This sounds like Highland school yard in Portsmouth. I wasn't quite the player Flick was.
Ex-Basketball Player
by John Updike
Pearl Avenue runs past the high-school lot,
Bends with the trolley tracks, and stops, cut off
Before it has a chance to go two blocks,
At Colonel McComsky Plaza. Berth’s Garage
Is on the corner facing west, and there,
Most days, you'll find Flick Webb, who helps Berth out.
Flick stands tall among the idiot pumps—
Five on a side, the old bubble-head style,
Their rubber elbows hanging loose and low.
One’s nostrils are two S’s, and his eyes
An E and O. And one is squat, without
A head at all—more of a football type.
Once Flick played for the high-school team, the Wizards.
He was good: in fact, the best. In ’46
He bucketed three hundred ninety points,
A county record still. The ball loved Flick.
I saw him rack up thirty-eight or forty
In one home game. His hands were like wild birds.
He never learned a trade, he just sells gas,
Checks oil, and changes flats. Once in a while,
As a gag, he dribbles an inner tube,
But most of us remember anyway.
His hands are fine and nervous on the lug wrench.
It makes no difference to the lug wrench, though.
Off work, he hangs around Mae’s Luncheonette.
Grease-gray and kind of coiled, he plays pinball,
Smokes those thin cigars, nurses lemon phosphates.
Flick seldom says a word to Mae, just nods
Beyond her face toward bright applauding tiers
Of Necco Wafers, Nibs, and Juju Beads.
John Updike, “Ex-Basketball Player” from Collected Poems 1953-1993. Copyright © 1993 by John Updike. Reprinted with the permission of Alfred A. Knopf, a division of Random House, Inc.
Source: Collected Poems, 1953-1993 (1993).
An acclaimed and award-winning writer of fiction, essays, and reviews, John Updike has also been writing poetry for most of...
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Wednesday, January 28, 2009
The 1955 Trojan Alumni Prints- Feb 2009
I enjoy being thought of as a writer, particularly as I have interviewed and written about athletes and people from the Cultural Center of OUR Universe- Portsmouth, OH.
Much of the time I spent growing up during the Depression and WWII years in P'Town, I felt myself to be the proverbial "urchin". I was of the Mound Park variety of Urchin- a poor, mischievous kid from the city. It was once deserving of being called a city and I don't want to demean any of the fine citizens there now who still contribute to the good culture which remains.
Frank Hunter, Blaine Bierley, Gene Lucas, and their benefactor, Tom DuPuy- do our city proud as they report events in "The 1955 Trojan Alumni Prints", a tabloid which has been a welcome monthly addition in our household here in Westerville, OH.
These people have added so much to our culture.
The 1955 class included my brother, George, and there weren't many PHS classes which didn't have one of my siblings, normally every other year. There were nine kids to Forest and Mary Kegley on McConnell Ave, as well as my half-brother, Ted Dunham.
If you don't subscribe to the "Prints", please avail yourself of a wonderful bargain in reading by sending $7 to Gene Lucas at 1419 Second Street, Portsmouth, OH 45663. You can send info for the paper to Frank Hunter, 450 bonifay Ave., Orlando, FL 32825.
This is a non-solicited commercial.
Much of the time I spent growing up during the Depression and WWII years in P'Town, I felt myself to be the proverbial "urchin". I was of the Mound Park variety of Urchin- a poor, mischievous kid from the city. It was once deserving of being called a city and I don't want to demean any of the fine citizens there now who still contribute to the good culture which remains.
Frank Hunter, Blaine Bierley, Gene Lucas, and their benefactor, Tom DuPuy- do our city proud as they report events in "The 1955 Trojan Alumni Prints", a tabloid which has been a welcome monthly addition in our household here in Westerville, OH.
These people have added so much to our culture.
The 1955 class included my brother, George, and there weren't many PHS classes which didn't have one of my siblings, normally every other year. There were nine kids to Forest and Mary Kegley on McConnell Ave, as well as my half-brother, Ted Dunham.
If you don't subscribe to the "Prints", please avail yourself of a wonderful bargain in reading by sending $7 to Gene Lucas at 1419 Second Street, Portsmouth, OH 45663. You can send info for the paper to Frank Hunter, 450 bonifay Ave., Orlando, FL 32825.
This is a non-solicited commercial.
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