Memories of Bobby

I’ve had a variety of writing opportunities since the newspaper business left me, including stories on buying insurance and paying taxes, profiles of baseball players and company CEOs and a first-person piece about being a movie extra. By far the most difficult thing I’ve had to write was my nephew’s obituary.

Robert David Braun Jr. – we called him Bobby – was born on Oct. 16, 1970. I was a junior in high school then, and I learned about his arrival from our school guidance counselor, who also was a neighbor and had received a call from my father. At the lunch table in the school cafeteria, I handed out gum to the friends sitting with me.
I took this picture of Bobby the last time I saw him, in April. Bobby would have been 39 years old this month, but he died Sept. 5 in a motorcycle accident in New Jersey, where he lived his entire life. He was my brother and sister-in-law’s eldest child, my niece’s only brother, my mother’s eldest grandchild. I knew he was loved by many, but not until his funeral did I realize how many. The line stretched out the door of the funeral home for much of the visitation time.
On his birthday, Bobby’s mother, sister and 4-year-old niece took balloons to his grave and sang “Happy Birthday” to him. It about broke my heart to hear this. My mother, who turns 93 soon, had talked about how she had made Bobby a birthday cake every year and now she wouldn’t be doing that. At my sister-in-law’s urging, she baked a cake anyway.

Crying as she was telling me on the phone, Mom said she had trouble decorating the cake – partly because of what arthritis has done to her hands and partly because she didn’t know what the decorations should say.
“I didn’t know what to write,” Mom said, “so I just put ‘Love,’ ”
“That’s perfect, Mom” was my reply.

The 47-year rain delay

When I spied the black-and-white

notebook with COMPOSITIONS on the

cover, I immediately knew what it was. A

quick look through the pages of box scores

told the story of part of the Summer of

1962, at least as it looked from a backyard

in Linwood, N.J.

But the page that caught my eye was

the lineup for a game that was never

played: sort of a Wiffle Ball version of

Beethoven’s Unfinished Symphony

.

That summer, my brother Bob and I

waged a Wiffle Ball Home Run Derby

battle that pitted the Yankees (Bob’s

team) against the Phillies (my team). Our

Home Run Derby was patterned after the

TV version featuring major leaguers, which

meant it was all or nothing. If the ball

didn’t clear the string we had connected to

trees across the perimeter of the outfield,

it was an out.

Because my brother is 6½ years older –

at the time, I was 8 and he was 14 or

15 – it’s not surprising that the Yanks

won all nine games of the series, by an

aggregate score of 58-35.

The 10^th game was to be a matchup of

aces (OK, one ace vs. one journeyman):

the Yankees’ Whitey Ford (now in the Hall

of Fame) vs. the Phils’ Cal McLish. We

kept a box score and statistics on the

games, and in checking them I discovered

that Ford already had three wins and

racked up 40 strikeouts in the process. My

brother always threw a little harder when

Ford was pitching, but I did manage to get

back-to-back HRs in one game against

him (Frank Torre and Bob Oldis, of all

people).

For the never-played game, my level of

desperation was apparent in the lineup I

had cobbled together: Tony Taylor, Ted

Savage, Roy Sievers, Johnny Callison,

Bobby Wine, Tony Gonzalez, Jim Coker,

Ruben Amaro, McLish. Wine hitting fifth?

Coker? Amaro? I must have been going

with lefty-righty percentages. But why had

I benched Don Demeter, a righty who had

power, and used both Wine AND Amaro,

two guys who predated the Mendoza Line?

I must have been desperate to sit out

lefty swinger Wes Covington, who had my

all-time favorite batting stance to copy –

hunched over, bat parallel to the ground,

right elbow pointing straight toward the

pitcher. Bob and I were both switch-

hitters, so we emulated each player’s

stance (short of Taylor crossing

himself before he batted). When my sons

were younger and I played ball with them,

I frequently used the Covington stance.

They, of course, looked at me as if I were

nuts.

