Stories from John Piper's Life
These stories are based solely upon the memories of Larry Piper. They are being committed to paper starting in 2006, some 29 years after John Piper's death. Many of the events took place before I was born. Other events took place from 46 to 60 years ago. I have tried to put an estimated date of occurrence by each entry.
I hope to confirm and enhance these stories with my two sisters, Janet and Carol. Our brother, Bob, passed away in 1960, so his memories are lost forever. My target audiences are my immediate family and close relatives, most particularly my four grandchildren, now in 2008 whose ages are 9 to 13. My goal is to preserve these memories for them.
You can always turn off the music by clicking on the
square 'stop' icon at the bottom.
This story, which has always
been my favorite, is about coaching high school basketball in Indiana in the
'30s. But every coach, regardless of the sport, the level of competition, or the
geographic location can relate to this story--which is about breaking training
rules. Now you need to remember in the '30s that (1) there was no such thing a
tenure for teachers, (2) there were no teacher unions and (3) the country was in
the depths of the Great Depression, which made jobs very hard to come by. Also,
every teacher's job was renewed annually by the local school board. Unless you
are a Hoosier, you cannot appreciate how fanatic high school basketball has
always been taken in Indiana, particularly in its smaller towns. So teachers who
were also coaches had their jobs determined by their won-lost records.
John Piper's graduation from
Manchester College in 1933 with his fabulous athletic background undoubted
helped him to get a teaching-coaching job in one of the many smaller schools in
northern Indiana. Now the exact date and location of this story has been lost.
Based upon the pictures on the Family page, he lived in a different town nearly
every year, so this story could have happened in any of 4-5 schools. He was
married two years after graduation, so it is probable he was married when this
event occurred.
Mid-way through the season
John Piper caught 2-3 of the stars on his basketball team smoking. Smoking was
always his biggest no-no, so there was no question about kicking these boys off
the team. When confronted, the boys defense was 'You can't kick us off the
team--we are the stars. And besides, you have no one else to replace us.' On
this latter point they were correct since most small high schools were lucky to
have 8 or 9 boys out for basketball. But kick them off he did, and he finished
the season with second-string players. So he lost most or all of these last
games.
Now it is time to reflect back
upon the annual high school basketball championships that have been held in
Indiana since 1911. Every school competed in basketball (there were over 700
when I graduated in 1956) and every school competed in the same class (which was
not changed until the '80s). Which the possible exception of the Indy 500, it
was the biggest thing to happen in Indiana. Think Super bowl.
So now we return to the end of
the school year and John Piper has to appear before the local school board to
contract renewal. The verdict: not to renew. When he inquired why not, the
answer was simply you did not have a very good record. To make his point, he
asked if they considered winning important. They did. What happened next is
priceless. John Piper reached into his billfold, pulled out a $5 bill and laid
it on the table in from of the school board members, and said, "I will give this
$5 to anyone who can tell me the two teams who played for the state basketball
championship." To drive home his point, he pulled out another $5 bill, laid it
on the table and said, "and I will give you another $5 if you can tell me the
score." (Remember, $5 in the '30s would be the same as a $50 or likely a $100
bill today.)
John Piper moved on to another
school the following year. But he also still had the two $5 bills in his pocket.
The point had been made: winning was NOT more important than following the
rules.
Now this would normally be the
end of a great story. But, as Paul Harvey is fond of saying, here's the rest of
the story. Every athlete and coach has seen the movie Hoosiers, the mythical
story of a small Indiana town winning the state basketball championship. Only
the movie was based upon fact that Milan, population around 1000, did win the
1954 state championship, defeating Muncie Central, whose student body was
probably bigger than 1000, 36-34 in the finals at Butler Field house.
But let's backup to 1952.
Coach Marvin Wood of Milan caught some of his star players smoking. He kicked
them off the team and finished the season with sophomores. Of course they lost
but they gained a season of experience. The following year in 1953 Milan went to
the final 16 teams before being eliminated. Now they had two years of
experience. Then in 1954 he had 5 seniors who were into their third year of
starting high school basketball games. There is no doubt about the wisdom of the
coach, about the abilities of their star player Bobby Plump, but could it also
have been the three years experience they had--brought about by a coach's
insistence upon following the training rules--that was the intangible that
allowed Milan to achieve every small town's dream.
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The John Piper I knew had a
dislike of cats. He grew up on a farm, so cats were never pets. He claimed he
didn't like wild cats because they killed small animals and birds. But the real
reason was a bad encounter he had with one particular cat, probably when he was
in his mid 20s.
Now I
have to tell you about his ability to punt a football. He was obviously the
kicker on his college football team--he also was great at drop-kicks, something
gone from the game in the last 60 years. When I was 11 or 12, making him 41 or
42, I saw him punt a football 35 to 40 yards, and that was with a sore knee on
which he had an operation about 10 years later. Who knows how far he could punt
in his collegiate days.
Mother could attest to this story, so it had to occur after 1935 when they were married. Once while visiting some of their friends, he leaned down to pet their cat. The cat, in one of its last moves on this earth, leaped up and grabbed John's right forearm with all four claws. Being outside, Dad took a couple steps, flung his right arm downward to dislodge the cat and before the cat hit the ground punted the cat for all he was worth. It had to be a true 'Kodak moment'. There is no record of how far the cat went or what happened to this friendship, but from then on Dad never trusted any cat.
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Both John and Mildred were trained as teachers. Both taught
at the high school level at some time in their lives. My maternal grandfather
had a PhD in Education and spent a career as a high school principal and
superintendent. But I didn't know, or at least didn't pay much attention to
these facts while I was growing up because my Mother was busy raising four
children and my Father worked for the YMCA.
Still, there was an unspoken
feeling at our home that education was important. I remember one of Dad's best
friends, who had a couple wild children in the '60s, finally asked Dad what was
the secret to his four kids staying out of trouble. John Piper's answer was,
'get them educated'.
