This correspondence was with Sheila's binders and retyped by Brigid.
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June 21, 2008
Dear Sheila,
Pat and I enjoyed the opportunity we had yesterday to chat with you and your family. While the circumstances of the occasion were sad, and certainly all of you wre thinking of John, we did have a chance to remember old Fitzgerald/barker stories. Those days on Seventh and Eighth Avenue seem so long ago and they are. We had an exceptional neighborhood with all those Edison School kids. I mentioned I had three stories to share with you. I told you the two about your mother, feeding of the hobo, something you knew from your own experience, and the TV story.
I‘ve enclosed the third story. I have already sent a copy to Pat and Coke.
I know Sylvia will be interested in a report on your family. Since today is her birthday, I’ll call her and give her the details. She has mentioned enjoying her renewed friendship with you.
Best wishes to all the Fitzgeralds,
Dave
Dave Barker
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I Betcha
Pat Fitzgerald lived next door to me on Seventh Street. He was my sister’s age, about two and a half years older than I, but we were about the same size. As one of the middle children in a family with six feisty kids, he had to learn to look out for himself at an early age. Every time we got into a wrestling match or other scuffle, I was invariably the loser. By the time I was eight, my life ambition was to beat him at something.
From the Saturday afternoon movies at the Lawler Theater, which offered predominately B grade westerns, we had learned that people get tied up in these films, not emotionally or occupationally, but with rope wrapped around their wrists and ankles. In an age before clothes dryers, every backyard had clothes lines to handle the weekly washing. Our mothers threatened us with severe punishments if we so much as touched these woven cotton ropes. There was nothing that provided rage in a mother like bringing out a laundry basket of freshly washed clothes only to find her clothes line missing. This could result in grounding for life for the culprit. Even so, we somehow always had enough of this indispensable raw material for our inventions and projects.
Not infrequently, playing with the clothes line followed a predictable course, particularly after one of the Saturday westerns. First we would try to lasso each other or whatever was handy. This was much harder to do then we thought. Our cowboy heroes were so good at it They never missed a steer or an outlaw that was trying not get away.
When we finally tired of corralling each other, and being totally unsuccessful at spinning a loop, someone would say, “I betcha I can tie you up so you can’t get loose.”
After several “Naw ya can’t.” or “You couldn’t the last time,” one of us would agree to be tied. We would wrap the victim’s wrists and ankles as we had seen the bad guys do before they left the hero in the mine shack with a lighted fuse burning toward a box of dynamite. Often as not, the “tyee” got away almost as easily and quickly as the movie hero did, though we never had to dispose of any dynamite.
One evening when my father was reading the Post Bulletin, I approached him rope in hand. I was determined to learn the secret of tying up someone so they couldn’t get away. I knew there had to be a system for doing it because the sheriff had to bring in the bad guys after he rounded them up and he had to keep them from attacking him.
“Dad?” I said, holding out my tying rope to him.
“Yes, Dave.”
“How da ya tie somebody up so they can’t get away?”
My father recognized this as a serious question of considerable importance. He put the paper in his lap and thought for a moment.
“What’s the problem?” he asked.
I explained our afternoon adventures and how unsuccessful I had been trying to tie up Pat as I had bet I could.
“Is there some really secret way to tie someone so they can’t get away?” “Well,” he said, “the secret is to tie the person’s hands apart from each other so that one hand can’t help the other hand get loose. You see, if you tie the person’s hands tightly, the only way they can get loose is to until the knots.”
Then he showed me how to tie a square knot explaining that it was the best knot for tying things securely and that it would not come undone by itself. To illustrate, he demonstrated the granny knot which looks like a square knot, but can easily be loosened.
I was fascinated. There REALLY was a secret to it! I was sure I would soon be the best “tyer upper” in the whole neighborhood. I tried to get my sister Sylv to practice on, but she would have none of it. She was highly suspicious of what her slimy brother might do to her once she was unable to defend herself. Tickling might be the least of my tortures. No number of “I promise not tos” would convince her. Younger brother Bob at age four was no challenge, but I was sure my mother would take a dim view if I practiced on him. I was left doing some trial runs on the posts of my bed. I need a resp person to test my new found secrets which could make me king of the neighborhood.
