Lost and Found – a Novel by Ron Rink

Here’s the continuation of the previous Chapter of Lost and Found.

This will be it for the rest of the year for new Chapters of this book. I’ll get back with new posts after the holidays. While there will be some computer time in my life over the holidays, it will be used primarily to keep emails cleaned up. If you’ve fallen behind, this would be a good time to catch up.

I hope each of you and your families have a fabulous holiday season. Here’s a Christmas Card I’d like to share with you from Ashland University. I received this from one of my friends, and now it’s time to pay it forward.

Ashland Holiday Card

Be well — Be in Peace,

Ron Rink
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I went down the stairs and saw how much their basement looked like a regular room in a house. It certainly wasn’t anything like my dark, gloomy basement with its plain old cement floor and walls.

The Gross’ basement was brightly lit, the floor was covered in nice linoleum with some rugs scattered about, and the walls had knotty pine wood on them. There were two easy chairs, a davenport, and an area over to one side that had a counter with tall stools in front of it. The ping-pong table was near the counter. I walked over to the counter and could see it had a sink on the other side of it, along with some shelves on the wall behind it which held some bottles. I had seen some of the people who worked at the track with bottles like these when they were hiding out and getting drunk.

The ping-pong paddles were on the table and there was a ping-pong ball under one of them. Joanne followed me over and picked up the other paddle and said, “Go ahead, serve!”

I hit the ball, she hit it back and I missed it completely. I laughed as I picked up the ball and tried again. I played poorly at first but began to get the hang of it after a few minutes. Joanne was much better at this than she had let on. She never missed a ball as we laughed and played. We didn’t keep score—we just kept volleying and laughing at my mistakes while I kept joking around and complaining about how I was the only one who had to go chasing after the ball.

After about a half hour, we decided to play jacks. She got out a box which had a ball and the jacks in it. We sat down across from each other on the floor. Since I had lied to her about having played this game before, I told her to go first so I could see how to play.

She said, “Onesies first”, then took all the jacks in one hand and scattered them in front of her. She then took the little rubber ball, tossed it up with her right hand, picked up a jack with the same hand and after the ball had bounced once, caught it again with her right hand. She transferred the jack to her left hand and continued until she had all the jacks in her left hand.

Next, Joanne scattered the jacks again and called out “Twosies”. She proceeded to do the same thing she had already done, except this time she picked up two jacks at a time.

As I was watching her do this, I noticed since she was sitting cross-legged, I could see all the way up between her legs because the skirt she was wearing had ridden up quite high on her thighs. I was suddenly finding it very hard to watch how she played jacks—I couldn’t seem to take my eyes off this view of underpants I had never seen this close up before. I guess there were a couple of times where I had seen girl’s underpants at school, but that was only for a split-second. Here, I was getting a good, long look and it was making me feel strange—sort of like I had to pee.

“I think I have to pee,” I said, “Where’s your bathroom?”

“It’s right over there on the other side of the basement,” she answered.

After I finished, I came back into the room where Joanne was still playing with the jacks. I had every intention of telling her I had to go when she said, “I got all the way up to foursies when I missed, so it’s your turn.”

She was handing me the jacks and the ball as I sat down again when she giggled and said, “I saw my brother’s pee-thing once when he didn’t know it. Can I see yours?”

I let out a huge gasp! There I was, sitting on the floor with a girl who is older than me, looking at her underpants, and she wants to see my thing! I was in a total state of shock. I was speechless. I opened my mouth to say something but nothing came out. All I could seem to manage was to sit there staring up her skirt with my mouth hanging open.

I wanted to stop looking where I was looking. I wanted to play jacks. I wanted to play some more ping-pong. I wanted to get on my bike and ride out of there. I wanted to stop feeling the way I was feeling.

However, despite all this exciting shock, I knew that somewhere in the recesses of my nine-year old brain I wanted to see hers too.

“Can I see it?” she asked again.

She looked at me and saw where I was looking.

“C’mon, let me see yours. If you do I’ll let you see mine,” she coaxed.

I felt like I had to pee again, my stomach was doing flip-flops, and I could feel my face getting hot. I quickly mumbled, “If you show me yours first, I’ll show you mine.”