So, in 1956 I was off to Purdue to pursue an
engineering degree. I had fortunately earned enough money to cover most of my
college expenses; still there was the occasional money for extras from my
parents and grandmother.
About the same time my Mother went back to
teaching full time because there were my three siblings were growing up. In 1961
my older sister enrolls at Ball State. Three years later in 1964 my second
sister also enrolls at Ball State. Both subsequently graduate with teaching
degrees.
Now we get to 1967 when my brother is ready for college. He was
always good at math, so it was natural that he also enrolled at Purdue. I need
to digress here for some background material. Purdue's freshman class size had
to be 5000+ at this time. The procedures called for all these freshmen to show
up a few days early for 'orientation'. The first day also included an
orientation for their parents, pretty much to allay their fears about sending
their child off to this big university. Besides a football or basketball
stadium, there aren't many places that you can comfortably gather 5000+
parents in one place. But Purdue has the Elliott Hall of Music. Now you
have undoubted heard of the Radio City Music Hall in New York. It seats around
6,600 which makes it probably the largest indoor theater. Well, Purdue has a
duplicate design with a similar seating capacity; this is the Elliott Hall
of Music.
So here is this grand theater, which includes two
balconies, almost full with parents. Down on the stage are the half dozen
top administrators: Dean of Men, Dean of Women, Head of Housing, Head of
Financial Aid, Curriculum specialists, etc. They can answer any questions the
parents may raise. So the moderator, who likely was the current President,
welcomes the parents to Purdue. His fatherly tone of voice aims to put the
parents at ease that they will indeed get through this process of sending their
first born off to college. And as evidence that others have survived this
ordeal, he is pretty sure that their are some parents in the
audience for whom this is their second child to attend college. He asks
them to stand, and sure enough a couple hundred do stand. Now his
confidence is growing, and he says do we have anyone for whom this is their
third child. In this packed theater a handful do rise. Having made his point
that parents and child do survive this separation of college, the President
starts to introduce the first speaker. And then as an after thought he
off-handily remarks I don't suppose we have anyone here with a fourth child.
Now Mother is the ONLY one standing. After the applause died down, he
uttered, half jokingly and half serious, those now famous words, 'come
up here on the stage maam. You know more that the rest of these experts.'
Mother was never prouder in her life.
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Tennis
was always my game. I was younger and smaller than all of my classmates, so I
was never outstanding at football, baseball and track, in which I did manage to
letter. Our town of Danville, IN, had three clay courts, possibly left
over from the teacher's college that folded in the early '50s. But most
importantly, we had Rosemary Frazier. She knew everything there was to know
about tennis, and she was eager to share it with anyone and everyone.
By
some good fortune I managed to find my mother's old tennis racquets while
exploring a closet. With absolutely no help from anyone, I discovered two smooth
walls with level ground where I could hit the tennis ball against. I did this
for the entire summer of my 10th year. Then the next summer I stumbled onto
these clay courts where Rosemary must have encouraged me. (You need to realize
that my Dad was working full time with a one hour bus ride to and from work each
day. Mother was busy raising my 1, 4 and 7 year siblings. So no one knew
what I was up to.)
At age 11 I was on the fast track to become a ball player,
at least in my mind. We had a AAA team 20 miles away in Indianapolis
to which my Dad took me regularly. But more importantly, we had Bob Leedy.
Like Rosemary, he was part of the summer park program that gave us all a chance
to develop and hone our ball skills. We played softball in the morning and
hardball in the afternoon. Further details about Bob Leedy will have to wait for
another story.
So it was a real conflict of interest that caused me to
play more and more tennis. By my 12th summer I was hooked. Now the Danville
Tennis Club had at least 50 members, maybe as many as 100. We regularly held
tournaments, and as I soon learned, had some of the strongest players in the
state of Indiana, particularly youth and women. By August, 1951, I managed to
win the 12 & Under division. The Club also played a 15&U,
18&U, Men's and Women's Divisions as well as doubles in most of these other
Divisions. If you won a Division in our Club, you were effectively a State
Champion, at least in 1951. One more factoid: I did not own a pair of tennis
shoes, so I played barefoot--which was not too hard to do on clay courts. But
when I came home with my first ever trophy, my parents decided they should buy
me some shoes. (The trophy actually got broken during the awards ceremony, and
when I got the repaired version a couple weeks later, my Mother promptly broke
it while cleaning. There must be a story or message hidden there somewhere;
both of us have survived to this day.)
In a couple years I am one of the
top players in the Club. But as elsewhere in life, there is always somebody
better than you. In this case is was John Tom, about 5 years my senior. While we
practiced against one another, I think we only played for real on one occasion
when I must have played in the Men's' Division. Of course I
lost.
Now 2-3 times every year Dad would come down a play me in
singles. Even by 14 years of age, with a couple major titles under my belt, I
still could not defeat Dad, age 44. As I grew older and competed in many
other sports and talked with other players about their Dads and then raised
children of my own, I discovered it is a rite of passage for the kid to finally
beat the old man. But even with competitive personalities that Dad and
I had, it was never a problem. Indeed, it was an asset.
About 1954 our
Club decided to hold a Father-Son tournament. Here was a match made in heaven
for the Pipers. We blew through the field and were matched against John Tom and
his father in the finals. Now here I learned a great lesson: no matter how good
one of the partners is, the weaker partner will become the Achilles Heel--if you
take advantage of it. While we played 'sociable' for a few games--like a table
tennis game in which partners alternate in hitting the ball--when
the match was on the line, John Tom never saw the ball again. I think we won
something like 8-6. Dad was happy about the win, but even more so by the way our
strategy worked. I think that effectively ended his tennis playing, but he went
out very proud of me.
Larry Piper and Tennis
You should read
the above paragraphs to get some background of how I discovered tennis and maybe
more importantly, how tennis discovered me. I think I had a couple guardian
angels during this period of my youth.
