I Never Thought I Would Live to be 80

Note from the Author: These stories are excerpted from my forthcoming memoir, “Boxie and Dave – Urban Adventures”

I was sure we were going to drown. A friend and classmate of mine at Our Lady of Victory, a Catholic elementary school we attended, had found a raft, partly covered with branches, about a mile north of the 53^rd Street landing that led up to Lyndale Avenue. The raft looked abandoned, so we found a couple of sturdy poles and pushed it into the ice-choked, rushing Mississippi River. It was late March, and the wind came whistling down the river from the north. Chunks of ice the size of manhole covers crashed crazily off one another, making so much noise that conversation was nearly impossible.

We were navigating skillfully through the massive chunks of ice until we felt the raft tip, heard a loud “thunk,” and realized that we were stuck on a huge underwater boulder. As the ice chunks smashed into the raft, our craft began to tip at a crazy angle, making it hard to stay aboard. As hard as we pushed with the poles, we could not pry the raft free. We could feel the ropes holding the raft together begin to loosen. My friend started repeating “Hail Mary’s” one after another.

One thing was certain: if the raft tipped and threw us into ice filled, roiling water, we would drown for sure.  

Suddenly, the raft tilted once more and broke free. We were able to steer the raft to the 53^rd Street landing and climb ashore.  We were laughing and crying at the same time.

Such was life in the Camden neighborhood. Living next to the Mississippi was a combination “Huck Finn” and inner-city experience. We learned to swim in the river, went fishing in the river, and camped out along its banks. But there was danger as well. It seemed that nearly every year, some youngster would get caught in one of the fast, deep channels and drown.

I sometimes believe that the ghosts of my ancestors are like guardian angels watching over me, keeping me safe from danger and illuminating the path that I should follow. My grandfather, John, worked in the sawmills along the Mississippi. Was his spirit guiding us safely to shore during our icy adventure? Protecting me from serious injury on my motorcycle? My ancestors crossed the ocean, suffered pain and uncertainty, and enjoyed great adventures in a new land, making it possible for me to be born and experience eighty years on this earth.

My brother Pat may not have been a championship wrestler, but he was an excellent swimmer. On the east side of the Mississippi, there was a narrow, deep, and dangerously fast channel between the Big Island and the shore. Pat had figured out that if you started at the north end of the Island, hanging from some overhead branches, you could swim across the channel and just make it to the eastern shore if you swam with all your might. But I was too small to risk this, about ten years old, so Pat said, “Climb on my back and hold on for dear life.” That’s what I did, and as he let go of the last branch, we were swept into the channel. I could feel his muscles in his back and shoulders straining with all his might, and I had my arms locked around his neck. Suddenly, he was finding his footing, standing up, and we were safe on the other shore. If I had let go, the current would have carried me downriver, who knows, maybe down to the dam and certain death.

I attended Our Lady of Victory Catholic School. When I reached the appropriate age, I was allowed to graduate from the choir to the altar boys. Because we were up on the altar with the priest, we were instantly accorded a higher status among the boys in our grade. We were on the move, ringing bells, getting water and wine, and doing other things altar boys do. Mass went quickly instead of agonizingly slow, which was the case when we were sitting in a pew with our parents. I can still remember the Latin portions of the mass.” Introibo ad altare dei.” After a while, I found out that my friend, a fellow altar boy, was sneaking sips of altar wine. I tried it once but didn’t care much for it. My friend later told me that this was the beginning of his long slide into alcoholism.

After graduating from Our Lady of Victory I decided to enroll at the boy’s Catholic high school, De La Salle, which was located on an island in the Mississippi just beyond Skid Row and adjacent to a number of brothels on Hennepin Avenue. I had to pay my own tuition, which meant mowing lawns, shoveling snow and delivering papers. As soon as I turned 12, I secured a paper  route. I was smaller than most ninth graders because my mother had me tested so I could start school a year early. Because I was small for my age and my grade, I was often tested by bullies. Among boys my age, fighting was usually either boxing or wrestling. And I learned how to defend myself, but my brother Pat was not averse to using weapons he had acquired.

Soon I heard that the paper route was available in the Courts, the housing project where I used to live. My first day delivering, I approached the first building, and an older boy, about 16, jumped out. I recognized him as a neighborhood bully, and sure enough, he said he would let me deliver the route if I paid him a quarter a day; otherwise, he would beat me up. I told him I wasn’t carrying any cash, but I would meet him at the same spot the next day. I told my older brother Pat, who owned a drawer full of weapons, including brass knuckles, blackjacks, switchblades and other useful paraphernalia, and he handed me a stiletto with a nine-inch blade and gold handle. “Just pull this out of your bag when he asks for the money,” he told me, and I did as I was told. The bully’s eyes got big, and he backed off as soon as he saw the blade. He turned around, walked away, and never bothered me again.

In order to pay for my tuition, I earned money and saved – mowing lawns, shoveling snow, paper routes, and caddying. My brother Pat had started caddying at Oak Ridge, the Jewish country club in Hopkins. I started the summer after I graduated from OLV, but I remember hitchhiking when it was still dark, walking up to Highway 100 and then around to Highway 7, which passed a few hundred yards from the entrance to Oak Ridge.