I figured such a challenge would probably stop her and I could get out of there and back on my bike. Even though I liked hanging around the racetrack, the thought of being there rather than where I was at this moment was more than extremely enticing.

Then she threw me a curve—she stood up and showed me hers!

At first, all I could do was sit there cross-legged on the floor with my mouth hanging open. My mind was racing along at a hundred miles an hour as I gaped wide-eyed at her. I had no idea what a girl looked like there. I was amazed, excited and very nervous. I didn’t want to show her mine, but I also didn’t want to stop looking at hers, so I stood up and showed her mine.

Just as I was getting ready to pull up my pants and get out of there, she said, “Can I touch it?”

Now I really wanted to run. I wanted to be so far away from there, while at the same time I didn’t want to leave. I really didn’t want her to touch it, but I did. I also wanted to touch hers but was much too afraid to ask.

Then I saw her hand reaching toward me. I watched and at the same time saw my hand reaching toward her. We touched—we giggled—we both turned beet red—our eyes lowered in embarrassment as we quickly pulled our pants back up and covered ourselves.

“I should probably go now,” I said looking at the floor, “but maybe we can play jacks again sometime, okay?”

Joanne kept her eyes down and wouldn’t look at me but I could see that she was smiling as she responded, “Yeah, okay. Maybe tomorrow?”

“Sure, tomorrow’s fine. When do your parent’s and brother leave for the store?”

“About eight o’clock.”

“Okay, I’ll come over and call you,” I said as I climbed the stairs, went out the door, got on my bike and rode unsteadily up the street. I felt more grown up as I rode away. I wished I had someone I could tell about this experience, but all the guys I knew were older and would probably just laugh.

I knew I wanted to go back the next day, but even as I thought about it, I wondered if I would.
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Lost and Found continues with this new chapter. I’m going to put this one and the next one on the blog this week — the next chapter will probably show up on Wednesday. The two chapters need to be read rather close together.

Then, there will probably be about a week or so hiatus from the writing and posting — until after the first of the year. My life will be quite busy with holiday stuff, so my computer time will be cut way back. I’m also guessing yours will be as well.

Until Wednesday …

Be well — be in peace,

Ron Rink
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During the spring I found out some things about girls I didn’t know before. Up until now they were just these other kids that played hopscotch and jump rope around the neighborhood or who stood in little gossipy clusters in the halls at school. They were these creatures boys my age didn’t pay attention to, other than to think of them as some sort of a bother.

Joanne Gross lived a few houses further north from Charlie Saunders on the same side of the street as both Charlie and me. The Gross’ lived in one of the older brick houses that had been there for many years. Joanne had a brother, Jack, who was two or three years older than her, and she was at least a year older than I was, if not more. Joanne was a pretty girl, with long brown hair that she often wore in braids, fascinating greenish-blue eyes and a sweet smile. She was about the same height as I was.

Whenever I rode my bike or walked past her house when she was outside, she would always smile and say “Hi”. Her mother and father owned a small five-and-dime store over on Seven Mile Road and were always gone during the day. Her brother Jack would have to go work in the store after school or during school vacations and Joanne would stay around her house.

One morning during a spring vacation from school I was riding my bike on my way to the horse track to see if I could get some work when Joanne called to me from her front porch as I rode by.

“Hi Rollie, where’re you going?” she called.

I stopped and stood straddling my bike. Rollie? No one had ever called me Rollie before!

“I’m just heading over to Hazel Park for awhile. Why?” I answered.

“I just wondered if you wanted to play jacks with me,” she said as she walked down her porch steps toward me.

“You want to play jacks with me?” I asked.

I don’t think Joanne had ever said more than “Hi” to me before this. I was surprised she would want to play with me, and the idea of playing games with a girl wasn’t something I found appealing.

She had the sun in her eyes and was holding her hand up to shield them as she smiled. “My brother and my parents are at the store for the whole day and I was just looking for someone to play with. Do you like to play jacks?”

“Yeah, but I’m not very good at it, I’ve only played a couple of times,” I lied. I knew what the game was but had never played.