I think it is fair to say that from
age 13 to 15, I played tennis 4, 5 even 6 hours every day, seven days a
week. As stated above, we had three (later four) clay courts. They were free to
use, were located within a mile of my home and one could always find some
competition.
Any story about tennis, for me, has to begin with Rosemary
Frazier. While I cannot remember a single incident in the 4-5 years I played at
Danville where she gave me a verbal tip or correction, she was always there. I
suspect she gave lessons, for money, but that was not my style--or within my
financial reach. I always felt she worked best behind the scene. She set up the
tournaments, she drove us to tournaments and she was tireless in promoting the
Danville Tennis Club throughout Indiana. I fashioned my 30 years of coaching
young girls in track after Rosemary's model: I was there to give them the
specifics, but I felt I was more valuable in organizing and running the track
meets. As an individual Rosemary was unrivaled. While I did not have all
the facts in my earliest tennis years, I was aware that (1) she had lost her
husband around age 30 to lukemia, (2) she was left with a 1-2 year old daughter
to raise alone, and (3) the local college, where she was Dean of
Women, folded shortly thereafter. Rosemary drove an old Frazier car--I'll
bet some of you don't remember that model. She later remarried and became
Rosemary Helton. She easily found another job teaching math at nearby Plainfield
and finished her career and Danville teaching the younger siblings of Judy and
I. I think she had a couple Womens state singles titles and many doubles titles.
The last time I talked with her she was about 65 and recovering from hip
replacement--which I had two by then. I was a little disappointed that she
didn't remember all my tennis prowess from 35 years earlier, but that was likely
caused by all the people she had taught tennis over that period. Tennis was
never a high school sport during Rosemary's tenure, but it is a tribute to her
influence that once tennis did come to Danville High School, one of my tennis
partners has been their tennis coach every since.
Drink water,
2-handed backhand, conditioning, no food prep, no hangup with equipment, no
lessons, birthdate, metal racquet
Moe, girl friend, used umpires, Ellis,
McClure
Do you know what it is like to have a state championship under you belt and still not be able to beat your father?
Highlight was winning father-son tournament against John Tom & Rome Osborn
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If Barbara Walters asked
me what was my fondest childhood menu, I would reply, without hesitation, going
to Victory Field to see a double header baseball game with my Dad.
From an early age of 8 or 9 I can remember riding the bus 20 miles
into Indianapolis, meeting my Dad after work and watching 14 to 16 innings of
AAA baseball.
Dad was working at the Central YMCA, 310 N. Illinois, in
Indianapolis, a location that was his home base for the next 27 years. I
probably made this trip once or twice a year for 4 to 5 years. Mom would pack a
big picnic basket full of food and drink (you could take such items into Victory
Field at that time). It was all I could do to carry/drag that basket when it was
fully loaded. Somehow I managed to reach the closest bus stop at the edge of
town--no easy feat in the early years when the family owned only one car and Dad
would have it at work on the day of a baseball game. Buses were the lifeline of
America in the late '40s and early '50s; trains did not carry passengers, at
least to Danville, and the old interurban which was so prevelent in central
Indiana had folded after the War. So for 50 cents, maybe even less for a child,
I rode the bus for one hour to the Indy bus station. The distance was around 20
miles, but the bus driver stopped almost every mile to pick up passengers until
we reached the edge of Marion County, the location of Indinapolis. At this point
there was likely some gentlements agreement with the city bus system that our
out-of-town bus would no infringe upon their territory.
Now the Indy bus
terminal was the 'Grand Central Station' for the Midwest. During the day at any
one time I'll bet there were 7-8 lanes of buses, lined up 5 to 6 deep
inside this open hanger type structure. I can still smell the gas fumes--I'm not
sure diesel engines were that popular at the time. About 80% of the buses were
just like mine; they were local feeder bus lines that came and went to Indy. The
remaining buses were the Greyhound and Trailways type. One could literally see
the world by boarding the right bus. The terminal had a ticket/waiting area, but
I don't recall ever being in there as a young boy. I suspect by 8 pm in the
evenings it might have become a little seedy.
So now the laws of physics
kick in. Here is this 110-120 pound boy lugging a 30+ pound picnic basket. I had
about 3 city blocks to cover. I would carry the basket about 100 feet, rest
20 seconds, carry it another 100 feet, etc. It was always a warm, summer
afternoon, so I was sweating after the 20 minute struggle. Now my efforts were
always rewarded because right across the street was the Fox Theater, probably
the only burlesque theater in Indy. The pictures out front, while mild by todays
TV standards, were pretty titilating to a young boy. I am reasonable sure that
Gypsy Rose Lee was still in 'action' in those days, and she would stop by the
Fox every so often.
By now it is 4:30 pm. I enter the 'Y' via the side
door. My Dad's office was close by, but he was never there. Around 5:00 he might
breeze through, acknowledge my presence, and then take off again to handle some
problem. By 5:30 he had cleared out and locked up the place for the day, and we
headed for his designated parking spot. With all his job problems over for
the day--he was the Boys Secretary--Dad could devote 100% of his time and
attention to me. Usually there was one last stop at Emroes sporting goods store.
Emroes was the WalMart of sports stores, and I think Dad ran a tab there.
Actually, I never lacked for at least the sporting basics: one ball,
bat, mitt, football and a leather soccer ball which I used as a basketball. Of
course Dad did not always use parking spaces. He 'parked' like a delivery
man, leaving the car in the street, engine running while he ran into a store.
Eventually, about 6:30 we reached the ballpark.
