Obstacle Park

In 1958 or 59 dad reduced the size of the garden to give us kids more room to play. He planted grass on the new part, and when he thought it was established sufficiently (it wasn’t) for kid use, the first of many whiffle ball games were played on our new field.

The ball field was a little lopsided. First base was a neighbor’s clothesline pole; second, third, and home were marked by anything we could use—an old, flat ball glove, a toy, or often rhubarb leaves that we picked from the edge of the garden. I never did understand why mom or dad never complained about that. 

 In the late 1950s, the Kerber teams were so short on players that the team batting supplied the pitcher. Also, when a player got on base, we often needed an imaginary runner so that the one who just got a hit could pitch to his (mostly his) teammate. We often had only two on a team. There were sometimes more when mom instituted her own rule of “Let the little kids play!” She usually yelled this from the kitchen window where she watched over everything in the backyard.

The lineups were chosen from a limited number of kids. For reasons unknown to me, Dan and Bill never played. In the early years that left me, John, Linda (not often), Nancy, and George. Mike and Fred were designated as “little kids” in the early years. Sometimes Alan, the next in line, was used as a pinch runner and he ran as a player who was determined to lose his little kid status. At that time Joe and Gary were too young; in later years, they would move up to the “little kids” category.

We named our ballfield Obstacle Park because of the confining nature of our backyard. Porches, roofs, sides of houses, bushes, trees, clothesline poles, sandbox—each obstacle had to have its own rule, such as a ball hit in the air and onto a porch was an automatic homerun and a ball hitting a garage or porch roof that was caught before hitting the ground was an out.

Other fun OP rules:

·         A ball hit into the garden was an out; who wanted to face the wrath of dad?

·         A ball hit onto Cherry Street was a homerun. (George was famous for these, and when he was at bat, the defense made a radical shift right.)

·         If you hit the second-floor roof of either house, it was a homerun. (John was good at this.)

·         A fly ball that hit a tree branch and was caught before hitting the ground was an out.

·         A fly ball that landed in a bush and got stuck would be an out.

·         A ball that landed in the sandbox was nothing but a hit ball.

These rules were fun to make up, but they produced a lot of arguments, which often led to older kids shouting and younger kids crying. But the games almost always went on.

The rule that undoubtedly was the biggest source of arguments was being able to put a runner out just by hitting him with the ball. The plastic balls would sting a bare back or leg if thrown hard enough. And this rule often led to “You’re out, I hit you!” “No you didn’t! I didn’t feel anything!” “I did too! I nicked the back of your shorts!” And so on.

As much arguing as we did, I don’t remember it ever escalating into a physical fight. We spent hours and hours playing whiffle ball. The game was so popular that when we returned to 828 from college or military service, we often got a game up. The last game at Obstacle Park was played on Thanksgiving weekend in 1988. That was when all of us Kerbers came home to say goodbye to the house. (Dad died in 1981.) Mom was selling 828 and moving to a smaller apartment. Many of us played in that game, and many of our own kids, too. And Mom didn’t have to tell us to let the little kids play.

Often in my adult life I think of my childhood as difficult or even grim. (More about that in a post soon.) But when I remember the good times I had at Obstacle Park, I know that “difficult” is only part of the picture.

-- Bob

Note – the  828 blog will not post in the next couple of weeks. Our family is having a reunion, at which there will undoubtedly be a whiffle ball game. If not that, there will be plenty of pinochle, euchre, etc.