This was quite a strange thing for me because I had never talked with a girl before. I found I was feeling shy and awkward around her. Plus, I would never be able to live it down if any of the guys I played hockey with ever found out I was playing games with girls. Maybe that’s why I felt it was necessary to lie to her.

“I – I should probably get going,” I said, and followed up with, “Do your parents care if you have kids over when they’re not home?”

“Nah. I usually have some of my girlfriends over but none of them are home today. They’re either visiting some people in their family or they’ve gone away somewhere with their parents. If you don’t want to play jacks, we have a ping-pong table too,” she said as she leaned on the handlebars of my bike. “Do you like ping-pong?”

“Yeah, but I haven’t played that much either.”

“I haven’t either but I’ll bet you can beat me! Come on, Rollie, park your bike and come in and play, just for a little while, okay?”

I reluctantly walked my bike up her side drive and leaned it against the side of her house as she led me around to her side door. She opened the door, pointed down the stairs to the basement and flicked on a light.
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It’s hard to believe we’re up to Chapter Twenty of Lost and Found, but here we are. Hopefully, this chapter should be more on the “light-side” than some of those already posted.

Thanks for reading — and please pass it on.

Be well– be in peace,

Ron Rink
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Hockey was the primary activity on the rink most late afternoons after my piano practice time. We did play some evenings even though it was hard to see the puck when the only light came from a couple of street lamps. We would also play on Saturdays—sometimes for hours and hours. There were times we played so long that my ankles would give out and I couldn’t stand up in my skates any longer. It was especially difficult to go to work at the bowling alley after those exhausting skating days.

One of the kids who lived right across from the rink on Cardoni, Richard Carboni, would always be coming over and asking to play hockey with us. He was around the same age as some of the older kids, but he was one of the worst skaters you could imagine. Richard had trouble staying upright even with a hockey stick to hold him up. I don’t even know why he wanted to continue skating since he was on his butt more of the time than he was on his skates. His skating ability probably went right along with his normal clumsiness. Richard was a large kid. He was definitely overweight and would probably do better as a football linesman than a hockey player.

Whenever Richard would come to the rink and ask to play, he always suffered major ridicule from all of us. Things like, “Hey, Richard, how about laying down in front of the net for our side—nobody’d ever sneak one past you!” Or, “Hey, Richard, why don’t you strap your skates on your butt? That way you could keep skating more!”

We did try using Richard as goalie a few times, but whenever someone would take a shot at his goal, he’d get all excited and his skates would go out from under him and he’d end up on his back. He did stop a few shots that way, but not enough to make us want to let him play very often.

One day one of the older kids got mean with him. Richard wanted to play goalie and the older kid pushed him down on the ice. Richard went home crying, telling us he was going to tell his mother. Some of us knew Mrs. Carboni and her wicked Italian temper, so we all took off rather than stay around and face her wrath.

I took off with Charlie Saunders, the kid who lived next door to me. It wasn’t exactly next door. There was a large vacant lot between our houses where both families had their victory gardens. Charlie’s parents weren’t home, so we were just hanging around in his back yard smoking a cigarette behind his garage while we giggled and joked about “chubby old Richard running home to mommy”.

The Carboni house was right across from Charlie’s backyard. We watched as Mrs. Carboni, dressed in a short, heavy coat, heavy winter gloves, what looked like mens’ galoshes, and a babushka on her head, came clumping down her front stairs carrying a large, heavy metal bucket. She was a short, stout woman who walked with a forceful stride wherever she went, and this was no exception.

She clumped across the street carrying the bucket in front of her with an obvious sense of purpose. She headed straight for the ice rink. We continued to watch as she stepped carefully onto the ice to keep from slipping. She grabbed the bucket by its handle in one hand and began to spread something over the ice with her other hand that looked like dark sand. It was as if she was scattering feed for some chickens.

Charlie gasped and threw his hands up to his face, “Holy shit, Van! She’s spreading coal ashes all over the ice!”

“What the hell’s she doing that for? We gotta stop her!” I said in a very loud whisper.

“Hang on, I’m gonna go get my gun” Charlie said as he ran off toward his house.

Mrs. Carboni kept moving back and forth spreading the ashes on the ice.

