The Summer of Boxing

I don’t remember how Dennis cut his hand, but to make the story interesting I’ll say he cut it on a broken pop bottle at the bottom of the creek bed. We were always messing around in the creek and that’s as good as explanation as any, but in any event it was a nasty cut. Now-a-days, he would have been taken to the nearest clinic or hospital to have the wound stitch closed, but my mother grew up believing the doctors and hospitals were only for the nearly dead. Even so, dripping blood all over the house usually got her attention. Mom was pretty good at patching us up and for deep, gaping wounds, she constructed a “butterfly bandage.” She used medical tape to fashion a two-part bandage. It looked sort of like a key and a keyhole. By threading one part of the bandage into the other, after affixing each piece to opposite sides of the wound, she could draw the cut closed. And with any luck, it would hold together long enough to heal. It was after Dennis received just such a mending that the famous “Witmer – Long” fight occurred.

I don’t know where the boxing gloves came from, but if any of the parents, in the neighborhood, had given five seconds of consideration; they might have realized that giving boxing gloves to a bunch of fifth and sixth-graders was a bad idea. Of course there was no corresponding protective gear. No mouth guards, no head gear, no groin cups, just two pair of gloves; two pair of gloves, begging us to put them on and hit somebody. And, of course we did. Who knows how much brain damage we sustained during the “summer of boxing.”

The Dyer twins designated a patch of grass, in their backyard, as “the ring.” The twins’ mom worked during the day so their yard was the best place to commit mayhem without some adult asking why we were beating each other into bloody comas. The grass was on the dry side and the smell of the abandon outhouse wafted over the ring from time to time, but to us, it was as a grand arena; our own version of the Coliseum.

Street fighting was part of our culture. Like animals in the wild, there was usually more posturing than fighting. But when circumstances dictated, we were not averse to mauling each other. The concept of a “fair fight” was not one I encountered until I moved to Wisconsin. In Indiana, a fight was a fight. Punching, pinching, kicking, wresting, biting, separately or in various combination, were all allowed and expected. That’s why boxing seemed so interesting to us. It was a fight with rules, a concept that, until then, was foreign to us.

Charlie Long was an opportunist. Even though he was taller and bigger than Dennis, he wasn’t sure he could beat him in an all out street fight. He had probably seen how vicious Dennis was when fighting with his brothers. Then there was the matter of the scar across Dennis’ navel which was rumored to be the result of a knife fight and was much too jagged to be the result of a hernia repair. But when Charlie saw Dennis’ right hand wrapped in gauze, he couldn’t resist taking advantage of the situation. Charlie started to taunt Dennis. I can’t remember the exact dialog, but typically, the taunting portion of a fight went something like this:

“You think you’re pretty tough”
“Tougher’n you.”
“You think so?”
“I know so!”
“You better shut your mouth before I shut it for ya!”
“Make me!”
“I don’t make trash…I burn it!
“You wanna fight me!?
“I’ll fight ya!”
“Come-on, Right now!”

The neighborhood kids were appalled that Charlie Long was taking advantage of Dennis’ wounded hand, but that didn’t stop them from rounding up everyone in the neighborhood to watch.

“FIGHT, FIGHT! WITMER’S FIGHTIN LONG!”

The gloves went on and the boys went at it. At some point, the butterfly bandage gave out and Dennis’, hand started to bleed and he could no long deliver punches with it. I’ll never forget my brother pummeling Charlie Long with one hand and shouting, “I’ll beat with one hand!” And he did, he beat Charlie Long, he beat Charlie long with one hand. The rumor was that Charlie went home crying. All the Witmer boy’s stock went up that day. If one Witmer could fight like a Tasmanian devil, the rest might be capable of the same thing, and therefore, we were not to be messed with.

Martinsville

The Witmers made two trips to Martinsville every weekend. In addition to the Sunday-morning church trip, there was the Saturday-morning Catechism trip. Since moving from Ohio, we Witmer Children had not had the benefit of a decent Catholic education. Saturday-morning catechism was necessary to straighten us out after hanging around with the public school kids all week. Mom and Dad made good use of the time. Dad went to the Library and Mom did the weekly shopping at the Martinsville A&P, which was just off the town square in downtown Martinsville.