The only lefties I had in the lineup were

Callison and Gonzalez, “Little Dynamite,”

whose bat waggle also was fun to copy.

Callison had five homers in nine games to

lead the Phils in our series, but still had

only half as many as Mickey Mantle and

Clete Boyer.

I’ve been trying to remember why the

10^th game was never played, and I’ve

come up with some theories:

The loss in the ninth game was

especially heartbreaking: 7-5 in 13

innings. The Phils had fought back to tie it

in the bottom of the ninth on a two-out

homer by Roy Sievers.

They tied it again in the bottom of the 12^th

on a blast by Covington (my man!). But

Art Mahaffey, who was apparently the

Phillies pitching staff’s sacrificial lamb,

surrendered gopher balls to Hector Lopez

and Bill Skowron in the top of the 13^th,

and that was it.

I can remember running inside crying

after some defeats, but we usually ended

up back outside for another game.

Perhaps this time Mahaffey’s lackluster

performance had pushed me over the edge.

Another theory involves the string that

marked the home run line. I can recall one

night about dusk that my father was

returning from a visit with the neighbors

and he clotheslined himself on said home

run boundary. I think we put the string

back up, but maybe I saw his mishap as

my opportunity to bow out gracefully.

It could have been that Bob realized it

wasn’t cool for a teenager to be playing

Wiffle Ball with his kid brother, or else he

just tired of the lack of a challenge.

Looking back now, I realize it was

pretty remarkable for him to spend that

much time with me at all during his

teenage years.

Whatever the reason, when I found

the notebook I thought that playing the

game would be a good idea. But there

were a few obstacles, the biggest of which

is that the vacant lot where we played is

no longer vacant. That means no matter

where we played, it’d be impossible to

duplicate the conditions.

Another obstacle is distance. Bob still

lives in South Jersey, about 15 minutes

from where we grew up. But I now live

outside Atlanta. I usually make it to New

Jersey only one or two times a year.

To be honest, though,age may be the

biggest reason I haven’t continued

pursuing the idea. I’m now 55 and Bob is

61. Clearly, our best Wiffle Ball days are

behind us.

I found out several years ago that I have

arthritis in both my shoulders. My right

(non-throwing) arm is even worse than my

left. I can still throw sidearm with some

accuracy, but little velocity. But overhand

deliveries are out of the question. These

days, my pitches aren’t just fat; they’re

morbidly obese.

Besides, I hate to burst my older

brother’s bubble. I can remember how

much joy I got when I got taller than him

and was finally able to defeat him at

basketball. I thought that suffering a

Home Run Derby loss after a winning

streak that had spanned 40-plus

years would be too much for him.

The notebook didn’t have any dates

listed, but I turned to The Baseball

Encyclopedia to figure out the games were

played in 1962. That was the only year

that the two teams had some of these

players on their rosters.

In real life that year, the Yanks went

109-53 and won the World Series over the

Giants. The Phils went 81-80 and finished

in seventh place. Mahaffey did much

better than in our back yard, leading the

real-life Phillies staff with 19 victories.

I guess it was better we played our

series in 1962 than 1964. If I had been the

Phils that season, the end – just as in real

life, when the Phillies collapsed down the

backstretch and lost the National League

pennant to the St. Louis Cardinals —

would have been even more painful, I’m sure.

My 15 minutes of (semi) fame

Spending a few days as a movie extra is a fun diversion and a source of a little income during a job search. But I don’t see myself pulling up stakes and moving my family to Hollywood to launch a new career on the big or small screen.

Besides, if I did establish a foothold in Tinseltown, I’d probably be typecast as an overweight, middle-aged, bald guy and not have an opportunity for meatier roles.

I worked on a TV movie called “My Fake Fiance,” about a couple who stages a fake wedding in order to collect the gifts. Melissa Joan Hart and Joey Lawrence are the stars. I didn’t have to audition, only to e-mail my interest (and a photo) in response to a posting on Craig’s List. The movie debuts Sunday, April 19, at 8 p.m. on ABC Family Channel.

