When author Steven P. Locke was a twelve-year-old boy growing up in Canal Winchester, Ohio, he witnessed something extraordinary-a championship football season, coached by his father Mike, that for a brief moment captivated a small Ohio town. A combination memoir and sports history, Little Locke and the Mighty Indians of 1975 chronicles the high school football team's winning year from the perspective of the coach's son. It paints a portrait of the town and its people as it was at the time-the way people lived, the music they listened to, the television shows they watched, their politics, and the mores of the time. It also focuses on the ten-game season-how football was practiced and played, the grueling nature of two-a- days, his father's coaching style, the growing attention paid to the team as each victory led to more pressure to succeed the following week, and the town that followed and cheered them on in summer heat, driving rain, bitter cold, and disappointment. A snapshot of a town, its people, and their way of life in the second half of the twentieth century, Little Locke and the Mighty Indians of 1975 provides a firsthand look into the sense of wonderment and excitement of the experience from the eyes of a twelve-year-old boy

Little Locke and the Mighty Indians of 1975

By Steven P. Locke

iUniverse, Inc.

Copyright © 2012 Steven P. Locke
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4759-4345-0

Chapter One

MY ROOM: 1975

Asleep in the down of summer, at that light Cricket's uplept, blinking their feet, and frogs Trilled in their valley ponds. (Joseph Langland - Aria for Flute and Oboe)

"Steven Paul Locke! Get down here this instant!" Summoned by all three names is universal-code for the parental hammer to fall. In my case it fell often but was exasperated when one of my friends – Greg Bruce – happened to be on hand for execution. Not that Greg witnessed an embarrassing scene but rather he learned my full name - Steven Paul Locke. At the time – 1975 – 'Pollock' jokes were all the rage for those of us about to enter junior high school; and the alliteration 'Paul-Locke' was more than close enough to 'Pollock' to merit weeks of torment.

The fact that I was even in my bedroom indicated malfeasance. As a teen I spent considerable time cloistered within its walls, but as a kid couldn't bear the confinement, disappearing before bedtime only when guilty of some heinous transgression. Unbeknownst to yours truly, therefore, and very much like the proverbial canary in the coal mine, an unexplained absence on my part actually heightened Mom's suspicions, facilitating her search for broken furniture, spilt paint or shattered glass.

My second floor bedroom was the first thing guests encountered when reaching the top of our staircase. The staircase itself was small; five steps to a landing - then left and up eight more to the top. An immediate right - my parent's room; a left led down the narrow hallway to the communal bathroom - the vital core of any dwelling containing one or more Lockes. Beyond the all-important family bathroom was the third and final bedroom in the house, and it belonged to my sister – Laura Susanne Locke (Which unfortunately didn't rhyme with anything).

The upstairs doors were made of dark pine; with round, scuffed and faded door knobs surrounded by scuffed and faded rectangular brass plates. The keyholes in the center of those brass plates resembled symbols denoting women's restrooms: round 'head' with the outline of a 'dress' descending from its center. I mention it because I loved playing with their keys - looking as they did in the eyes of a young boy like keys to some lost pirate's treasure chest.

The floors, made of narrow wood planking, were over a half century old in 1975. They creaked and groaned when trod upon, attracted great wisps of dust that settled into its many cracks and grooves, and had an unfortunate tendency to harpoon the unshod with an inexhaustible supply of splinters. Fortunately, Mom had been a battlefield surgeon in a previous life, keeping peroxide, alcohol, tweezers, needle and magnifying glass on hand in a trauma kit for immediate extractions.

When a splinter hit its mark she arrived on scene - having followed the screams - with the speed and dexterity of a MASH surgeon. Indeed, it was not uncommon, about once every month or so, for Mom to stretch one of us out on the couch, steady a throbbing foot propped atop a pillow beneath the reading lamp, and make a thorough examination of some grievous wound; coolly poking, prodding and exploring the soles of our feet for tiny wooden spikes.

My bedroom walls were white – as were all the walls in our house. Two windows, side-by-side, looked out from the western edge of the house, about four feet from the foot of my bed. Those windows dated to the 1920s, and were made of heavy glass containing subtle streaks and indentations. They didn't look or feel like lightweight windows found in homes today. Heavy to begin with, they were also difficult to open; their wooden frames expanding and contracting with the changing seasons. Left ajar without support they sometimes slammed shut with a tremendous thud.

Even closed the windows shook and rattled violently whenever jets from nearby Rickenbacker Air Force Base eclipsed the sound barrier; rewarding residents surrounding the base with reverberating 'sonic booms.' The Air Base was big business, and important to our local economy. In 1940 the US had only 36 large airports nationwide. With the world at war a massive airport building project commenced; within a year 457 new air bases were under construction, and Rickenbacker was one of those, though it started out in 1942 as Lockbourne Army Air Base.

Located 11 ½ miles from Canal Winchester, many Air Force families lived in nearby Groveport and CW. Primarily an air refueling facility, Rickenbacker served in North America's Strategic Air Command, (SAC) from 1951 to 1979; their jets and tankers were very familiar to area residents. Two of my best friends were Air Force Brats and the base was an integral part of our daily lives. Besides Rickenbacker's planes enhancing the general din, I periodically misjudged how far to pull down the window shutters. Heavy shutters like those are rare today but in the 1970s were common.

