Beer Heals All Wounds

Delivered as a Toastmasters speech

I grew up in a suburb of Cleveland. It was safe, stable and homogeneous. In the 1960s, that meant we didn't have any race riots in our neighborhood. But there were tensions in our quiet little neighborhood that I didn't entirely understand. Some of those tensions may have been caused by my father.

My father grew up in a slightly rougher neighborhood in Cleveland. He grew up fighting to protect himself, and then he joined the military where he learned to fight even more. The intensity he held within revealed itself a few times.

The first time was the day we moved into our neighborhood. The house backed up to the city park. It was a beautiful park with open space, green grass, and playthings for children. While my father unpacked, my brothers and I went to play in the park.

We were stopped from playing by our next door neighbor, who said that we could not play in the park. Maybe he was just having fun with us, or maybe he was truly a jerk, but when we told my father what he said, my father got right in his face. They shouted. Threats were made. Clarence, the neighbor, was bigger than my father, but that would not have mattered. Only an intercession by one of the other neighbors stopped the fight. We were allowed to play, but we never got along with old Clarence next door. His yard was an automatic out if you hit the ball in there.

The park was truly wonderful, and we did play there often. We acted as if we owned it, in fact, and had in our minds a place to play baseball, a place to play hide and seek, and a place to play schmear the queer. It was like our park.

Directly behind our house was a cherry tree. I loved that tree because it was sow enough that I could climb it. My few friends and I would take perch and just sit. It even bore fruit, and my mother made pies: cherry pies. How cool was that. From the tree in the park behind our house.

Some time later, we were having a family party. Our back yard was filled with relatives from Ohio and Pennsylvania. It was summer, and we were having great fun.

I was bored, however, and I wanted to go sit in my tree. As I came to the fence separating our yard from the park, I noticed a little boy in my tree. He was a boy about my age and my size, sitting in the tree just like I wanted to. I told him to get out of my tree. He told me to go fly a kite. Then he started swinging on one of the low branches, and pulling on it and yanking, and I was afraid he was going to hurt my tree. My tree that made cherries that my mother turned into pie. Cherry pie.

In a tizzy, I ran to my father and told him that some little boy was trying to break apart our tree. Our cherry tree. So he came to investigate.

My father told the little boy to get off of the tree. So the little boy ran to get his father. Can you get see where this is going?

The boy's father told his son to play on the tree, and pointed out to my father that the tree was in the park, and didn't belong to us.

My father countered that we cared for the tree and enjoyed its fruit, and that his little porker shouldn't abuse it and try to break off a branch.

The little porker's father told his son to go ahead and play, and that maybe my father would like to step into the park and settle this.

My father asked him to take one step back away from the fence. He grabbed the top rail and propelled himself over in a single bound, and the two men fought.

I went screaming back into our family party. I returned with an Uncle, and in those few moments away, the fight was mostly settled. My father had the other man pinned on the ground. The man still flailed helplessly, but was immobilized. The man's little porker was crying.

My Uncle John convinced the men to separate, and suggested that they drink a beer to calm down. The man and my father, both of them bruised and bleeding, sat at the party to drink beer.

Meanwhile, I sat in the cherry tree with my new friend.

My father never did get along with Clarence next door. Maybe it was some rivalry that could not be grasped, or some bitter jealousy. I really think it was simply that Clarence didn't like beer, and the two of them never got a chance to talk over a beer.

August, 2009