Charlie came back a few seconds later carrying his Red Ryder BB gun at the ready. He was loaded and ready to fire. Charlie was one of the best BB gun shooters in the neighborhood. His dad had even set up a target for him in the alley during the summer. They would move the target around at different distances so Charlie even knew how to gauge his aim for distance. It was rare that he didn’t hit his target.

Charlie put the rifle up to his shoulder and took careful aim.

Click. Then the sound of the BB pellet on its way—thoop—a short time delay and we watched as Mrs. Carboni suddenly stood up a lot straighter than she was while she was scattering ashes. She sort of looked around trying to figure out what it was that she felt. Maybe the BB hit her coat, or she might have had some extra skirts on or something, because she just shrugged and went right back to scattering ashes.

Charlie took aim again—Click—thoop—another shot on its way.

This time he must have aimed below the area of extra padding because Mrs. Carboni let out a loud, piercing yelp, dropped the bucket of ashes, grabbed her behind, spun around and saw Charlie standing behind his garage lining up another shot.

Her face was beet red and her finger was wagging frantically in the air as she let loose a stream of invectives in Italian. Neither of us understood Italian, but we did hear something that sounded like Polizziotto! That sounded enough like police to send us scurrying for cover as fast as our legs could carry us. Charlie stashed the BB gun in his garage and headed north toward Eight Mile road and I went lickety-split to the south toward State Fair.

The next day I heard that some of the other parents had tried to get the ashes off the pond, but to no avail. The ashes Mrs. Carboni spread must have been hot so they melted the ice and ended up frozen right in. Thanks to Charlie, she didn’t get too far along with her little project. Only one small corner of the pond had to be blocked off so the skaters wouldn’t fall.

The pond was still usable, however, Charlie didn’t fare quite as well. Mrs. Carboni did call the police and sent them over to Charlie’s after his parents came home. He wasn’t going to be able to leave his house except for school for a week, his BB gun was taken away and he couldn’t play hockey or skate any more that winter.

The incident must have backfired for Richard as well, because we never saw him at the rink any more while we were playing hockey.
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Here’s Chapter Nineteen of Lost and Found. This is one incident which describes a huge mistake. As many of you know, I now have a serious lung problem for which there is no cure. While I’m sure environmental factors may play some role, beginning to smoke and such a young age, and continuing to do so for almost 40 years, was certainly a major contributor to this disease. My fervent advice to any of you who may be smokers — JUST QUIT!

I better get this posted before the winds arrive this morning. We’re due for some nasty weather today.

Be well — be in peace,

Ron Rink
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During that winter I had my first cigarette. One of the older kids gave me one while we were resting from a hockey game. I had smoked before, but not a regular cigarette.

Last fall, I went with some of the kids in my neighborhood to the candy store down the street from the elementary school and bought some cheap, corncob pipes. Once we had the pipes, we would go out to some of the victory gardens and take the dry corn silk off the tops of the corn stalks, stuff it into our pipes, go hide somewhere and smoke our pipes. None of us inhaled the corn silk, but it made us feel big to be smoking something. The taste of the corn silk was good. (I have heard about corn silk eventually being used by herbalists and naturopathic doctors for alleviating problems with the kidney, bladder and urinary tract. I don’t know what they would think about smoking it, though, since they make a tea out of it)

Jackie Clay, one of the older kids playing hockey gave me a cigarette. “Here ya go, Van, it’s about time you started smoking. Just suck the smoke into your mouth and then breath in,” Jackie said.

I thought I was going to pass out. I got dizzy and felt everything going black.

“Go on, Van, take another drag, it won’t hurt you,” he said.

I coughed and coughed and tried to throw up. Jackie and the other guys laughed so hard I thought they might wet their pants.

“Hey, Rollo, that’s a nice shade of green you got there,” one of them said.

Another one of the guys yelled, “Hey, Van Buren, you gonna smoke the cigarette or just play with it.”

The next night I went out to skate again, and Jackie gave me another cigarette. I didn’t really want to take it, but I was feeling like I had to learn how to do this if I wanted to be part of the group.

It wasn’t as bad that time. I still coughed a lot but I didn’t feel as sick from it. Each time I tried it got easier and easier, until finally I was smoking every time I went skating because I could bum cigarettes off the other guys.

