Elvis and Me 4th of July at Forsythe Park By George Artie (Butch) Whitlow June 27, 2011

Elvis and Me 4^th of July at Forsythe Park By George Artie (Butch) Whitlow June 27, 2011

Hello, my name is Butch Whitlow and I am a Baby Boomer. That is me, the lefty on the right. I was born on November 4, 1948 in Monroe, Louisiana and I am 63 years old. Life today is nothing like it was back then. I played Little League Baseball in Bendel Stadium at Forsythe Park from 1957 till the summer of 61. I wrote a novel Blue Bayou Days, the Summer of 61 based on my formative Little League years with the Monroe Police Team. In the novel I call it McNulty Park on McNulty Bayou which is based on a combination of Southside Little League Park and Bendel Stadium. Daddy, George Wesley Whitlow was a motorcycle policeman and he was our head coach. He coached with his Harley Davidson 3 wheeler close by so he could hear the squawk of the police radio dispatcher down at the policeman’s station. He coached with his police uniform including leather holster and 38 Smith and Wesson with the pearl handles. I can still hear the leather creaking today and smell the Old Spice. I still use Old Spice today. I can still hear his voice , “Line up Girls, we are going to have a tea party. We all dreaded tea parties. We lined up along the third base line and sprinted to the outfield fence. Danny Daniel and I always tied for last place. Johnny Rietsell was always first. Johnny was always the leadoff batter, because he always got on base by walking, getting hit, or bunting. He was a very small target and I hated pitching to him in batting practice. He was as fast as greased lightning and if we did not bat him around very quickly, he stole all of the bases including home plate.

We had several assistant coaches including Dickey Shoemaker, Scotty Daniels, and Hilton Roberts. Scotty was Danny and John’s father. Scotty lived across the street from Neville High School football practice field. Years later I would watch daddy drive his Harley in Daniel’s front yard and sit on the porch drinking coffee with Scotty and Watching us practice. At first Scotty worked the printing press at the Monroe News Star paper. Then he opened a printing business which John and Danny operate on Forsythe Boulevard down the road from the park and Neville. Daniel Printing handles all of the printing needs for my small business Whitlow Enterprises. Scotty ended up coaching the police team for more than 40 years. John and Danny played 3^rd base and 1^st base. Scotty always sang the song Hello Mary Lou Goodbye Heart. He always had that Tom Landry look and never got mad or raised his voice. Scotty Campbell was our home run slugger. All the rest of us had real cotton red uniforms, but Scotty was too large for the pants. Daddy got him pin striped white pants from the Shreveport Captains minor league team. Once Scotty hit a grand slam home run while I was on second base. The ball went out of sight 100 feet above the centerfield fence and hit a golfer standing by the flag pole on the 10^th hole. Dickey was the batting coach and he had the attitude and the voice that carried. Coach Roberts was our pitching coach and he took me under his wings. He was white headed and a retired United States Navy ship captain. Hilton built a house that looked exactly like a naval ship including port holes for windows. Hilton was a pitcher and a scout for the Houston Astros. Hilton’s son Hilton JR was one of our best pitchers. We made an unbeatable combination on the mound. I threw natural left-handed sliders, spit balls, knuckle balls, curve balls, beam balls, changeups, fast balls and other trash. I once struck out Mickey Mantle and Roger Maris, Oh sorry that was in the novel. I would often beam hit a few kids just to let them know the fear of God. I often struck out entire teams. In the novel I continued my dream followed it and ended up pitching for the New York Yankees.

A few years later Coach Hilton Roberts almost led my kid brother John Roderick Whitlow (Ricky) to live the dream of catching for the Houston Astros. After daddy retired from policing, he moved to Columbia, Louisiana where Ricky attended Caldwell Parish High School Spartans and caught baseball and played fullback on the football team. The Astros sent him an invitation to attend spring training as a catcher. He was a power hitter with several homeruns and a great batting average. After spring training the Astros asked him to accept a scholarship for Oklahoma State University Sooners and come back after 4 years of college baseball for a million dollar contract. Amazingly Ricky refused the scholarship because his girl friend wanted to go to Northwestern. Ricky took a student job as water boy for the football team. He intended to play baseball as a walk on, but the football coach refused to let him miss spring training. He broke up with his girl friend and walked in Daddy’s footsteps as a Baton Rouge motorcycle cop and coached Little League in Walker, Louisiana for 20 years. That was as close as he ever got to that million dollar catching job for the Astos.

