I'm trying the "taper down" method of quitting tobacco use. This is about my 7 attempt and everything seems to be headed in the right direction. I am using less, so that is a start. Anyhow, my mind was wandering this morning and I was thinking about when I started chewing. Back in those days, a can of chew cost .10 cents and you could walk into the drug store and just buy it. "Happy Days" was what we started with. Seemed logical with a name like "Happy Days".
Now, keep in mind. At this point in time, it wasn't a habit. It was a couple of idiot kids being mischievous. We would take a dip and sit around and see who could make the biggest spit ring. And honestly, the stuff tasted horrible but we convinced ourselves that this was "man shit". In fact, one of my friends fathers chewed, so that further solidified the fact that this was indeed "man shit".
I managed to try to sneak some chew at one of my little league games. I took a small pinch and out of nowhere.... it was picture night. I had to stand in line, not spit and naturally that made me loopy. I ended up puking and missing the game. Somehow, I didn't learn.
About this time, one of my neighborhood hero's moved in next door. Jim Coble! The day they moved in, there were a few of us playing catch in the street with a baseball. Jim walks up, introduces himself as the new guy in the neighborhood and let us know that he loves to play catch. Turns out, Jim was a minor league catcher. His plan was to be in Vegas until real early spring, then go play ball in Georgia and then come back after the season.
How Jim became my hero was, he would purposely have me throw him short hops, in the street. Not on a raked infield where a short hop is predictable... right in the middle of the damned road. And he wanted them as hard as I could throw. At 12-13 years old, I could go full blast all day, so he got the practice he needed and I had a guy to throw balls at.
While playing catch, he would give me all kinds of pointers. We'd do quick release drills so I could the ball across the diamond from third to first quicker. One day we were at the school with a few other neighborhood kids I recruited so Jim could practice "run downs". No better way to practice rundowns than chasing a bunch of fast teenagers.
Out of nowhere, Jim takes a chew. He told us that he'd beat the shit out of us if he caught us chewing. We kept doing drills and I began to think that I didn't want to get killed by this guy. Nonetheless, he managed to catch me chewing one day when he got home from work. He made me try Copenhagen, which he knew was going to make me puke. I tried... I puked and quit chewing for a couple of years.
So playing catch with a minor league guy was the first part of Jim being a hero, and him making me puke was another part, but there was 1 other thing that made this guy bigger than life to me. He and I were playing catch. My mother hadn't come home from work yet but shortly after she arrived some whacko drove by and said something that pissed Jim off. Jim tells the guy to get lost or he'd get his ass kicked.
As the guy approached the corner, he hopped out, called Jim a pussy and hopped back into his truck to leave. Jim takes off towards the guy. Since Jim worked at a lumber yard, he had a tape measure on him..... the guy peels out and tries to make it around the corner but Jim throws his tape measure at the truck. It went completely through the shell and managed to break the back window of the truck.
It was a "super human" feat of strength! I remember the belt clip on the tape measure whistling as it left his hand..... As it turns out, we never saw the guy again, and Jim was down "one good tape measure". Jim was the type of guy who would do anything for anybody and I learned a lot of stuff from him.
Jim was a neighborhood hero!
Jim was quite the guy...
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