I spent three days on the set, the first in an outdoor restaurant/park scene in Buckhead, the last two in a wedding scene at Peachtree Christian Church in Atlanta. The movie was shot last fall in a number of locations around Atlanta.

My wife encouraged my acting debut and even endured my jokes about hiring an agent and joining the Screen Actors Guild. My teenage sons were, I think, mildly embarrassed by the idea. Of course, teenagers are routinely embarrassed by their parents, so this was no surprise.

When extras are confirmed to work a particular day, they are given a call time and some directives on wardrobe. Those include, depending on the scene, the types of clothes and recommended colors. Also, they include colors you should not wear (in our case, white, red or black). And the emphasis is on NO LOGOS. When I was sitting at the table in the restaurant scene, one of the assistant directors even turned my inexpensive watch so the logo wouldn’t be visible.

Extras are supposed to bring several clothing options, and when the wardrobe person checks you over, she or he tells you what works and whether you need to change. Sometimes nothing you have is OK, and you have to get some clothes from wardrobe. This happened to a lot more people in the church wedding scenes, but I passed muster.

My call time for the first day was noon, much more palatable than the next two days for the wedding scenes (6:30 a.m. and 7 a.m., respectively). We assembled in the Lenox Square parking lot and were taken by van to a nearby business park, where a fake restaurant had been set up in front of a small park.

I quickly discovered that much of an extra’s time is spent waiting – for a scene to be set up, for lighting to be moved, for just about everything. They tell you to bring a book, for good reason.

For this movie, extras were paid $100 a day, and workdays last 12 hours on average. Breaking that down to an hourly rate left me depressed, so I chose to look at it in terms of being paid for the amount of time I was actually in front of the camera. I estimated that the first day, I was in a scene for about three minutes; at $100 for three minutes, that works out to $2,000 per hour. Much better, and I’m not even a SAG member.

I was seated at a small restaurant table with three other extras (in real life, an Agnes Scott law professor, an AirTran flight attendant and an aspiring actor). In the scene, we pretended to look at menus and make recommendations to one another as the stars talked at the bar.

Along with all the restaurant patrons and workers, extras in this scene included people in the park – joggers, cyclists, children playing soccer. We were all background and were set in motion when the assistant director called “background!”

After about five or six takes, we were done, and they moved some tables, cameras and lights around for the next scene. Our table was gone, so we had to watch and wait. There were snacks such as animal crackers on hand for the extras, but we weren’t supposed to approach the table with the better food (the sign said CREW ONLY: NO EXTRAS). For all I know, the table was surrounded by one of those invisible electric fences that keep dogs in a yard; if we got too close, we might get zapped.

After a few hours, we were reseated, only to be ousted again as the camera filled the spot where our table had been. It turned out we were “wrapped” (done for the day), after I had worked only six hours.

The next morning, I got up before 5 a.m to make my 6:30 a.m. call time at Peachtree Christian Church. I had to wear wedding attire for these scenes, and after waiting in a long line for wardrobe, I was told to change into my second option for a shirt. Fortunately, the rest of the clothes I brought were OK.

There were about 200 extras for the wedding scene (many more than the previous day), so preparation took a lot of time. We all went to the makeup artist, who spent a few minutes taking the shine off my forehead and face.

The last day, along with makeup, I actually had to pay a brief visit to the hairstylist. “You need a little control,” he said as he brushed the few remaining strands I have. Tell me about it, pal. He obviously knew about my job search.

The two days at the church were mostly spent shooting the wedding scenes from several different camera angles. I was in the next-to-last row the first day, but had an aisle seat as the actors came down the aisle for the processional.

Extras were told not to bring cameras on the set, although I saw a few people sneaking pictures in between takes. I’m also told extras aren’t supposed to speak to the actors; the actors certainly didn’t speak to us.