Victory Field was
located on 10th street, about 2-3 miles from the 500 Speedway on 16th street. It
wasa the home of the Indianapolis Indians, a AAA club that was owned by the
Cleveland Indians. At this time there were 8 teams in the American League,
8 teams in the National Leagure and 8 teams in the AAA. (There was an upstart
AAA league on the West Coast, but it as not of the same calibre as yet. Victory
Field was in a semi-commercial section of town, but not run down. Parking
was free and safety/security was never an issue. About half the time we would
first go upstairs to the business office. Now Dad's business 'dealings'
always amazed me. Between his job function, his recent military
service and his notarity in Indiana sports, he ran across an eclectic mix of
people; many of these wanted to give him something. I always suspected that is
where our ball game tickets came from and probably much of my sports
equipment. (On one occasion I saw this gal in the business office take a stack
of about 20-30 tickets, fan it with her thumb and presto, she had counted them.
You may not believe this, but some 40 years later when I read about John Scarne,
a magician and card shark, I realized such a feat was very possible.)
We
reach out seats, always in the mid-price range, and open our picnic basket. The
game was always a double-header, a Piper trait of getting our money's worth. The
first game must have started about 7:00 pm. I remember the stadium as being cool
after struggling in the hot Hoosier summer day. It was usually about half full,
so crowds were never a problem. I ate our food, kept score, but never got a
player's autograph or purchased any souvineers--another Piper trait.
Consequently, we were not bouncing up and down, disturbing other people in our
row to visit the concession stands. Minor league teams then, as well as now,
play a 9-inning first game and a 7-inning second game. I have to take that
somewhat on faith because John Piper NEVER stayed until 'the last dog was hung'
as he was fond of saying. We hand to 'beat the crawd', another Piper tradition
that I faithfully carry on to this day. Besides, I'm getting tired, Dad has to
go to work the next day, I had to get up before school to deliver my newspapers,
and frankly, we had gotten our money's worth by 10:30.
Jump ahead 3-4
years. The first date with my future wife was my high school Jr-Sr prom in May,
1955; the next date was actually a double date in June or July, 1955, to Victory
Field. Jump ahead 2 more years to the fall of 1956. I'm a freshman at Purdue.
Placement tests (there were no SAT or ACT exams then) had placed me in an
advanced English class--thanks to my world-class high school English teacher.
For one assignmeng we had to write a brief paper, probably about any subject of
our choosing. Well it was a no-brainer for Piper to regurtitate the above story.
But more importantly, our instructor chose what he considered the best paper,
and he read it to the class. Jump ahead another 30 years. My daughter, studying
sports management at Indiana University, has a summer interns job with the
Indianapolis Indians, who still play at Victory Field. I come down a couple
times that summer from Michigan, and she gets me a front row seat. All those
childhood memories come flooding back.
come
home from Purdue
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Dad went into service in early
1944, which made him 35 with two children. His occupation was a school teacher
which obviously then, as now, was not deemed a 'critical' skill. Judy's dad at
this time was 30 with one child, but he got a pass on military service because
he was an electrician at GM's Allison Division which made tanks and jet engines.
I always thought Dad's active duty tour was two years (because he got out
in early 1946), but the war's end may have shorten his obligations. I know he
did spend 6-8 years in the Indiana National Guard Reserve. Dad's
military training was what was then called a '90 day wonder', meaning he
got a fast version of OCS (officer candidate school). His college degree and
possible maturity had a lot to do with the military making him an officer,
specifically an ensign in the U.S. Navy. He served with the Shore Patrol as well
as aboard Liberty and troop ships. When he left active duty in 1946, he was a
Lt, which translated to a Captain rank in the Army Guard.
Like others of
the Greatest Generation, dad did not sit around, repeatedly telling the same old
war stories. However, he did make comments from time to time, and he did have a
few military history books which I remember reading. I later discovered some
photos taken of his ship life after the war was over. So what follows is a
chronological history of his WW II service.
When he was inducted in 1944,
we lived on the SE edge of Indianapolis near a location called Five Points. I
was 5 and my sister was 1, and we lived in a rental house. We must have left
this house on or about the time Dad left. I do remember the local civil
defense guy hassling my mother during a blackout condition when she was trying
to feed my baby sister. We were the last house on the road, so this guy was an
eager-beaver. I remember my Mother listening to news about the war, and I always
wondered what the news stations would find to talk about after the war was over.
I remember one of Dad's brother driving down to move Mom, my sister
Janet and I back to North Manchester, IN, to live with Dad's parents. I retain
this memory of my uncle offering the remove some wiring from this house
because it had been added by Dad. Silly memory and I'm pretty sure it didn't
happen. So we did move to North Manchester in the summer of 1944 where I started
the first grade--at age 5--that fall. Mom lasted one year with her in-laws; I
never heard Mom say it, but this was a strained time. What I remember was (1)
the long trains that used to come through town, (2) the blue star or gold star
flags in nearly everyone's window, and (3) taking 25-cents to school once a week
to buy another stamp in my war bond book--$18.75 filled a book which would be
worth $25.00 in ten years. My first grade school is still there, but I have no
recollections about teachers, fellow students or what I learned. I do remember
the walk to and from school.
Our three family members did make a train
trip to Charleston, WV, to visit Dad. I think it was in early 1945 because the
weather was mild and the train was full of soldiers and there were the coffee
and donut stops along the way. That would have made me 6 and Janet 2. Dad was
stationed aboard a Liberty-type ship, although it had deck armament. I still
remember when Mom saw Dad, she dropped my hand, left me behind, and ran to meet
Dad while she still carried my sister. I got to run around loose on this ship,
which is why I know it had deck guns. Now one of Dad's stories was about his
time in the Shore Patrol which had to be when they were stationed in the
U.S. These are equivalent to Military Police, and they are dealing with
military guys who get in trouble. His favorite story is about bailing
out the farm kids who get to the big city, decide to go to the
local night clubs or watering holes, and then find out once they are inside
that there is a cover charge. So he would have to negotiate with the club
owners, get them to forget about their cover charges in return for having these
drunken sailors pay their tab and leave,
We then moved in the
summer of 1945 to Danville, IN, to live with Mom's parents. I went to the second
grade and finished my 2-12 education at the same school building. I quickly
learned that most of my second grade classmates had gone to kindergarten and had
learned to write in the first grade. I had done neither, so it took me a couple
years to catch up. How my Mother, sister and I survived in this three room
apartment I cannot fathom. I was a wild kid--we would call it ADD today--and my
grandfather was dying of congestive heart failure. My grandfather died in April,
1946, and Dad got an emergency leave to come home for the funeral.