One Saturday morning about the third weekend in June, we were getting ready to go to Gull Lake for a two week vacation. I had been packed for hours, though my mother had redone the job adding several more outfits and much more underwear. I made sure my fishing rod was next to Dad’s tackle box along with my life jacker. With my reputation for falling into any body of water I was near, this was mandatory.
I wandered outside and saw Pat sitting on his back steps playing with the Fitzgerald’s dog, “Rumper”.
Very casually I said, ‘I betcha I can tie you up so you can’t get loose.”
He looked at me in disbelief. “Naw ya can’t. Ya’ve never done it before. I can get away from anything you tie. Remember last week? I set a new world’s records getting loose that time.” “Well let me try again. I think I can doit this time. But ya gotta promise to do what I say.” A betcha is a challenge. It is different from “I dare ya”, which is a questioning of courage and athletic ability such as “I dare ya to climb to the top of that tree over there.” It’s also different from a double dog dare ya, which is a challenge that may involve injury to life or limb, one that the challenger isn’t crazy enough to try. Going down the Eighth Avenue hill in a Radio Flyer wagon would be a double dog.
A betcha is mano e mano, me against you. It has a winner and a loser. There’s a lot of pride at stake.
Pat eventually accepted the challenge. I led him through the gate into our backyard which was completely enclosed by a white picket fence about five feet high. The pickets were separated from each other by 2 inch spaces.
“Now,” I said. “You have to stand with your back to the fence and spread your arms out as far as you can.”
This was a new wrinkle in being tied up and Pat wanted no part of it. I had to repeat my directions several times. I think he sensed that this was not going to be as easy as he had thought. I told him he had promised. I may have thrown in a “don’t be a chicken” or two. Finally, he stretched out his arms.
I tied his left wrist to the farthest picket he could reach. Then I made him stretch his right arm out as far as he could, and tied his right wrist to that picket being very careful both times to use square notes. With the left over rope, I tied his ankles to pickets also.
“Now try to get loose.” I challenged in my most triumphant voice. This time I had him! He began straining as hard as he could, but the ropes were tight. He tried to kick out at me, but I had secured his ankles well enough that he couldn’t reach me. I began to laugh at his frustration which only enraged him more. He kept repeating “I’ll get you for this.” Then I heard my Dad call, “Come on everyone. It is time to go.” I rushed out the gate and was the last one in the car. Quickly we were out the driveway and on our way.
When we had gone about three blocks, I panicked. My vivid imagination was picturing what I would find when we got back from vacation. I knew Pat could never get loose from those square knots. He could never get one had to work on untying the other. I pictured a little skeleton hanging on the fence still tied by the wrists and ankles.
“Dad,” I said sheepishly. “I have to go back home.”
“How come?” he asked.
I knew we had all been looking forward to this vacation and all of us were eager to get gong.
Nobody wanted to turn around.
“I forgot something really important,” I said.
Gratefully he didn’t interrogate me further. He turned around and drove back. When we pulled into the driveway, I jumped out before the car even stopped and ran to the back yard.
To say Pat was furious was a gross understatement. When he saw me all he could say was “I’ll get you. So help me I’ll get you.” And he said it over and over.
Gingerly I went to work on the knot on his right wrist, the one nearest the gate. When I got half of the knot untied, he shook his had as hard as he could and loosened the rest of the knot. All the time he was muttering what he would do to me when he got loose, injecting his comments with words I knew he hadn’t learned from the nuns in catechism school.
I didn’t wait any longer. I sprinted out the gate, raced the short distance down the driveway and jumped into the car. “Let’s go!” I shouted trying to hide my panic.
Dad backed out of the drive and we were off. My only hope was that a two weeks’ absence would be enough for Pat to forget that he had lost the ’betcha’.
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NOTES:
Patrick William Fitzgerald
I Betcha
Dave Barker