For the second day of shooting at the church, we had to wear the same clothes (my wife washed my shirt) and take the same seats. But they ended up moving everyone in our row to the same row on the other side of the church as the scene was shot from the back. I’m eager to see the movie to find out if I’m visible in two places.

Shooting the wedding scenes went on until 8 p.m. the first day. Someone talked about how we get time-and-a-half for anything after 12 hours. I got excited until I realized that was still short of $13 an hour for that day. Fortunately I was able to nod off in the pew a few times in between takes. Nothing like getting paid for sleeping.

The end of the wedding called for all the extras to stand up and cheer. By 8 p.m. I would have stood on my head in order to be “wrapped” for the day.

At 7 a.m. the next morning, the guy in charge of extras greeted us this way: “Hey, background…I read somewhere that if you’re operating on four hours’ sleep or less that it’s equivalent to a .2 blood-alcohol level. I know we’re all a little drunk this morning, but it’s gonna be a good day.” (I actually got about seven hours’ sleep, so I didn’t qualify.)

I ended up seeing the same wedding about eight times. The second day at the church ended for me at 3 p.m., before I even had a chance to get sleepy.

In our copious down time, I learned that some extras do this kind of work extensively. There are a lot of movies, TV shows, videos and commercials shot in Atlanta, so I imagine that one could stay reasonably busy. Of course, some people see it as a chance to get discovered. I don’t count myself in that group.

The movie “Get Low,” starring Robert Duvall, has been shooting recently in locations around Georgia and using a lot of extras. My wife made her own extra debut by spending a day on that set. Other local movie opportunities for extras of late included “Zombieland” and “The Preacher’s Kid.”

I learned a little about moviemaking in my brief visit to the land of extradom. I was amazed at how many people work on the set. There’s even someone to bring in slippers for the star to wear between takes so she can take off her high heels.

I found out about a lighting trick that I guess is used in locales with high ceilings, such as the beautiful interior of Peachtree Christian Church. Lights are put inside these huge fabric cubes that are floated up by helium balloons and controlled by pulleys. They can be moved around with relative ease, although I was nervous about the church’s real lights when I was watching this process.

In the middle of my 13-hour day, I was certain this would be my one and only extra experience. But a few days later, I was calling the casting office and telling them I’m available if they needed me again.

Deja vu to the nth degree

If you’ve seen the movie “Groundhog Day,” in which Bill Murray is trapped in an endless loop of Feb. 2s, you have a little insight into the life of the employment-challenged. Talk about settling into a routine! It’s get up, eat breakfast, check and send e-mails, scrounge through job sites, send online job applications, check and send e-mails again, eat lunch, look  forward to mail truck’s arrival, lather, rinse and repeat. And repeat. And repeat.
One good thing about the sorry state of the economy: There are plenty of people to commiserate with. I had lunch today with an unemployed friend and I told him how I had asked my wife not to ask me, “How was your day?” Even though she always asks in a loving way and I know she’s interested, I feel guilty when the only answer I can give is, “Well, I emptied the dishwasher, but other than that it was uneventful.” I knew he could relate.
Part of my initial reluctance to establish this blog was the mind-set that I’d be giving away for free something that had (at least in my mind) a monetary value. I’ve finally accepted that exposure can have a benefit beyond the bank account. I tried to market this one piece a number of places without success, so I finally offered it to a Syracuse basketball blogger. It had a time element, so I couldn’t wait any longer. He posted it today, and it’s gotten a number of comments, which makes me happy. Here’s the link;

http://www.syracuse.com/axeman/index.ssf/2009/01/pearls_shot_25_years_later.html

Be prepared; don’t be like Piglet

As Christmas draws near, Hanukkah begins and Kwanzaa is not far away, we all will have opportunities to be around friends, family and even new acquaintances. For those who, like me, are “between jobs,” there probably will be questions about the employment search. Also, people we just met might ask what line of work we’re in.
My advice: Be prepared; don’t be like Piglet.