The stores in the neighborhood wouldn’t sell cigarettes to kids my age, so I soon began to steal them from my father. At first, I would just steal a couple of them from his open packs when he wasn’t looking. That wasn’t the easiest thing to do because he usually carried them in his shirt pocket. Once in a while, though, he’d leave a pack open on the table in the living room and I’d cop a couple.

I eventually learned that he kept his cartons of cigarettes on a shelf in the front clothes closet. I managed to steal them a pack at a time without his ever realizing they were missing.
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Here’s the next installment of Lost and Found. This is the first time to put some of Billy’s teaching into practice.

Thanks for reading — and as always — pass it on.

Be well — be in peace,

Ron Rink
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It didn’t take long before some of the bigger kids around the neighborhood started to use the pond for hockey. One Saturday I went over to skate and one of the kids, who was maybe twelve or thirteen, tried to kick me off the pond. I recognized him as a kid who lived a couple of blocks from me. He was a little bit taller, and quite a bit heavier than me.

I was carrying my skates in my hand when he skated up to me and said, “Hey, you gotta go home, kid. We’re playing hockey on this pond and no little kids are allowed. So, go on home before you get hurt or something.”

I just looked at him as I sat on the bank and started to loosen the laces of my skates so I could slip them on my feet easier. I thought back to the constant advice Billy always gave me when he was teaching me how to street-fight, “Don’t let yourself get scared, because if you’re scared you can’t think straight, and you need to be thinking all the time.”

So, I thought …

He’s wearing ice skates and is standing on ice, and I’m still in my boots. He’s carrying a hockey stick, which I could use to my advantage if I could surprise him and grab it. I’m more sure-footed than he is right now so even though he’s bigger than me it should be easy to get him down. When he falls, I’ll grab the hockey stick and whap him a good one with it.

I slowly got up onto my feet and had one of my skates still in my hand. “What if I want to play hockey with you guys?” I asked.

“You’re just a kid. You’ll end up getting hurt and go crying home to mommy. We don’t play hockey with no cry-babies.”

“I don’t think I’m a cry-baby, and my hockey stick is in my garage right over there,” I said, pointing over to my garage behind me.

When he looked over towards the garage, I swung my skate and hit him hard across the chest with it. While he was off balance, I lunged at him and easily pushed him down on the ice. His feet went out from under him because he was wearing skates and he was half-sitting half-laying down when he hit the ice. I grabbed his hockey stick as he fell. I swung the hockey stick and hit him on the side of his head with it. Then I turned the hockey stick over so the handle was pointing down at his head and I yelled, “If you even try to move, I’ll jam this stick right down your fucking throat!”

Some of his buddies began to skate over to where we were but I just stood my ground and yelled, “Tell your buddies to back off or I’ll bust your face with this stick!”

He screamed at them to back away, which they did.

I don’t think he realized it but I was just as scared as he was. There were about six other guys who he was playing hockey with and they were all bigger than me. I kept remembering more of Billy’s words and not letting anyone see how scared I was.

I called out to the others, “Hey, are you guys gonna let me play hockey with you? I know how to play.”

They all looked around at each other before a couple of them nodded their heads. I could tell they were either sort of scared of what I could do to their friend or just didn’t know what to say.

It felt good to have won my first real fight. I also had an awareness of just how lucky I was not to be getting my butt kicked.

I pointed the hockey stick down at the guy lying on the ice. “I want to play on his side, okay?”

They all nodded again.

I really liked this feeling of being in control and sensing the fear in others.

“Go on back to your game,” I said. “I’ll jump in after I get my stick and lace up my skates.”

A couple of the guys said, “Okay,” and the others just nodded and began to skate away while they looked back over their shoulders.

I looked down at the guy lying on the ice and asked, “Are you ready to go back and play?”

“Yeah, let me up, okay?”

I could see he was really scared and wouldn’t be trying to do anything to me.

I backed away as he got up. I handed him his stick and watched him as he skated back to his friends.

After that incident, I was always welcome to play hockey with the older kids even though I was only nine years old. It didn’t take too much longer before I was playing with as much skill as the rest of the guys.
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