In the Field

Before getting back to the Oxford School saga, I’d like to write a few words about The Field. The Field, in its original configuration, lay at the NE corner of Michigan Avenue and Gulley Road. In the early days, you could walk south down Gulley, past the March house, and there you were. The first thing you saw was a pile of rock, which we called “The Rock Pile.” Actually, it was a pile of broken concrete and brick, construction debris left over from when our houses were built.

Right next to The Rock Pile was a big pile of grass clippings. Each time my dad would cut the lawn, using one of those push mowers with a “catcher,” he’d dump the clippings from the catcher into a wheel barrow and I’d follow him down the sidewalk toward The Field. He’d dump the clippings, pick me up, set me down in the wheel barrow, and give me a bouncy ride back home.

When I was old enough to walk down to The Field myself (maybe 4 years old), I’d climb up on The Rock Pile and make gunpowder. Tommy March (we called him “Little Tom”) showed me how to do this. You take a brick and chip it against a slab of concrete until you get a nice orange-red powder. “Gun powder.” Years later I learned how to make real gun powder in my garage, but this ersatz version was fine for a four-year-old.

East of The Rock Pile was a massive billboard, one of those three-panel jobs built on a steel frame that we could climb. Most of us would just climb up a little way, staying below the signs themselves. But one day Bobby March climbed really high, all the way up to the signs. He was up there waving and laughing and having a ball when suddenly a Dearborn Police car pulled up. I don’t think I’d ever seen a police car pull up before. The cop made Bobby climb down. I don’t remember if he took Bobby home, but if he did, I know for sure that Bobby’s mom beat him with a broom.

Right below the billboard to the east was our ball diamond. Most of The Field was wild in the summer with tall grass and weeds. But the city would cut just enough grass for us to play ball. We had a big old plywood sheet that leaned against the billboard and blocked pitches from going under the structure. The ground was worn bare at home, the pitcher’s mound, and at each base. Some days we had enough kids to have four or five on a team. We fashioned our own rules so that we could play with any number—even with just two on a team; “right field is out,” “pitcher’s hands is out,” and “imaginary man on first.”

One day my sister Mike (just like the book!) came down to play. She was 11 or 12, older than most of the boys, and they made a little fun of her when she stepped up to bat. That is, until she hammered a ball almost all the way to Cambridge Street.

When not playing ball or fighting over ball, we did other stuff in The Field. We once dug out a network of long ditches, covered them with boards and sod, then crawled around inside as if it was a big cave. Bobby, Little Tom, and Linda March were way into this for several days. But then Mrs. March discovered what we were doing and, as she often did, decided to take fun out in the desert and kill it. Bobby, Little Tom, and Linda appeared at the dig site one evening and announced that their mother told them it was too dangerous, no one could play there anymore, and we had to quit. Jerry and “Big Tom” Shader, the other kids, and I had a different notion and we kept on digging and playing cave. No one died.

One fall day Roy Meyer, Craig Kotlarczyk (Johnny’s brother), and I discovered that a heavy rusty steel front side panel from an old car had been dumped around home plate. Craig lifted it at one side to see what was under it. I stood there looking. Then Craig dropped it. The rusty edge slammed down on my ankle. I cried my way back home. Once again, I was “rushed to Oakwood” for stitches.

Besides the cop who busted Bobby March, and the one who busted Dennis Korloff and me for shooting of firecrackers, I don’t remember ever seeing a grown up in The Field. The Field was kid territory, a place to dig holes, play ball, and make up our own rules. Once, I discovered a hand-sized rock, split into three layers, with big shell fossils in between each layer. I kept that rock for many years until it disappeared.

One summer evening, six years old, I wandered alone from my house to The Field. I turned left into the abandoned alley that ran along its northern edge. There was a tall hedgerow on my left. Just ahead was an opening that led into Sissy Wine’s back yard. Sissy Wines was real old, at least a couple years older than my sister Mike. I turned into the opening and waved. Then I heard a scream, the whoosh of an arrow, and the “pfwt” sound it made as it hit the target just a few feet away from my head. The next thing I knew Sissy Wines was stomping toward me, bow in hand, yelling at me for almost getting killed. She marched me home, spanking me every step with her bow.

Over time, The Field changed. First they put up an Amy Joy Do-nut shop and that was fine; we still had plenty of room to play ball. But when I was in ninth grade, they put up a Burger King right next to Amy Joy. That pretty much killed baseball for all but the littlest kids, but I got to eat a lot of Whoppers. The final blow came a few years later when they put up a Long John Silver’s Fish & Chips. The Field was gone, buried beneath tar and cement.

I still dream about The Field. Standing on its edges in a grey dusk or middle of the night, seeing strange hamburger shops, parking lots filled with cars, but no one inside. I dream about being on the far end of The Field. Covered with water and mud, I struggle across it to get home.

After I wake up, I lie there wondering where kids today can find a field like mine.