When my sons were young, they were “Winnie the Pooh” fans, and I recall one episode of the cartoon where a wind-up monkey named Bruno became friends with the denizens of the Hundred-Acre Wood. As they all got acquainted, Bruno asked Piglet, Pooh’s devoted but meek pal, “What do YOU do?”

Piglet, who had seen Bruno’s antics and was clearly uncomfortable at the question, replied, “Well, I … er …. um … uh… nothing.” Of course, Bruno howled with laughter at the answer.

You may not be questioned by a wind-up monkey, but you need to have an answer ready besides “nothing.” Try “I’m exploring multiple job opportunities” (true, but vague enough that there probably won’t be a follow-up question). Or “the possibilities are endless” (probably will prompt a laugh but will effectively end the discussion of the topic). There are a variety of answers you could give that would indicate you’re hopeful and have been working very hard to find a position that matches your skill set, or perhaps you’re trying to upgrade your skills to better fit the job market.

This is where I am, by the way.  I’ve sold some freelance pieces, am trying to sell a few more and still looking for something long term. But even if you haven’t had a nibble, try to stay upbeat.

My Christmas note: As a Christian, I believe that this is a season of hope. Our assistant pastor, Steve, carried his baby daughter with him to the altar yesterday as he did the Communion prayer. It was a vivid reminder of the hope that a baby brought to the world.

Glamor reserved for other media

In the post-Watergate era, many budding journalists envisioned  themselves as the next Woodward or Bernstein and looked for a scandal  around every corner. But the newspaper business, especially in a small town, is far less glamorous than that. Sometimes it can be downright hard.

In the small North Carolina town where I first worked, I was shooting the breeze with the police chief in his office one day when a call came in on the police scanner about a child being hit by a car. I drove out to the location and was greeted by a horrific scene: A 12-year-old girl lying dead by the side of the road next to her crumpled bicycle, as her grieving mother knelt over her body and wailed. Just thinking about it now puts me on the verge of tears.

I was only 22 or 23 at the time, and this was my first journalistic experience of this nature. My first reaction was to feel as if I had to throw up, but then I remembered I was a newsman and I had my camera. I was in position to get a picture that would capture the raw emotion of the scene and would certainly run on the front page.

Before I could push the shutter, though, a wave of disgust came over me. I felt like an intruder, invading the privacy of this mother and daughter no less than if I had stood outside their home and peered in the window. I took no pictures. I just stood there and watched as authorities covered the girl’s body and drove the mother away in a squad car, as she leaned her head out the window and continued wailing.

When I got back to the office, another reporter asked what had happened. When I told her about the picture I couldn’t take, she was incredulous, and said it would have been a prize-winner. I sincerely doubted she could have taken the picture, either, but that wasn’t the point. I figure that although I may have lost a little of my journalistic credibility, I preserved all of my humanity.

The visibility of a small-town journalist

Shortly after I moved from New Jersey to a small town in northeastern North Carolina in 1976, a native told me, “No matter how long you live here, you’ll always be a Yankee.” Grateful for that warm welcome, I resisted the urge to say, “Well, at least we’re 1-0 in Civil Wars.” With the exception of a six-month stint in Pennsylvania in 1978, I’ve been in the South ever since.

The community newspaper, which came out three times a week then and still does, was the first small-town paper in my career. I later worked for two other North Carolina papers, both weeklies. One advantage of small-town papers: Everyone knows who you are. It’s hard to blend in when you’re the one with a camera, pen and notepad.
But having a high profile can come in handy when news breaks. I got along well with the police chief in one town, and after he turned in his resignation to the mayor one day, I was one of the first people he told.

I then went to the mayor and asked him about it. “How’d you find out?” he asked. Of course, I didn’t answer.

“I’m gonna MAKE you tell me,” he continued. Of course, he couldn’t. Actually, the mayor’s wife previously ran the newspaper, so he was only halfheartedly trying to strongarm me.

