Big Norman

Norman Morlock was one of those kids who wore 1950's era horn rim glasses which gave him a distinctly nerdy appearance. This was however 1978 and Norman Morlock was my best neighborhood buddy, geekiness be damned.

His home-life was also a bit more stable than mine (at least by outward appearances), so I took to hanging out there as much as possible. For a number of years his house became my second home and I probably spent as much time there as at my own.

It's funny the things you remember after so many years, for example, I can still picture the layout of the entire house and all the games we used to play. His family had this great closet that was filled with board games like mousetrap and skill games like Pick Up Sticks. And if memory serves me, I even remember playing "Seven seconds to Heaven" for the first time with his sister in her bedroom closet. Prepubescent groping and fumbling that seems quaint and innocent by todays standards.

Norman's dad was a large man, (well at least in my minds eye he seemed larger than life) and I remember they called him "Big Norman". I'm not really sure if it was due to his size or the fact that he was the senior to his namesake son.

Big Norman, like the whole family, had taken me under his wing as sort of a surrogate member of the family. One of the most vivid memories of my then 10 year old world was the time that Mr. Morlock decided to teach me how to throw a baseball, which ended in less than stellar results. As the tutorial began, I remember throwing the ball rather clumsily and being chastised to "Throw it like a man". This of course, I found extremely ironic, since I was in fact, just a kid. Never the less, I moved a few steps closer and dutifully tried again, to equally disastrous results. To this day I can hear the exasperation in his voice as he once again intoned for me to "quit acting like a girl and throw the damn ball". This last admonishment, along with the not so quiet snickering of little Norman in the background set off a chain of events that is etched in my memory forever.

"Okay fine", I thought to myself, "I'll show you I'm not a girl". I took a few steps closer still, bringing myself in fact much closer than I realized at the time. I inhaled a deep breath and with every ounce of strength in my body I leaned back for the wind up and hurled the baseball at something approaching mach five toward the Senior Morlock. He was, to say the least, taken by surprise as the ball hit him squarely between the eyes, shattering his glasses and cutting his face in a number of places. Although, I was more than a bit terrified of this large man, I could not help but feel entirely vindicated in regard to his questioning of my masculinity. His only response of course was "Damn son, you don't throw it that hard when you're so close", as he stumbled inside to clean the blood from his face and shirt.

When we hit our early teens, Norman and I had a terrible falling out and never spoke again. I wish I could recall what the argument was about, but the memory escapes me. It was, no doubt, extremely important at the time.

Years later, I heard through the grape vine that little Norman's parents had split and that junior had even gone so far as to change his name to "Andy" in a rebellious move against his dad.

Well, here' s to you Norman . . . uh errr. . . Andy Morlock!