Dad
spent his sea duty time in the Pacific, primarily transporting Japanese POWs
after the war had ended. All of the photos he had were taken either aboard ship
or at some of the islands that had been taken from the Japanese. The one
specific story that I remember Dad telling was him practicing skeet shooting off
the fantail of the ship. The Jap POWs, which he described as almost meek, would
sit on the deck and bet among themselves on whether or not he would break the
clay pigeons. The Japanese currency was effectively worthless, so the term
betting takes on a whole new meaning.
Dad also mentioned on more than
one occasion that once the war was over, everything they were carrying aboard
ship in the way of supplies automatically and immediately went overboard. His
specific example was tons of vellum-type paper.
The only other war story was about buzz bombs. Now he could
not have seen or hear them if he spent his time in the Pacific. So his
information was likely second hand. I thought his descriptions of what the buzz
bomb could do, particularly to an individual, were highly exaggerated. But then
another name for a buzz bomb is the V-1 bomb. The V stood for a German word
meaning vengance, so the fear-factor of this weapon was certainly very high, and
I alwasy felt this colored Dad's comments. One thing I never recall Dad
mentioning was any kamize planes. This seems to jibe with all
the pictures mentioned above; his sea duty must have been
post-war.
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Induction of John Piper into Manchester College Hall of Fame
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John
Piper's education is both interesting and intriguing. He grew up with his three
siblings around Warsaw, IN. I know this because he graduated from Warsaw High
School, but I am not exactly sure of the year. His own father was missing for a
brief period of time while he lived in Michigan City, IN, courtesy of the State
of Indiana. He attended Manchester College from 1929 to 1933 when he graduated.
I have Manchester yearbooks from that era, but the information is sketchy or
missing on details. My mother and uncle were also attending Manchester around
the same time. There is a gap of a couple years in 1927 to 1928 between high
school and college that is unaccounted for. I would love to get anotherMother,
with her father working as principal in nearby Spring Hill, IN, was four years
in age and two years in grade behind Dad at Manchester.
So how did John
Piper get to college? He apparently never played any sports, with the possible
exception of basketball, at Warsaw High School. The Great Depression was in full
swing, so how could he pay for college? His dad may have been in the
slammer at the time. There is a graduation photo, presumably of college, that
shows John and his sister Mary in cap-and-gown, but only his mother. The answer
seems to be that (1) the President of Manchester College was Otho Winger, (2)
Otho's sister was Ethyl Winger Piper, my Dad's mother, (3) Dad and his
mother lived in Manchester, so housing cost was zero and (4) Ethyl was
a great cook. I always figured Ethyl traded her cooking skills for tuition cost
for John Piper--and his sister Mary who was a year behind him.
So how did
John Piper get into football? That story is lost; however it is documented that
at Dad's first football practice he ran the wrong way when he got the football.
That suggests that he had no high school experience. Another story that Dad
often repeated was that he didn't have time to study in college. He always said,
'I had to go to class 4 hours a day, work 4 hours a day and practice football 4
hours a day.'
The great numbers that Dad amassed in four years of
football at Manchester are chronicled in the FOOTBALL section of this web page.
What I can personally attest to is that he was fast. Even with a bad knee, at 41
he could beat me for the first 30-40 yards in a dash. He was also very athletic
in other sports. I mentioned elsewhere that I had a hard time beating him at
tennis when I was 13-14 and state champion. What I remember most was his
introducing me to the game of paddleball. I was at least 14, maybe 15. I know I
had won a state championship by then in tennis. He had told me he could beat the
Indiana state handball player if they were playing paddleball; I was most
impressed. I could play him about even if he merely hit the front wall; it was
like practicing against a board. But when he started serving off the side walls,
and then hitting them clear to the back wall on the fly, I was hopelessly lost.
That was probably the last time we ever competed in a physical match--now cards
and checkers would continue on until his dying day.
Dad eventually had
knee surgery; I would guess it was around 1965 which would have made him 56.
Knee surgery was still of the 'slash-and-burn' variety, and the surgery didn't
do much for either his pain or to restore anything like reasonable
functionality. When we cleaned out the homestead in 1981 after Mom died (Dad
died in 1977), we found 50+ empty pint bottles that had once contained rubbing
alcohol. I assumed the old athlete in him used alcohol to rub his legs to
ease the pain. Unfortunately, we also found 50+ empty Cool Whip
tubs, a testament to his poor eating habits. A final note for me was my
eventual domination of the game of paddleball. About three years later I once
again saw the game of paddleball being played at Purdue. I skipped it at the
time, but I did take up a related game called squash racquets. In three years I
went from first round loss to loss in the finals to campus champion. Then
three years later in 1963 I found the PB game again when I began working for Dow
Chemical. This time it stuck.
top
Back in the early days of TV (like 1950) everything was, of
course, black and white, the number of channels were limited and the program
selection was awful. One of the popular programs was professional
wrestling, and I use the term professional with considerable lattitude here. The
participants were former colligate wrestlers and there were not too many of
them, at least now around Indiana, so we all had our favorites. Gorgeous George,
one of the better known wrestlers, came along about this time. I mention
George because Cassius Clay admited he modeled himself after George who was the
consumate self-promoter. Wrestling action was pretty realistic because
these guys all came from a wrestling background. Certainly the idea that what
you saw was not for real or that there was any sort of 'fix' never entered the
minds of the nuevo and naive viewing audience, including me.
So one
Saturday night we are watching a wrestling match with two evenly matched guys.
