The Champ's in the tub

 The Champ's in the tub







     This also comes from Greg's childhood when mostly unsupervised kids roamed free through the  neighborhoods of South Gate. In Summer you left the house after a rudementary breakfast (a bowl of cereal) and returned at dinnertime without parents having any concern about your safety. The Gate's only hazards were the same untethered brats who grew up rather wild. Sometimes the park was like "Lord of the Flies" and you survived bullies or no good-niks by your wits. You needed to get to know who to trust and what punks to give a wide berth to when walking or riding bikes. Mostly, we travelled in packs. The area around the park was thick with kids who would grow up to be those Baby Boomers who wrecked the planet.  You knew every kid's name and behavior through a park grapevine. Many parents were boozers and it was rare, as in the households of Sheehys and Carrolls to find both parents without substance abuse problems. One of the familiar names around the Gate at this time was Bobby Joe Cunningham who was a chubby wise-guy who excelled at any sport but was from a rough around the edges family. Bobby was the son of Danny who worked at the Continental Can factory and was rumored to have spent an entire paycheck down at "Sandells" on Firestone blvd., a short walk from the ancestral Creason home. This caused grief for the long-suffering Mrs.Cunningham, known as Darlin' Dot who did her drinking and smoking at home over on Dorothy ave.  Greg loved to repeat the story of the inebriated Danny showing up at a Pee Wee league baseball game in a stained jump suit inzipped to the navel and bellowing "hon...Bob-a-timbo! Hey Bobbybaby!" Such behavior cemented old Danny as a bone-fide South Gate bounder and so any Cunningham family story had the stank of  the Pop on it. Bobby Cunningham was half of a great Pee Wee League duo with Ed Carroll on the 7-Up Yankees, sharing the dugouts with Montanos and Knowltons. Bobby and Ed switched off pitching and catching forming the most feared battery in the league. For some reason Greg had loaned Bobby a glove or piece of equipment and when he visited the Cunningham home he was greeted by the sozzled Danny at the front door and when Greg inquired after his son Danny slurred "the Champ's in the tub!" Now, this would mean nothing in the many spins of this globe but Greg loved to repeat the phrase for fun and sometimes would just shout across the room at me "yeah...the champ's in the tub!"

 






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