Tetherball and Momma’s Frying Pan

This is a tetherball.

This is a boy and girl appearing to the untrained eye to be playing tetherball – they are not intense enough to actually be playing tetherball.

This is a cast iron skillet, or frying pan, or instrument for use in defending yourself against burglars. It has also been used as a threatening device by my very own Momma against a backyard intruder – though not an unknown intruder.

I do not recommend playing tetherball with a cast iron skillet – use your hand to hit the ball, not a skillet –just thought I’d mention that for liability purposes…never knowing what some folks might try.

Do people play tetherball anymore? It’s probably deemed too dangerous for use at public school – though we used to have them at school. We also had a tetherball in our back yard – ah the beauty of getting a run on your opponent in tetherball, smashing that ball – whipping it around the pole, backing your opponent out of the line of fire. I guess if you did play tetherball today they’d make you wear helmets. Mercy!

In Rockville, MD we lived in a post-WWII subdivision with fenced back yards – chain link, some of which had those protruding barbs at the top, the kind where you had to ensure that your britches cleared the top or unpleasant things might occur. I always appreciated the user-friendly chain-link fence, the one without the barbs on the top, you could jump over those with peace of mind. But I digress…somewhat.

Katty corner to the left of our backyard was the backyard of one Bobby Ralph. Directly behind our backyard was the backyard of Wayne Able. I do not recall who was katty corner to the right of our backyard, but I can say with some certainty that they didn’t have kids, or leastways boys, or I would recollect.

Our next door neighbors, to the right facing the house, were the Bards. No, not that Bard, not the one who wrote all those plays and sonnets, but Mr. and Mrs. Bard and their daughters Charlene and Elizabeth. Charlene was a few years older than me, about the same age as Bobby Ralph, and from time-to-time Bobby Ralph would decide to visit Charlene and he’d do so by jumping the chain-link fence into our back yard and traveling across our territory.

One day my middle brother Bill and I were out back playing tetherball when Bobby Ralph decided to use our backyard as an interstate highway to visit Charlene. I don’t really know what got into us, but we took offence at his unwarranted and continual use of our property – maybe we’d been playing war games and were just in the mood to be territorial. Come to think of it, tetherball can kind of get you in one of those warrior moods.

So we informed him that he was to cease and desist in the use of our backyard. Now if you knew Bobby Ralph the way we knew Bobby Ralph you’d know that he would ignore us – after all, we were younger than he was – he was in high school – I mean that’s a BIG DEAL, or at least in was in those days. He could likely take the two of us with little problem.

But the warrior mood is the warrior mood, and once an ultimatum is given you can’t be like Neville Chamberlain and back down, you’ve got to be like Churchill and suck it up – you’ve got to have a plan and at the very least fight them on the beaches.  

The first thing we did was go into the house and retrieve three swords – not playthings, real swords. One was a ceremonial sword which had belonged to Mom’s stepfather who was with the Knights of Columbus. The other two were circa Civil War era swords that I had purchased. Not to worry – we didn’t intend to use the swords. We stuck them in the ground, off on the side of the backyard, away from the contemplated engagement – they wee symbolic of our determination to defend our sacred soil.

Then brother Bill got a cowboy bull-whip that he’d sent away for in response to an ad in a comic book. Then we dismantled the tetherball pole, and I kept a section of the pole for use as a trusty lance. After that we waited and scanned the horizon as the White Cliffs of Dover must have been scanned in WWII – waiting for the invading horde in the person of Bobby Ralph.

Unlike Napoleon and unlike Hitler, Bobby Ralph came – so you’ve got to give him credit. As he confidently moved across our backyard we gave notice that he had violated our admonition, that he had received fair warning - and with a shout I charged him with the tetherball pole. Poor old Bobby – the two crazed Withers brothers were on him.

Bobby grabbed the pole and the two of us were on the ground wrestling. Brother Bill came alongside us with the bull whip, though I don’t think he used it – heck, if he had he may have put his own eye out. Anyway, there we were, Bobby and I rolling on the ground, neither one hurting the other, and brother Bill standing by with his trusty Western real-cowboy bull whip – when out comes Momma from the backdoor.

She had looked out the kitchen door and seen the ruckus and out she came…with a cast-iron skillet…and as she approached she upbraided Bobby Ralph with the words, “What are you doing picking on my boys?!”

Old Bobby was off and running, jumping over the chain-link fence for the safety of his own dear backyard. From that day forward the poor old boy walked around the block to see Charlene.

You gotta love a Momma who defends her innocent boys. “What are you doing picking on my boys?!” Ah yes.