Dad calmly volunteers the thought that competitor A will win. Sure enough he
does, although it was anybody's match when Dad picked the winner. When I asked
how he knew that (Dad was a boxing referee, so I figured he saw something I
didn't), he said, 'because I watched them practice last week down at the 'Y',
and I knew they had predetermined who would win this match.' He also added that
by promoting rematchs, they could keep the public's interest.
This
incident was only one of many, many times that Dad informed me of what the real
world was like. I never had any problems asking and accepting advice from Dad.
He never preached to me (except about demon rum and smoking) so it was easy to
believe his advice. I would say I developed a healthy cynicism about life.
top
When Dad died in 1977, my children
were 8 and 10. Although we were able to visit each Thanksgiving and Christmas,
their most lasting memories of Dad were him reloading shells. For nearly as long
as I can remember he was doing this. It was always a small scale operation, and
I don't recall him selling any ammo.
Reloading is not a difficult
procedure if you follow a precise step-by-step plan. And you need to devote
your full attention to what you are doing--in other words no multitasking, no
watching TV and no interruptions from phones or family. So Dad would retreat to
the basement in the evenings whenever he needed to make a new batch of shells. I
can remember watching him on a few occasions, This quiet time with your father
seemed to burn the memories more indelibly into my brain; that also seemed to be
the way my children remember this time with Dad.
There is nothing illegal
about loading your own shells, and it will allow you to experiment with
different powder weights, shell type and size and even casing size. There was
undoubtedly considerable cost savings in loading your own shells, but this was
offset by the time involved. The biggest factor was the purchase, storage and
handling of powder. I can remember Dad always had 6-8 one pound cans of various
grades of DuPont powder in his work area. He never had any accidents, but I
suspect today the idea of storing powder would be a no-no to most home
owners and insurance agents.
What follows is my recollection of his
reloading procedures. It will not be of any interest to most people. It write it
mostly to document what I remember. A shell consists of the case, a primer,
powder and the projectile. For a shotgun shell there is some wadding between the
powder and buckshot and also on top of the buckshot.
Let's begin with a
normal cartridge. Each caliber shell requires two dies. They look like an
oversize sparkplug, only they are threaded so they can be screwed into the
reloading tool. This reloading tool is permanently mounted to a sturdy bench. It
has a long arm that will raise and lower the cartridge into the die. (I have
seen a similar device sold to make your own 2" and 3" pin-on buttons.) The whole
procedure is designed to process a batch of shells in each step rather than take
one shell through the entire process. Consequently, Dad had created a series of
cartridge-holding boards, each drilled with 50 holes in a pattern of 5 rows by
10 columns. The steps are (each of which is repeated 50 times): (1) put the
first cartridge into the tool (which contains the primer die), raise the arm to
remove the spent primer, manually place a new primer into a holder and
lower the arm to seat the new primer into the brass case, (2) weigh out the
proper amount of powder on a separate scales and pour it, via a funnel, into the
case, (3) place the case, which now contains a new primer and powder, into
the reloading tool (which now has the resizing die screwed in), place a bullet
on top of the case and raise the arm which seats the bullet. This is simple
enough, except one has to be diligent. The primer must be seated, only a single
powder charge should be loaded, the case cannot be cracked and the bullet must
be fully seated.
Dad must have had at leaset 8-10 sets of these dies,
ranging from around .25 caliber up to .50 caliber. (I still have the box from
one of these sets.) I don't recall him having a large inventory of spent brass,
so I felt that he would shoot up a couple boxes of shells and then reload them
when he had collected 50 spent cartridges. I don't know how many times he could
reload a case, but I suspect the top of the case would split when it was near
the end of its life.
Shotgun shells were reloaded similarly, only the
cases, made of heavy cardboard, had a shorter life. Also, there was a separate
tool, also bolted to the workbench, that contained two large cylinders, one for
powder and one for buckshot. So the empty case had the primer replaced, then
moved to the powder/buckshot loading and then moved back to the reload tool for
final crimping.
Dad had one more tool that would resize a 30-06 brass
case down to at .25 calibre case. It bolted to the stairway where he could get
tremendous leverage. I doubt very many other reloaders had such a
tool.
Finally, Dad owned a gun whose barrel was made from a 1.125"
cylindrical steel blank. He had a friend who operated the machine shop at the
Boys' School in Plainfield, IN. This guy had drilled a hole EXACTLY through
the center of this 3-4 feet barrel, added rifling, added the trigger action and
Dad mounted it in a wood stock. I could hardly pick it
up!
top
While this story is trifling, it became a shiboleth for what
John Piper would do in certain situations. The time is early one Sunday morning.
The location is downtown Franklin, IN, on U.S. 31. Very few people were stirring
at this hour. Dad was pulling a trailer which contained some furniture. One
of the pieces was dresser with a large mirror attached. Someone had given
him the furniture, and he was moving it to the 'Y' camp. While located near
the main intersection, a gust of wind or shift of the cargo caused the mirror
section to fly off the trailer and crash in the middle of the highway. Dad never
touched the brakes; he could see in the rear view mirror that the chest mirror
was a total loss.
top
One of Dad's favorite sayings was that there were four ways
of doing anything: The right way, the wrong way, the Navy way and coach Burt's
way. The last two ways represent a couple of life's lessons, namely, in some
circumstances the correct response is 'Yes Sir'.
With military service
no longer in vogue and with coach's authority challenged at every level,
many people have never had the opportunity to learn this lesson. There is a
popular set of rules for the work environment: 1 - The boss is always right and
2 - if the boss is wrong, see rule #1. It is amazing how many young adults
have told me they would not work under these rules. Of course, they tend to live
with their parents and have little day-to-day responsibilities. One of these
days they may become become old adults with no benefits, no retirement nest
egg and no health care because they could not or would not remain in a job long
enough.
Now the title says '5 Ways'. Dad would rattle off the four ways
mentioned above, but then he would add, 'then there is my way'. And that is the
lesson every child must learn: Mom and Dad are always right.
top
Dad's next older brother was Otho, named after his paternal grandfather who also was the President of the local college.
