August 23, 2012

TODAY, WE DECIDED TO GET OFF OF THE INTERSTATE and really see what we could find. Our first stop, a few miles west of Des Moines, was the Bob Feller Museum in Van Meter, Iowa. I was impressed with how many baseball stars of the past fifty years have stopped by the museum and left signed photos. I learned that Feller’s signing bonus was one dollar and an autographed baseball. While small, the museum contained a surprising amount of information about Rapid Robert. For example, at the height of his career, he enlisted in the Navy a couple of days after Pearl Harbor.

I gave the guy who runs the place a new anecdote about Feller to add to his usual patter. I explained that, sometime in the 1940s, a couple of nerd scientists pronounced that a curve ball does not really curve. Instead, they explained to the media, the so-called curve is really an optical illusion. Feller responded in a movie short feature. A fence of slightly more than 60 feet long was set up with a catcher at one end on one side of the fence. Feller stood at the other end of the fence and threw a broad curve ball to the catcher from the opposite side of the fence. The scientists were never heard from again.
 

Just a hoot and a holler and down the road a piece from the Feller Museum is Guthrie Center, population 1569. Because my mother lived there until she was around 16 years of age, I decided to take a few photos of the place. I had been there once before when I was seven years old. When I pulled over to take a shot of the welcome sign, a sheriff pulled over and asked me what I was doing. Resisting my first impulse of telling him that I had “kin folk” in town, I told him that my mother (Alta Ross Mackey) had been born here. He responded that he too had been born in Guthrie Center and went on his way.

In the early 1900s, my mother’s grandfather was one of the most prominent men in the county. He had been a school principal in several states and had a law degree. Whenever some “orator” came to the county, my great-grandfather would be invariably trotted out to debate the orator. He owned the first car in the county, and was a friend of Frank Gotch. I suspect his friendship with Gotch garnered more respect than his money.

When we walked into the only restaurant in town, we got the usual small town open-mouthed stare. I was reminded of H.L. Mencken’s description of the spectators at the Scope’s Trial: “Gaping Primates.” One table of old women kept staring at Carole, and she gave them a smile and a little wave. I attributed their seemingly rude behavior to Carole’s coloring; they probably don’t see many Eyetalians in their little town.

We spent the balance of the day paralleling Lewis and Clark route northward to South Dakota.