The visibility of the small-town journalist can also be a detriment. I remember having someone come to the newsroom and lead me out to their truck, where they wanted me to take a picture of a deer they had killed. Or when I was sitting at home watching TV on a Sunday afternoon and someone knocked on my door and asked me to take a picture of them with a big fish they had just caught or the big watermelon they grew.

In some ways the small-town journalist’s life is similar to everyone else’s; people are friendly until you do something they don’t like (like write something unflattering).

One night I was standing outside City Hall after a City Council meeting when I saw the town’s ambulance go out. I recognized the driver and then saw her toddler son, who was probably about 3, in the front with her. When the next issue of our weekly paper came out, I wrote a column that included a few paragraphs about how rescue squad members shouldn’t put their children in potentially dangerous situations.

For a long time after that, I was thankful I didn’t have a wreck that would require ambulance transport. I could envision having the plug pulled on me, no matter my condition.

Journalism roots run deep

I really had no choice but to go into newspapers. I grew up in Linwood, N.J., next door to the editor of the local weekly paper. The neighbor on the other side owned and operated a service station, so clearly I picked the less lucrative career. Good thing I didn’t grow up next to an ax murderer, I guess.

Perhaps it was through some form of osmosis, but by the time I was in elementary school, I knew I wanted to make newspapers my career. At age 10, I started a neighborhood paper with one of my friends. Gary and I one-finger-typed it on portable typewriters (you know, those things that are all in museums now), using a carbon, and went door-to-door in the neighborhood, selling them for a nickel. I actually did this for a few summers; we were responsible for our own amusement a lot more in the pre-Playstation days.

Our paper contained “news” you wouldn’t find in any other publication (with good reason, I suppose). When my mother had a tooth pulled, it was front-page news in the Crestlea Park Press. When Gary’s dog, Taffy, had an operation, we reported it without the indelicate details. We lifted riddles from a book (c’mon, who would sue a child for copyright infringement?) and included several. Here’s one I remember:

Q. Who is bigger, Mr. Bigger or Mr. Bigger’s baby?

A. The baby is a little Bigger.

People actually paid for this stuff! And a nickel was big money in the mid-’60s.

We included Little League standings, and my team was in capital letters, the same way big-city papers handled standings for their hometown baseball teams.

One time in July 1965, we actually had breaking news in the paper. Gary and I were busily churning out an issue when we heard that Adlai Stevenson had died. Along with the neighborhood news in The Crestlea Park Press was this: “Flash! Adlai Stevenson just died. They will perform an autopsy.”

Context wasn’t important to us at that age; besides, we probably didn’t even know who he was. We heard on TV that he had died, so we figured he must have been important.

I can’t remember if the breaking news helped our sales that week. Our customers were loyal, but they DID have other sources for news.

The blessings are there, if you look for them

Over time, regular readers of this blog will discover that my faith is important to me. Part of the reason I didn’t have much trouble deciding to accept a newspaper buyout was my trust that God has something planned for me. Jeremiah 29:11 says:

“For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for well-being and not for calamity to give you a future and a hope.”

At Thanksgiving, I urge you to find the blessing in any situation. I’m into the 11th week of my post-newspaper life, and there are many blessings surrounding this life change. The first involved timing. I learned about the impending changes at the newspaper through a voice mail on the last day of our California vacation this summer. If I’d heard that news sooner, it might not have ruined our family vacation, but certainly would have lessened our enjoyment. Other blessings: In concrete terms, I’ve saved a lot of money on gas by eliminating my commute (this saving was really noticeable when gas topped $4 a gallon). I’ve been able to spend more time with my wife and two teenage sons. I’ve also been able to reconnect with old friends and made a few trips while attempting to help a friend’s business venture. On the last trip, I was able to visit family in New Jersey as well. I’ve been able to exercise more, which would help me shed some excess pounds if only the refrigerator weren’t so accessible.

There’s a hymn that goes

Count your blessings
Name them one by one
Count your many blessings
See what God has done

Try that and it will open your eyes. Happy Thanksgiving!

On the outside, looking … somewhere