Back in those days the entire city of Monroe revolved around Forsythe Park. The golf course, Bendel stadium,bicycle1.jpg the city swimming pool, American Legion and the show boat and house boats along the Ouachita River were the dominant attractions. In the summer of 63 at age 14, I took my first job and although it was a summer job and I only made $4 per hour, I swear it was my best job ever. Officially on paper I was the grounds keeper at Bendel Stadium. We lived on Emerson Ave and I rode my bicycle to work and arrived around noon. I started out each day by watering the infield with a water hose, then raked the infield. If it had been raining, as it did a lot during those years, I use a hoe and shovel to make drain trenches in the infield. I poured diesel fuel in the mud holes and burned off the access water. Then I would use a wheel barrel to haul sand in from the pile outside the 3^rd base fence to fill in the mud holes. We had white fire hydrant hoses along the outfield foul lines. I had a rolling distributor and spread lime for the infield foul lines and powered each base with lime to make it show up better. I had a wooden rectangular box which I laid down to make a pattern for the batters boxes.

After I finished the grounds keeping part of the job, I cleaned up the restrooms and setup the concession stand for the volunteer parents to operate during the game. The ice truck would arrive with ice for the large red Coco Cola ice chest. Then I would fill the ice chest with all sorts of coke, Chocolate Soldier coke, Big Orange Crush coke, Barge Root Beer coke. R C coke, what have you coke. They were all cokes to me. The coke bottles were ice cold and dripping. We poured the cokes in plastic cups with ice and saved the leftover coke in the bottles for the next customer. I roasted the first batch of peanuts, then I poured butter and salt in the popcorn popper, let the butter melt, than poured in the popcorn kernels, flipped the switch and listened to the machine rotate and saw the hot popcorn pop out, I can still hear it popping in my mind. And I can still smell it cooking. I put the wieners on the grill, toasted the buns, loaded up the concession stand with Cracker Jacks and Hersey’s Chocolate and we were all set. Take me out to the ball game. Buy me some peanuts and Cracker Jacks. I don’t care if we never get back.

After the volunteer parents arrived to operate the concession stand, I assumed my normal favorite position behind the microphone in the press box, keeping the official score and announcing the play by play. This is where I learned the gift of the gab and storytelling and I forgot that I was a shy little boy. I had a great teacher. For years I had watched Dizzy Dean and Pee Wee Reese my heroes on the CBS Game of the Week. I became Dizzy Dean. I learned how to slaughter the King’s English. This really aggravated my teachers at Neville. It aggravates my sweet wife Angela now but I would not change it for the world. Live with it.

Back in those days we had the scoreboard in center field with the large numbers that hung on nails. I always had plenty of volunteer scoreboard operator kids whom worked for peanuts and free cokes. The past few years I have attended several Little League Parks with our Son Aaron Cardinal. He has a great arm and he has pitched. I wish I could teach him some of my secret pitches, but lately he seems to have lost interest because of school. He was the student of the year last year at Pine Crest Junior High and he wants to continue in this path. I think he can do both. I think he has what it takes to pitch for the Saint Louis Cardinals, his favorite team. I could only write a novel about pitching for the Yankees. These modern Little League parks have digital score boards and to this day I have never seen any of them working. They should go back to the hang the numbers on a nail scoreboard and let the kids volunteer to work for peanuts and free cokes. They should also go back to fresh roasted peanuts in brown paper bags instead of the stale plastic packaged peanuts.

I substituted umpiring if the umpires did not show up for the game. Why do umpires always turn their back to the pitcher to brush off home plate? Benny Connor taught me this lesson in life. Benny was the baseball coach at Neville High School down the road and he umpired baseball for extra spending change during the dog days of summer and to scout for future Neville baseball stars. I was in the press box as usual and Benny was umpiring behind home plate. He called time out, turned his back to the pitcher, bent over and took out his brush. Then we all heard it- R-I-P as he ripped his tight black pants from belt to belt. He hid it with his chest protector and looked up at me. “Butch, come down here and umpire, because I need to go home and change pants.” I told him that I had never umpired behind home plate before and he said to just call it like I saw it. The trouble was that I never saw it. It is hard to call balls and strikes when your eyes are shut. I closed both eyes as soon as the ball passed the batter. I would holler out “Strike One!” if it sounded like a strike. One time when the bases were loaded, I yelled out, “Ball 1, Ball 2, Ball 3, Ball 4- You’re out!” The coach got really angry and came out after me with a baseball bat screaming at the top of his voice, “Ball 4 you’re Out!” I replied nervously that the bases were loaded, there was no where to put him, so he was out.

I worked for Jacky Neal and Jack Heskett who were in charge of the Monroe Recreation Department. Jack would usually show up about the 4^th inning and stand just outside of the 1^st base dugout talking to players and parents. After the game ended, he and I would enter the concession stand where he took the bag with the money and talk to me like a son as I cleaned up for the next day. Then he and I would go out and flip the switch for the stadium lights. On one occasion as he was waiting for me, he noticed an old yellowed motor cycle calendar on the wall between the concession stand and the ladies restroom. He moved the calendar and there was a peep hole about the size of a dime. He got really angry at me and accused me of drilling the hole. I explained that I had been working there 3 years and had never noticed the hole and I assumed that the guy before me had drilled it. Not so sure he believed me but it was true. I did not need a peep hole. The town swimming pool was across the street. The girls in bikinis were always coming over to help me rake and water the field for free cokes. I put some Elvis music on the public address system and we danced at work every day. What a life. Rock and Roll is here to stay.