During my first week, the caddy master assigned me to Ben Berger, an elderly member who could only hit drives about 150 yards. This was great for me because my eyes were weak, and I had trouble following the ball. Ben, I later learned, had bought the Detroit Gems NBA franchise and moved the team to Minneapolis, renaming the team the “Minneapolis Lakers.” He had no players, so he had the first pick in the expansion draft and picked George Mikan. Mikan became the most dominant player in the league and led the team to six NBA championships.

Ben hired a young man, Sid Hartman, as general manager (I would later encounter Sid when I worked as his part-time assistant as a copyboy for the Tribune), but the team was losing money, so Ben sold the team to Bob Short, who in turn sold it to Jack Kent Cooke. Thus, the Minneapolis Lakers became the Los Angeles Lakers.

I had been wrestling on the B or “hamburger” squad for most of my sophomore year. Jack Llarinas my brother’s friend, had been giving me lessons, and Pat had urged me to try out for the team. My weight bounced between 130 and 135 pounds, and we had veteran varsity wrestlers at those weights. Then our 154-varsity wrestler hurt his back. Our coach announced a “wrestle-off” for that position, and he suggested, because I had been working out with the bigger teammates, that I take a shot at it. As luck would have it, I won my matches and was announced as the varsity 154 wrestler. Little did I know that I would be wrestling the South St. Paul captain, a monster of a fellow who had obviously come down from 160+ for this match.

When we met in the middle of the mat, he grabbed my arms, and it felt like he was tearing them from the sockets. He tossed me around like a stuffed toy, but I managed to stay on my feet. After the first period, I was in the “down” position, and I remembered a move Dan McClain had shown me – a forward summersault escape. I tried it, and it worked! Throughout the second period, we exchanged takedowns, and in the third period, we were tied, and he was in the down position. He was too strong. I could not hold him down, and he escaped and executed a takedown. Now, I was behind on points, and I was in the down position with about thirty seconds left. I thought, “Try the McClain” escape once more, and this time, instead of letting me go, he tried to hold on. We both tumbled forward and somehow, he ended up on his back with me on top of him and my right arm under his neck.

I heard the referee yell, “Ten seconds!” and I heard my coach scream, “Squeeze!” Then, right next to my ear, I heard the referee slap the mat. I had pinned him!

My teammates rushed to pick me up and carry me off the mat; I didn’t have the strength to extricate myself. One teammate explained that the five points from my match ensured that De had won the overall match.

I finished the year with a 21-3 record and third place in state, but I never had a victory like that one.

When the freeway construction acquired our house, my dad bought it back and moved to a vacant  lot in Humboldt Heights. Everyone there knew Norval Palmer Barksdale III as “Boxie.” Boxie, who was African American, and lived about two blocks from my house. We soon discovered while we were members of our respective high school wrestling teams that we had similar tastes. We liked jazz and R&B music, and liked to drink occasionally. As summer was approaching, Boxie began inviting me to social events in the Humboldt Heights neighborhood, a predominantly African American neighborhood. I became a regular visitor at his house, so welcome that I could walk in the back door without knocking.

Boxie and I managed to obtain fake IDs. (My brother’s friend gave me his Geneva Convention card from his stint in the Army.) We began spending Saturday nights at the Blue Note, a fabled jazz club near Plymouth Avenue in the heart of the Black community. The Bobby Lyle Trio was featured there, and Bobby went on to international fame, playing keyboards for several major recording artists.

When the holidays rolled around, Boxie invited me, my brother Pat, and Pat’s friend Bruce to a New Year’s Eve dinner at his house. When we arrived, I noticed a strange odor coming from the kitchen. I knew from past dinners at the Barksdales that Boxie’s mother, Wanda, was a good cook. So what could that smell be, like cooking old tennis shoes?

Chitlins! I had never eaten chitlins before, so this was going to be a new experience. The menu was fairly typical for a holiday dinner in a Black home – in addition to the chitlins, we were having baked ham, sweet potatoes, black-eyed peas, collard greens, cornbread, cole slaw, and sweet potato pie. I found that, with a dash of hot sauce, chitlins were quite tasty.

The scariest adventure Boxie and I had occurred at a blues bar in the Seven Corners area called South of the Border. Boxie and I were having a drink at the bar, minding our own business and enjoying the music, when a white fellow, immediately to my right and dressed as if he were a lumberjack, nudged me and said, “I bet I can bite a dime in half.” I said, “I’ll take that bet for a dollar,” and we put our money on the bar. He had discernable body odor, cigarette breath, and stubble on his cheeks.

He took a dime out of his pocket and putting it in his teeth, bent it into a “U” shape. I said our bet was that he could bite it in two, meaning two pieces, and he lost. At this point, insisting that he won, he pulled an old revolver from his belt and pointed it at my head. In a flash, Boxie had stepped around me and between the lumberjack and me. He said in a calm, low voice, “You better put that gun down, stupid. Look around you. Do you see any white faces? Pull that trigger, and you’ll never walk out of here alive.” The lumberjack slowly lowered his weapon, slipped it into his belt, turned and walked out of the bar.