A town square was required, seeing that Martinsville was the county seat of Morgan County. Every Indiana County had a County Seat with a town square and the Courthouse was the center of attention. The Morgan County Courthouse, was typical of southern courthouses, red-brick, three-stories, with a church like spire, surrounded on four sides by green space and park benches. The park benches were populated by old men in overalls with mouths full of chewing tobacco and I never grew tired of watching them spit.

In those days, tobacco use was almost a requirement of being a man. Unlike the northern Baptist Churches, whose motto was, “Don’t smoke, don’t chew, and don’t hang around with folks that do,” the Baptist, in the south, could be seen smoking right in front of their church buildings. The Catholics had no inhibitions about smoking or drinking, we had a zillion rules but smoking and drinking were not a problem. Spitting on the sidewalk, however was very serious.

While being taught the ten commandments, and hearing “Thou shalt not commit adultery” my younger sister, Teresa, was prompted to ask what “Adultery” was. The nun responded that it was "spitting on the sidewalk." We learned later, that adultery was a MORTAL sin. Not the common garden-variety venial sin. Venial sins were things liking cussing, stealing change from your father's dresser and hauling off and slapping your brother a good one upside the head. Mortal sins would send you off to extra innings in purgatory, even if you confessed them. And if you had he misfortune of dying with a mortal sin on your soul, you went straight to H-E-double toothpicks. Sidewalk spitting was very serious. It needed to be promptly repented of in Confession if one wanted to avoid the fires of the afterworld.

The Church of the Nazarene

Catholics, in Brooklyn Indiana were scarce. In fact we were the only Catholic family in town. You could count Mrs. Losh, but she lived on Cabin Row, which I never considered to be part of Brooklyn. She was also just one little old lady, not a Family, and she wasn’t a regular attender, not like the Witmers. In all my years in Brooklyn I only remember one time when we did not all pile into the VW Micro Bus and make the eleven-mile trek to Martinsville to attend St. Martins Church. A blizzard had dumped two-feet of snow, the night before, and the only hope of having the Witmers represented at Sunday Mass was for Mom and Dad to make a run for it in the Rambler. The Rambler had a posi-traction rear-end and, in theory, could cut through the deep snow. Even so, the kids would have to stay behind. Besides there not being enough room for all of us in the sedan; it was too dangerous for children to be out in a blizzard. The possibility of nine children being orphaned when the Rambler slid off the road and plummeted into a ravine, didn’t seem to be an issue.

Brooklyn was protestant through and through. There were three Churches within three blocks of our house, that’s probably what put the “Church" in Church Street. The most mysterious of these Churches was The Brooklyn Church of The Nazarene. The Nazarenes were a “Holiness” denomination which meant the women did not cut their hair, did not wear make-up and kept their arms and legs covered. When they met to worship, the whole neighborhood could hear the exuberant “AMEN”s and “YES LORD”s. Kim and Kevin Dyer used to speculate with us about what was going on in the church. Curiosity got the better of Kevin and he actually went to a service. Kevin was about nine-years old when he recounted, complete with reenactments, his experience in the worship service.

“First they started beatin on the pews, then they started beatin on the floor…” At this point Kevin got down on the ground and demonstrated. “…Then they all ran up and started beatin on the altar!” Whether any of this was true or not I will never know. I could have never pulled off what Kevin did. I would have stuck out like a sore thumb, the catholic boy in a Nazarene church. I would have been spotted as soon as I walked in the door when I would have asked where the holy water was, so that I could make a proper sign-of-the cross. Kevin, on the other hand, blended in.

Uptown

If you stood on the edge of the lot, where the sidewalk should have been, and looked right, it was less than two blocks up the gentle slope of Church Street to Mill Street. The intersection of Mill and Main Street contained a store, a bank, a barbershop, a gas station and the Post Office. Main street also contained the white tumbled-down shack that passed as a restaurant. This was “Uptown” in all its glory. When Kim and Kevin got bored, the asked if we wanted to “go uptown.” “Let’s go uptown and get a Coke.” “You wanna ride bikes uptown? It made the dingy collection of buildings sound like something important.