But he always went my the name Shorty. I don't think he ever went to college but
he was a catcher on the local baseball team that Dad played
on. Shorty owned a construction outfit, and he was right at home
in this rough and tumble world. He was a fun guy, always with a bunch of jokes
at the family Christmas gathering. And he liked to gamble.
But this
story goes back to the late '20s when the Piper brothers were around 20.
Now Shorty got himself involved in one of these carnival games where for 25
cents you try to put three balls in a basket. It is really simple to do, and the
barker was only too eager to demonstrate that fact. The rules of this game were
a little different in that, if you won, you got all your money back plus a
blanket. So there was a strong incentive to keep playing to win your money
back.
But like all carnival games this one was fixed. It was the usual
arrangement where the main guy is standing out in the street next to the
'pigeon'. He obviously is not influencing the game. But his partner is at the
side of the stand, arms folded, and apparently disinterested in the efforts of
my uncle. Shorty easily drops the first two balls in the basket, but
every time he pitches the third ball it bounces back out. (In case you haven't seen
this game, the baskets are bushel baskets like one you would use for apples. The
baskets are sitting at a 45 degree angle and there is a hole in the
bottom side. You essentially drop the ball in the basket and it falls through
the hole.) Now when Shorty, or anyone else for that matter, drops the third
ball, the partner casually leans against the frame. This tightens up a spring in
the base of the basket and the ball pops out like it was shot from a cannon. It
works the same way with those fuzzy dolls you try to knock over with
baseballs.
So these guys are into Shorty for about $20 and he is clueless
as to what is happening. So my Dad takes Shorty aside and explains the ruse. Now
Shorty, while a little short, is one solid guy and very capable of taking care
of himself. So he steps back up, calmly drops in the first two balls, then
reaches over to the partner, grabs him and bodily throws him out in the street.
Then he steps up and drops the third ball into the basket. Well all hell broke
loose. I am sure the Piper brothers saw to it that Shorty recovered all his
money and you would hope he was a little wiser. Unfortunately, this was not to
be. I remember about 1957 he made the headlines of the Indianapolis Star when he
got bilked by some gambler for about $10,000.
But this was another good
lesson I learned from John Piper.
top
Street wise vs. naive
athletic vs. artistic
non-medical vs. medical
top
In mid June, 1960, Judy and I paid a surprise visit
to the YMCA camp near Shelbyville, IN, where Dad had spent the past few years
as camp director. Mom was back teaching and she still had three children
at home, but she visited on the weekends and helped him with the books. This
was the first time we had visited since our wedding in early June. We had
driven down from Lebanon, IN, where we were living for the next six months. I had a 9th
semester to finish up my degree at Purdue, and Judy had a plum job with Alison
Division of General Motors in Indianapolis. If you check an Indiana map, Lebanon
is exactly half way between Purdue and Indianapolis.
Sundays were a slight
change of pace from the normal routine at camp. After the noon meal,
everyone walked over the dam to one of the remote activity fields where they shot
skeet. Guns were a major part of camp life. Riflery was one of the six major
activities. A rifle was fired each morning and evening at flag ceremonies by an
honored camper.
Dad owned a sheet-throwing device
and he loaded his own
shotgun shells, so cost was not a big deal. Now the Sunday routine was
that only the counselors, which were 18-21 years old, did the shooting. It
was a fun time with the 8-10 boys in each cabin cheering
(and betting) for their respective counselor. These
counselors typically would be lucky to hit one out of every three pigeons.
So Judy and I walked into this fun event. Dad was, of course, delighted to see us,
but he couldn't leave what he was doing. He introduced us and then let me take a shot; I
probably hit it. Then as an after-thought he asked Judy if she wanted to shoot.
Three thoughts should be mentioned here: (1) there were never any female
campers, so no one has every seen a female shoot a gun, (2) Dad was a
stickler on gun safety, but he would allow anyone to shoot (and presumably
learn from the incident), and (3) he did not know that Judy's dad was also a gun
nut. Judy took the shotgun from Dad, calmly put it up to her sholder and
said 'pull'. She smoked the pigeon and handed the gun back. Silence. I have
never seen Dad at a such a total loss for words!
top
In 1951 or 1952 my sister
Carol would have been 5 or 6. Easter egg hunts were not very sophisticated. So
this Easter the city fathers decided to liven up the event by awarding a wrist
watch to whoever found the special egg. Casio was unheard of and Timex was just
getting started, so watches were still very expensive, probably $30-50.
That Easter Sunday all the
small children were lined up around a small section of the Danville park. The
section was less than 1/4 acre and there were probably 40 to 50 children. The
grass was fairly short and there were numerous trees. The adults were kept out
of the search area so they could not help the children.
Now it was obvious that a lot
of eggs were laying on the ground, but they all looked alike. So off the
children went, baskets in hand, eyes glued to the ground for that special egg.
But not Gramma J. as she was known to all her grandchildren. Gramma J. was not
only smart she was street-wise. Where would you hide that special egg? So she
looked up. Sure enough, there in the fork of one of the seedling trees was the
prize egg. Now with a bit of side-line coaching, she got Carol's attention,
pointed up at the tree, and Carol had herself a new watch.
There are a number of lessons
to be learned from this story; I'll let each reader choose their own.
A second story about Gramma
J., while somewhat spooky, does say a lot about her personality. I will call
this story 'From Beyond the Grave'.
I have always exhibited signs
of organization, particularly in making and keeping lists. I always attributed
this to my Mother, who we learned after her death, kept a list of every
Christmas present and its cost that she gave to every member of her family for
every year. In her role as music and art teacher, she also kept a list of which
clothes she wore each day to school--presumeably to avoid duplication in the
same class.
