As you get older, your memory starts to fade. I can’t tell you what I had for dinner last night, but the memories of growing up in Chebanse, Illinois, still play in my mind as clear as a Wrigley Field day game.

Chebanse – meaning Little Duck in the Iroquois tongue- was a great place to grow up. In the summers of the 1960s, the rules were simple: ride your bike anywhere you liked, just be home by dark. My buddies and I would gather around noon, armed with youthful energy, mismatched gloves, and, on a good day, an actual baseball. If we didn’t have one, the whole afternoon was shot.

Our diamond was the patch of land behind the old middle school, across the street from my house. (The building serves as a community center and haunted house now.) It wasn’t really a diamond at all—too long, too narrow, bordered by an alley on the left and a street on the right. And then there was the obstacle that made every game a comedy of errors: an old, horseshoe-shaped building smack dab in right field, so choked with weeds it looked like nature had given up. Any ball hit into the “U” was an automatic out. Of course, the game still stopped while we scoured the jungle for our one and only ball.

Nobody hated that rule more than Merritt—though we all called him Rusty at the time. He had a temper like a manager being ejected in the third inning. Whenever the ball disappeared into the weeds, he would stomp around, muttering language that would’ve made a marine blush. Ironically, Rusty would grow up to make a living in Hollywood as a stuntman. Frankly, I thought his greatest stunts happened right there, leaping into nettles and thorns, cursing like Yosemite Sam.

Tim, my neighbor, was our slugger. He didn’t just hit the ball; he sent it orbiting. Our one true home run rule was simple: if you cleared the road beyond center, you were a legend. Tim cleared it so often we suspected he had something in that bat.

Rusty’s brother Brad was our self-appointed manager. He’d bark orders as if we were Leo Durocher managing the Cubs, but we usually ignored him. His cousin Tracy, however, was the real field general—sharp-eyed, quick with a glove, and a natural leader, though he never said so out loud.

Then there was Donnie, our other lefty. Donnie could hit, all right, but for reasons known only to him and the devil, he took particular joy in lofting balls straight into the weeds. Every time he did, Rusty’s blood pressure skyrocketed. Donnie would grin ear to ear, and we’d all brace for Rusty’s next explosion. Honestly, it was half the entertainment.

Sometimes my cousin Chris played, though often he was so spoiled by his grandmother, enjoying what we all called his “royal treatment.”

Scott and his brother (yes, another Rusty—we had two Rusty’s in the same motley crew) showed up when they felt like it. Scott couldn’t field to save his life, so he was permanently assigned to catcher. His main job was retrieving missed pitches, picking up the ball after it stopped, and throwing it back to Brad, who fancied himself the next Fergie Jenkins. The other Rusty—Scott’s brother—planted himself at third base like it was a recliner. He rarely moved but talked nonstop, chirping at batters, fielders, a squirrel that went by, even the ball itself.

Every one of us was a die-hard Chicago Cubs fan—except Tracy. He claimed loyalty to the hated cross-town White Sox. And sometimes Brad’s older brother Randy would wander in. He always wore an Oakland A’s cap, the kind of thing that made no sense in a town like ours. He never batted, just played first base, and rarely said anything. Why? Nobody knew. Maybe he thought swinging at our sorry pitches was beneath him. I wonder if he still wears that A’s hat.

The truth is that our games weren’t exactly competitive. With eight or nine kids, no umpire, and more heckling than hitting, it was closer to a home run derby mixed with a comedy routine. But it was glorious. The summer heat, the dust, the crack of the bat, and the arguments about whether something was fair or foul were all part of the show.

Years later, life pulled us away—jobs, girls, cars, responsibilities. The weed-choked “U” eventually came down, or fell down, and the field became something else entirely. But sometimes, when I think of Rusty cussing in the weeds, or Tim hammering a ball across the street, or Donnie grinning like a fox after causing chaos, I can’t help but laugh.

Some of those boys are gone now—Rusty, Merrit, Tim, Donnie. I miss them, as I miss those long summer afternoons when baseball was everything and the world was so wonderfully simple.

Top row from left, the 4^th person is Donnie, and on the end is Tim. Bottom row from left is me and then Merritt. 4^th boy from the left is Brad, Tracy is next to him, and Scott is at the end. Randy, Chris & Rusty’s pics are not available.