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The Summer of '59

Created on: 04/01/17 02:14 AM Views: 2382 Replies: 5
The Summer of '59
Posted Saturday, April 1, 2017 02:14 AM

Of Mosquitoes and Ticks

Sports/Carolina/State/and a confused little boy of 9

Back in the summer of '59, I was a little sports' enthusiast attending the Johnny Clements Athletic Club over on the State campus. One morning I stood beside my dad and Johnny Clements (Carolina wing-back during the Justice era) behind the backstop at Red Diamond in Pullen Park. I listened sadly to them talking about the headlines in the morning paper--about the shocking death of Carolina's head football coach Jim Tatum from a disease called Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever, caused by a tick bite. A few minutes later I was standing in the batter's box, with a lot on my mind, facing a Tommy Hines fast ball. The Johnny Clements Athletic Club carried me through that summer.....A tick?

On a hot day In late August I walked over to Lash Ave. and knocked on the door of a good basketball pal of mine--I had not seen him since June when he left to spend summer vacation in New Jersey with his cousins. His grandmother answered the door as I dribbled my old beat-up Spalding basketball (I remember the moment well). She very sadly told me how her grandson had died a few weeks earlier in New Jersey from a disease called encephalitis, contracted from a mosquito bite.....A mosquito?

My fourth grade year found me dribbling alone hours at a time shooting hoops in imaginary games  on various driveway courts in Coley Forest. I was a troubled little boy. 

On a Saturday afternoon that November while I was raking leaves in my back yard with my brother and father, I listened to the radio broadcast of the Duke-Carolina football game. The game was played in Durham and nationally ranked Duke was a heavy favorite, but Carolin's fullback Don Klochak took the second half opening kickoff and ran it back 97 yards to pay-dirt on way to a 50-0  Carolina rout....However, new Coach Jim Hickey had tough shoes to fill.....

Wearing State red years later, I pointed out to my teammates the cemetery where Jim Tatum is buried and the large tombstone with his name on it. I recounted his story as our bus passed the graveyard in front of Carmichael Auditorium on our way to play Carolina, and remember my teammates and coaches listening with interest.

That damnable tick, that damnable mosquito.....

Image result for little boy shooting hoops on driveway court image

 

From Phomn Penh :-)

 

 
Edited 03/16/20 04:26 PM
RE: The Summer of '59
Posted Tuesday, January 9, 2018 05:07 PM

Great memories!

I spent hours and hours playing basketball when not playing baseball on the field at Frances Lacy.  George Barrick was my best friend. He had 3 brothers that also played baseball and basketball.  Every day after school we played baseball. When we didn't have enough people for teams, we went over to George's home across the street and played basketball.  I'll bet I went through at least 5 or 6 pairs of Converse All Stars before I reached the age of 14.  Now they are the rage around the world. Who would have thought that one day they would become popular for people of all ages and genders. 

BAK

 
The Summer of '59
Posted Friday, January 12, 2018 05:30 PM

Barry, I remember those days well--George and I were good friends and fishing buddies.  We played baseball at Lacy after school, shot hoops on George's driveway court, and jumped off the diving board into that wonderful swimming pool of his.  Remember George's great family--Dr. and Mrs. Barrick, his brothers Harry and Jim (Bean), and Pat, and his little sister.  George's dad was a scout master and also a coach for George's little league team Cameron Brown over at Jaycee Park where you and I played for different teams--you for Jones Sausage while I played for Bryan Cooper.

Remember a fishing outing with George: Mrs. Coley allowed me to fish in her private, fenced-in pond off the gravely Westwood Road extension just down from her two-story white farm house. 

One day when we were about twelve, George and I walked the half mile from my house on Wheeler, with fishing rods over our shoulders, to the Coley pond.  My little beagle Nippy happily followed us (no leashes required back then). To get into the pond to fish we had to climb a tall wire fence, so George put his Rapala lure into his shirt pocket and hopped over first, and waited on the other side for me to hand over Nippy to him.  What happened next was a comedy of errors. Nippy went into George's arms but squirmed out onto the ground taking the Rapala out of his pocket with her, one set of barbed treble hooks catching onto the fold of the loose skin of her stomach. Alarmed, I quickly climbed over the fence to help George get the hooks out of Nippy.  But she squirmed again and lurched, embedding the other set of treble hooks deeply into one of George's index fingers.  Now picture a nervous little dog pulling away as George and she were locked together painfully by two sets of treble hooks on that single bass lure--Well, I pulled out a pocket knife and pried away at one set of the treble hooks, separating George and Nippy from each other, although each still remained attached to a separate set of the sharp hooks.

After George and Nippy were freed from each other, we all managed to climb back over that fence again, this time carefully avoiding further injury, and walked back to my house to get my mother to drive us over to Dr. Barrick's office in Cameron Village, where he kindly and deftly took a scalpel and freed both my little beagle and George from their hooks.

The Barrick's were/are great people.  Hey to George--been much too long :-)

And Nippy was a loveable little family member of ours--she died years later and is now buried under a giant oak in the far-right corner of the backyard of our family's property on Wheeler, her name carefully etched into the tree bark.

Keep em coming Barry.

We (Barry and I) both wish you guys would comment and lend some tales of your own....time is a fleeing....alas :-)

Hope everyone will go back and look at those wonderful photos Barry and I added to our stories, and throw in some of your own.

Danny

 

 

 

 

 
Edited 06/30/23 01:24 AM
The Summer of '59
Posted Sunday, January 14, 2018 11:45 PM

George had a cocker spaniel that had pups with a neighbor's beagle (I think it was Patricia McClam's dog)as the father and we took one of them. We named her Georgia.  I was 12 years old then and Georgia stayed with me until I was 28.  She had several litters of the most beautiful pups you ever saw.  She loved to ride on the bow of my gramp's boat and later on my dad's boat.  She was a swimmer like all cocker's are....couldn't stay out of the water.  Clay Smith lived on the other side of the McClam's house.  

BAK

 
Edited 01/14/18 11:47 PM
The Summer of '59
Posted Thursday, August 30, 2018 11:47 AM

Dan,

I re-read your Summer of '59 post and realized that you played b-ball for State.  What year/s were you on the team?  My nephew, Jay Kornegay, was sick for a long time before finally going to Duke Medical Center where they discovered after a week of tests that he had lime disease which is carried by that damnable tick.

BAK

 
Edited 08/30/18 11:48 AM
The Summer of '59
Posted Saturday, December 15, 2018 07:53 PM

Hey Barry,

I just saw your note. My basketball days at State were not earthshaking--that's for sure.  I think my ppg was akin to my gpa.  :-)  Played on the freshman team in 68-69, then was team manager for two years, but since a couple of players transferred out, Coach Sloan asked me to play on the varsity--a big thrill for me.

A little note: I wore number 44 on the freshman team and that is the only number to ever be retired in Wolfpack basketball history, and now is a celebrated jersey hanging high up in the rafters of the Coliseum ....... My daughter studied graphic design at State--she tells me that she had great fun attending the basketball games there, especially pointing out that number 44 jersey to her friends, telling them, "My dad wore that jersey." She would smile as her friends looked up in awe........Of course she didn't tell them about that David Thompson guy who wore it after me.  :-)

As Coach Sloan used to call out to me--"This isn't the YMCA anymore."  Chuck Anderson and Charlie Hicks can still probably blow by me for lay-ups and pull-up jumpers. Those two were really good players.

Dan(ny)

 

 

 

 
Edited 12/29/20 07:31 PM