However her mother, Gramma J.
was also a list-keeper. She always sent out birthday cards to her
grandchildren--and presumeably others--like clockwork. In our younger days there
was usually a Washington or Lincoln enclosed, but when we got older it was just
a card. What we didn't know is that early each year Gramma J. went out and
purchased the birthday cards for everyone on her list for the coming year. She
signed the card, addressed and put a stamp on an envelop, sealed it and filed it
away. They a couple days before someone's birthday--another list she
kept--Gramma J. would pull out the card and mail it. Efficiency personified.
Now Gramma J. died in the
spring of 1980. What happened next can only be surmised. My Mother, bless her
heart, must have found this stack of unmailed birthday cards while cleaning out
Gramma J's things. Not one to waste a perfectly good card and stamp, Mother went
ahead and mailed the cards for the rest of 1980 at the appropriate date. So many
grandchildren received messages from beyond the grave.
The third story about Gramma
J. occurred about 1978. It reflects another side of Gramma J., namely her
intense desire to maximize the outcome of everything she did or said. Today we
would say she had a hidden agenda, but really she always thought about the
consequences of everything she said or did. I would not call this 'political
correctness' because she would call 'a spade a spade'. (An example of her
mindset, trivial to me but not to her, was her comment after our son, Scot Alan
Piper, was born. Now many people have commented on our spelling, but Gramma J.
was worried about what his initials spelled.)
Anyway, my daughter Laura,
while working on a genealogy project in Jr High, mailed Gramma J. for some
background information. Now Gramma J. had a lot of information, so much so that
she was a member of DAR. And in the years 1942-1946, she was the Registrar and
Dean of Women at a small college in Danville, IN. Now in her 9th decade of life,
with most of her friends deceased, she wrote back to Laura with voluminous
information. But a final warning note was included. She did not want her
educational background to be published because someone might find out she did
not have a college education.
Another story that occurred
about the same time in our little town of Danville that also had some
interesting lessons to be learned. There was this contest to determine the most
popular girl in town. I'm not sure if there was any age limit. You submitted
your girl's name to enter. The list of names was posted at one of the two
grocery stores in town, and each girl had a ballot box with her picture on it.
Voting was done by the grocery store receipt--the contest was obviously
sponsored by one of the grocery stores to pull business away from the other. You
put your receipt in the ballot box for each girl, and the total dollar amount
was the total vote. Now there were a lot of girls entered, all well known, most
pretty and some rich. But as the voting ended after a few weeks, one girl was
far, far out in front of the others. She was not pretty, she was certainly not
rich and she was relatively unknown. I knew her because she lived next door to
me and her father made a living by driving the town's taxi.
Besides having a large family
and hence a large grocery bill, the taxi driver was saving the receipts from all
his food deliveries and effectively 'stuffing' the ballot box. So much for fair
play. The grocery one store got its publicity, but the town got a strange
winner.
One final contest. I think my
Mother must have entered a number of contests because my brother Bob was
addicted to entering contests. But Mother was extremely naive. I'd hate to think
of how she would have been taken in today's Internet scams and pfishes. Mother
was an art/music teacher, so she selected this contest that she figured she had
a good chance of winning. The rules were to write the sponsor's name, as many
times as possible, on the back of a post card. She carefully wrote the name 200
times in very tiny script and she figured she had it won. The winner however did
it 2000 times! I never knew any more details, Mother was a little less naive
after that.
top
When Dad was at Manchester College, one of the teams in
their 'league' was Central Normal, the college in Danville--where we later
lived. The ball diamond was located at the Park, and it was part of the football
field. So there were not any walls or fences to mark the
diamond boundaries. Actually there was a paved, park road than ran through
the left fielder's position, which was Dad's position that day--he normally was
the catcher. About 50' beyond the road was a creek.
At some
point in the game one of the Central Normal team hit a ball over Dad's head and
it rolled into the creek. There seemed to be an unwritten rule that any ball hit
into the creek was a home run; at least the home town boys felt so because they
would go into their home run trot. Well, the second time it happened, Dad fished
the ball out of the creek--which was never more than a couple feet deep--and
threw the guy out at home.
Dad told this story with almost a boyish glee.
I felt a somewhat similar joy when a few years later, batting left handed and
playing on the softball diamond at the other end of the football field, I reached
the edge of this same creek. I had hit a changeup pitch against the local
hotshot pitcher; it was only some years later that learned that the changeup is meant to
fool the really good batters--something I was not.
top
friends from Danville, friends from church, friends from YMCA, friends from Conservation Club, gun friends
Followup cards and letters; detached rectum
top
Last project while a camp director
top
Guns and safety were frequently used by Dad in the same
sentence. After his retirement from the 'Y' in 1974, he joined the local
Conservation Club. The Club had a 3-5 acre lake, a club house that would handle
up to 100 people and facilities for shooting in the form of both a rifle range
and a skeet range. He rapidly built up the membership's interest in
shooting.
An incident arose when a bullet entered the side of a home some
1-2 miles from the Club. Dad had a suspect; the guy even admitted to firing
the gun, but claimed any bullet could not have gone that far. So we bought a
couple maps from the U. S. Geologic Survey Department. We then could measure the
exact distance from the Club to the house with the hole. Dad looked up the
muzzle velocity of the offending gun, and with this data, it was an easy
calculation to determine the angle--actually there were two angles--that the gun
would have had to have been elevated to achieve this range. When confronted with
these facts, the Club member backed down and probably was kicked out of the
Club--although not before trying to get Dad into trouble with the Firearms
division of the Dept of Treasury for being a 'gun runner'. Dad had something
like four separate gun permits, and the investigating agent was very impressed
with not only his records but the fact that he had tought somewhere
around 10,000 kids about gun safety.
top
Not a big deal, just dozens of 'inventions' to make his life easier
top
You need to check back from time to time to see how I am
progressing on these stories.
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'The music is Swan Lake' (midi).
Site created by Larry L.
Piper, Aug. 12, 2002. © 2002-2006.
Last updated: Dec. 14,
2008
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