole and all, east of Lowry to Myers farm on the Lake John road. Thompson sent me outside to get the pole. They had a dog that looked like Lassie. When I reached down to pick the pole up  The dog bit me in the arm. Had to tear for home. Dad had to take me to Doc, 5 stitches. Needless to say that ended my pigeon catching. Gary had about 35 pigeons. Once he had them in the barn they kept coming back. Do you remember Thompson had a pair of stilts made out of 2 twenty foot 2 x4’s and walked all over town. He would be about 7 or 8 feet off the ground. Never really new how he ever got on them or off. Had to get up on something high.

I use to go into the hardware a lot just to look. Practically had everything in there for sale stuff that was popular 25 years ago at the time. Your Uncle Dave was quite a guy. My dad always said if your going to buy something see Dave. Lots of times if I didn't have quite enough money, like 20 or 30 cents short he would say that's close enough. I bought my first shotgun from Dave I was 11 years old. Single shot 20 gauge Stevens - wanted $25.00 only had $22.50 - said oh that's close enough. You did not have to be 21 them days. Also would buy all my 22 rifle shells too. Didn’t make any difference how old you were. If you went in there and talked to Martin and he could not find it he would say “I got it here some place”. That's why he was called Martin. I think your uncle Dave practically sponsored the Lowry Baseball team by himself. I don't think they would have even had a team. Those were the good old days.

One time Doc Wright and Tubba went to Benson to buy bats. Apparently, Benson had a sporting goods store. Tubba was the team batboy. On the way back, Tubba said he heard that a black bat was bad luck. So they turned around and exchanged it.

On the sidewalk on the south side of the bank, there was a steel grate that allowed light into the bank basement. It was about 5 feet deep. I would check this 2 or 3 times a day - half the time there was money on the bottom. I would go home and get a long stick and I’d chew a piece of bubble gum to put on the end of the stick and I’d fish out the money - sometimes up to 50 cents. To this day I think Howard Lysen would throw money in there because McIver's Store was across the street and he would like watching kids trying to get the coins out.

I was in Hank Brandt's house on Halloween. He had a 30 30 deer rifle by the front door. He showed me the rifle.  He said he would shoot right through the door if he was harassed by kids. {Editor note: I never had the courage to stop at that house.} You could get along with him just fine if you stayed out of his garden. They had a vacant farm about 2 miles north of Diamond Lake. My dad told me that they buried all their money somewhere in yard because they didn't believe in banks. They could never find it. My grandmother knew them quite well when she was young, their family farmed about a mile from them. I don't know if it's true or not, I was told that though.

One Halloween Bennie and I had the bright idea to go out twice. I had a Sylvester the Cat costume. I don't remember what Bennie wore. Anyway we changed costumes went to 3 or 4 places, then went to Loftingmoe's. Mrs Loftingmoe said "you been here before". Said "you’re that little fat kid that's been here before." Ha. That ended it. Figured we better quit.

Bennie and I were trying to get into trouble all the time. Bennie and his family lived in the apartments over Molander's Implement. Seems like we were always doing stuff at night. You know Lowry had the Christmas lights across the streets. Bennie's dad had a old 22 rifle. About 9 pm at night we would open up the window on the porch and take target practice at the lights. Probably shot 8  to 10 shots a night. Never could hit any of them tho. Hard to hit them in the dark. Remember behind Martin Holden's on 114 across from Martin Heggestads. There were 2 long rows of tall evergreens. The evergreens were a big magnet for blackbirds. Sometimes there would be 500 blackbirds behind there in the spring nesting.  Bennie and I would shoot blackbirds a lot, sometimes spend our whole day shooting. One day Bennie and I came out of his apartment. Ben Rice was out in front of his cream buying station. We were walking on the street with our 22 rifles. Bennie decided to shoot at the water tower. Shot and hit it. Ben Rice got mad and told Bennie to stop it. Bennie turned around and shot it again. You could here the bullet hit it. 

One night Bennie and I were out stealing apples by your place at Richard Loren's. They must of heard us and came out. I took off. Bennie was still up in the tree. I hid and Richard walked all around the tree. Bennie was still up there in the tree. Never saw him. Lucky.

One Sunday afternoon all the older kids got together PERSONAL PRIVACY  of course me and Bennie were there to. We were on the railroad tracks between the elevator and the lumber yard. Somebody threw a rock at the lumber yard windows. There was a row of windows that ran the whole length of the building. All at once everybody was throwing rocks at the windows. Must have broke about 30 windows. And frames out. This was on a Sunday afternoon. Nobody around PERSONAL PRIVACY . I do not know how they ever found out who did it. They next day I did not go to swimming lessons - lake poison. Sheriff Hank DeCook was waiting to greet all the guys. Everyone had to pay $15 and help install the windows. The next couple days the guys were up on the roof helping to put them in  - except Bennie and I. We were too young and the big guys were instigators so we got by without paying.

Davy Chan a.k.a. Big Time

{Editor note: Makes my "Mischief & Adventures" tales seem pretty pale in comparison}
Mischief & Adventure - Part 1
Mischief & Adventure - Part 2

Copyright © 2019 Dave Hoplin