I started driving to work when I was 15. At first I had a 57 Chevy Bell Air and later a 1961 Chevy Business Coop that had no back seat. I put some large speakers back there and matrices which I used for camping every weekend. I arrived at work early everyday and I became Elvis Presley. I was 6 foot tall, muscular, dark, and handsome with my high Choctaw Indian cheekbones. I had natural jet black hair which greased down with plenty of Vitals'. I wore in duck tails parted on both sides with a curl down my forehead. I washed and waxed my car every day. The girls would come over in itsy bitsy tiny winy yellow poke a dot bikinis and polish the moon hubcaps. I caught several girl friends in this trap. What a life. I wore black polo shirts, with pockets and the sleeves cut off and a swimming suit that was usually wet. I wore black and white highly polished saddle oxfords, and long pink or red knee socks. I knew every Elvis Song by heart and sang them all of the time. “You Ain’t nothing but a hound dog.” I had his hip shaking, gyrating, dancing, and strutting down pat. When the ball game ended we would drive out into Forsythe Park and park under the oak trees, listen to Elvis, make sparks fly kissing and necking, and talk. Daddy did not totally trust me so he sent out his men in patrol cars to find me. One night Jerry Rhoden came out with his headlamps off, pulled up next to me and shined his spot light into my window. “What in the heck are you up to, Butch?”

“Just necking.”

“Well get your neck back in your pants and get the hell out of here.”

A few years later just before daddy retired, he put an all points bulletin on my car. “Just pull Butch over and see what he is up to.” In one week they pulled me over 27 times just checking. Most of the time, it was Jerry Rhoden whom had taken a liking to me. He pulled up behind me, waited patiently until after I had dumped the 6 pack of Falstaff beer out the rusted out hole in my backseat floorboard. He did not want to have to explain to his boss about arresting his minor son for underage drinking. Then he got out of his squad car and shined his ever trusty spot light into my window. He warned me that daddy was going to retire soon and my ass belonged to him unless I either quit drinking or get out of town. This was the main reason I enlisted on the Air Force after I dropped out of Northeast College. I sorta forgot to attend classes and buy the books. The English professor DR Rhett Butler did not appreciate my slaughter if the King’s English. Three years of college shot to hell.

A few years after the Beatles and Yesterday, I became Ringo Starr. I wore my hair long with bangs over my eyes, Daddy and Grandpa swore that I would go blind. Daddy preferred me with a flat top hair cut and kept it that way as long as he could. Later the US Air Force would give him his wish. “Do you want to keep your sideburns? Here Catch.”

The swimming pool at Forsythe Park was always our family favorite. Jack Blanch was as old as the hills with white hair, permanently wrinkled skin, and sunshine wrinkled twinkling blue eyes, and skinny, always shirtless with a dark bronze tan. Jack taught me and the whole town of Monroe how to swim. Momma, Johnny Clare White Whitlow had been a life guard and hi diver at Minden High School and Northwestern State College. She was a part of the Olympic Team but she quit because she was boy crazy and home sick. I still watch some of Daddy’s 35 millimeter home movies of us at the swimming pool and mother hi diving. Sometimes when we did not notice, he would reverse the film and momma would jump out of the pool backwards and fly in the air and land on the diving board 15 feet up. She was amazing. My favorite spot in the pool was standing on daddy’s shoulders under the fountain in the center of the pool. I can still feel the cold water flowing over me on those long dog days of summer. On the 4^th of July the ice truck would come and place giant ice blocks in the center of the pool to cool things off. The fire department would also come out in front of the pool, install fire hoses and turn on the hydrant full blast. We would all shout for joy and run through the water until it knocked us down.

The entire town showed up at Forsythe Park on July 4^th. We had southern fried chicken and sandwiches picnics in the park. Some folks brought their ski or fishing boats to the river while otters partied on their house boats. The Neville High School Tigers Golden Band from Tiger Land played patriotic songs all day at the stage for the American Legion Hall. Other bands and artists such as Elvis and the Uniques from Springhill, Louisiana would also sing and pay their music there. At 9 PM the Jaycees put on beautiful fireworks shows from a barge on the Ouachita River. I always met a little touch of sadness on July 4^th, because in August we started 2 a day football practice and soon school would start. And that is the way it was at Forsythe Park in the long hot dog days of summer in the 1960s. All of these moments in time are captured in my novel Blue Bayou Days, the Summer of 61. Be well, do good work, and Stay in Touch. Email me smokeschool@yahoo.com if you enjoyed this story.