Past Mill Street on South Church Street was the elementary school, a red brick cube with two stories and a basement that housed the cafeteria, principles office and the boiler room that doubled as the janitor’s apartment. On the outside of the building was a fire escape that looked like a giant tube. In the event of a fire, the students had to slide down it. I dreamed of the day I could use the fire escape. It was rumored that, as part of the periodic fire drill, students had to burst through the two small double doors in the library, and slide down the fire escape tube. But for me, it was not to be. Just before fifth grade, the old school was closed and we moved to the brand-new elementary school which, unfortunately, was only a one-story building.

Sidewalks

There was no sidewalk in front of our house. The sidewalk fairy had passed us over. Two doors down, at the Dyer’s house, a sidewalk proudly separated the street from the lot. The sidewalk transformed itself into small stones and then into dirt as it made its way from their place to ours. That’s the way things were in Brooklyn, Indiana, population 308. Whatever mysterious civic forces, in charge of dispensing sidewalks, decided 108 North Church Street did not need or deserve such an amenity. It’s likely the decision, to omit a sidewalk, took place decades before we moved to town in the early sixties, and now it just had to must be accepted. Any activities, requiring sidewalks, had to be done in front of Kim and Kevin Dyer’s house. And that was fine by us. Kim and Kevin were our best buds and they had been since we moved into town. Kim and Kevin were twins and Dennis and I were almost twins with barely a year separated us. We were the last of “the four boys.”

In a family of nine children, it is necessary to break the children up into working groups such as “The Four Boys” or “The girls,” which referred to my two younger sisters, Teresa and Anna. Ron, Joe, Dennis and I (in chronological order) comprised “The four boys.” Our older sister Marilyn separated us from the eldest boy, Douglas. Douglas was always referred to by his given name, a privilege that came with being the first-born, the same with Marilyn, because she was the first girl in the family. Howard, my youngest brother, was referred to as “the baby.” “Where’s the Baby,” or “The Baby’s crying” or “Who locked the Baby in the closet.”

The Witmer house was large by Brooklyn standards. My father worked for the Federal Government, not the State government or the city government, the Federal Government. Whenever I spoke this truth, the inflection in my voice changed, to emphasize to the listener just how important my Dad was. It was rumored, that in the event of a nuclear holocaust, my Dad could actually become President of the United States. All that would be necessary is for every elected official in the Federal Government and the entire military hierarchy to be wiped out. Then the succession plan named Federal Employees and my dad was a Federal Employee. That’s why we could afford such a big, two-story house. Yes, it may have been located in a no-account town but it was big just the same and we were big fish in a little pond.

We had six bedrooms if you counted the room off the living room that my parents used for their bedroom and the back porch study where we kept a little bed for company. We had two bathrooms and one had a shower, not just a tub. The garage was attached by a “breezeway” a fancy name for an enclosed walkway connecting our back porch and the small two-car garage. The driveway was gravel, crossing a small culvert as it came in from the road. The exterior was a combination of white asbestos siding and brick. Inside the home boasted wood floors and simulated wood grain walls. The simulated wood grain was printed on the sheetrock, almost like contact paper, and to this day, I have never seen anything like it.

It Begins

For years, I have been taunted by my Brothers and Sisters. Why? Because I am the only one who can remember how things REALLY happened when we were little. I come from a family of eleven, Mom and Dad (who have gone on to their reward) and my eight brothers and sisters. Now, through the power of the Internet, I have the opportunity to set the record straight:

• Who really ruined Mom's brand new ironing board cover by leaving the iron on? Teresa, Anna, or the neighbor girls?
• How many times did my brother, Dennis, get paddled in school?
• What ever happened to that big red dog?
• Was the family really the subject of an FBI investigation owing to the fact that Marilyn had "Hippie" friends?
• Did Douglas really dead-short the Tornado Siren on top the Brooklyn water tower in the middle of the night?
• Did Ron really spend all his paper route money playing Pinball at the infamous Brooklyn restaurant and what was in those brown bags the old men, who frequented the place, carried around?
• Was Joe really Dad's favorite?
• Did Howard really get all the attention because he was "The Baby?

Answers; it's time for answers. Follow along with me as we finally put some of these burning questions to rest.