Coated in some weird wax-paper texture; attached by string with a small loop to move each shutter up and down; they were temperamental - possessing minds of their own. In fact, our shutters retaliated if not treated with kid gloves, shooting upward in an attempt to eclipse the speed of sound, spinning violently - round and round - until it got it out of its system. The window panes in my room were covered in yellow, lead-based paint that flaked off easily in thick malleable chunks when scraped with one's fingernails. Despite the window's appearance they were evidently made to last as we never had one break.

In the 1970s only 35% of American homes had air conditioning and the Locke Clan was not among that coveted minority. Without air conditioning or ceiling fans our windows usually remained open day and night during the summers. Mercifully, a great Mulberry Tree stood outside my bedroom window providing shade and relief from the sun. At night I would lie awake watching its branches move in the breeze.

Streetlights behind the Mulberry shone through its leaves; creating weird shapes that sometimes looked like the moon hiding within its canopy. Perhaps it was just the power of suggestion as the moon was big news in the 1970s. The continuing Apollo missions appeared simultaneously on all three TV networks. One year I even got a 'G.I. Joe Astronaut,' complete with plastic space capsule for Christmas. When you're a kid the world is truncated, closer; more immediate. Things like leaning against car windows on long trips in the back seat, experiencing the sensation of heightened inner-ear vibrations as your head jiggles against glass, are very real. To that end I spent most summer nights gazing out those windows imagining the moon and the men who walked upon it just beyond our Mulberry tree.

A small closet to the right of the windows housed Dad's ties, dress shirts and slacks. During the workweek, lying in bed in the early morning, half asleep and half awake, I'd watch him select ties from the tie rack hanging inside of the closet door. Always quiet, he stood there every weekday tying his tie before descending the stairs and going off to work.

At the foot of the back closet wall, beyond Dad's ties and clothes, was a tiny door; a sort of closet-within-a-closet used to access attic storage. And that tiny door impacted my imagination entirely out of proportion to its diminutive size. Only four years old when first moved into that bedroom my preternaturally agitated mind ran wild when considering that closet-within-the-closet. I therefore kept both closet doors shut tight. For many years no doubt whatsoever existed in my fevered little brain that some unspeakable evil lurked behind that spooky inner closet door.

Looking back it's comforting rationalizing the normalcy of a small boy fearing the darkness and cobwebs filling that tiny space; but alas I was not - and am in no way, shape or form - 'normal.' My overactive boyhood imagination conjured innumerable fiendish creatures behind that door. By age twelve, however, one is old enough to know better; unfortunately, an instructive example of my warped outlook dates to that period.

During the summer of 1975, the Locke Clan saw the movie Jaws; and to my sister's everlasting delight the Great White shark that so ruthlessly devoured residents of Amityville had relocated – in my mind - to Canal Winchester, Ohio. He lived – at least at night - in my closet. After seeing the film I seriously considered the closet capable of filling with water; the Great White behind the door anxious to burst in, spilling into my bedroom to gnaw viciously on my slumbering, vulnerable, defenseless body. I was a weird little kid.

The trip to the Columbus' theater to see Jaws was in itself a big deal in our family. My sister Laura and I never wanted for anything but my family, like the vast majority of our neighbors and friends, didn't have much disposable income. We rarely went to the movies. When just three-years-old or thereabouts Mom and Dad took us to see The Song of the South, and I recall seeing Winnie the Pooh at the theater around the same age, but that was pretty much it.

Jaws, however, had become a phenomenon, being pretty-much all anybody talked about that summer. Most friends had seen it and my Uncle Phil - living in Bangor, Maine - phoned to say he was taking a hiatus from swimming in the ocean. Indeed, the film had entered the daily lexicon even in landlocked Canal Winchester, Ohio. When patronizing Bolenbaugh's Hardware Store to buy fishing lures the clerk, after espying an especially lethal jig asked, "You gonna try to catch Jaws with that thing!"

Despite repeatedly asking to see what all the fuss was about we had no luck persuading the folks to take us. At dinner one night, having asked if we could "please, please," see Jaws, Dad responded in his usual fashion he said nothing. Horace Greely's long-ago observation of President Grant - "He has nothing to say and keeps on saying it all day long" – was also apt for my father. But on this evening – after a time - turning his head and looking at me intently, he said, "Listen, movies have changed from when I was kid. They don't show the shark, then the person, and later a fin swimming in fake blood. They show the whole damn thing!"

Be that as it may, Laura and I were mortified (as only junior high-aged children are capable of mortification) at being the only two kids in Canal Winchester, Ohio - perhaps the entire country - who hadn't seen Jaws and loath to admit as much to our friends. We had pretty much given up when on the Friday before Labor Day weekend Mom and Dad descended the stairs in fashionable attire. As school teachers the folks dressed professionally September through June. Summer, on the other hand, was another matter and we knew something was up.

"Are we going to see Jaws?" Dad's economical rejoinder, "Get in the car!" couldn't have been clearer in the affirmative. We soon arrived on Columbus's east side to see the summer blockbuster of 1975. Exiting our car the parking lot filled with the last group to see the film, and I distinctly remember them looking rather haggard. Inside, once the lights went down and the movie started, you could hear a pin drop. When the music signaling the next shark attack, "Duh-dunt, Duh-dunt, Duh-dunt, DUH-DUH-DUH!" reached a crescendo; the tension could be cut with a knife. Unfortunately, the shark attacks triggered a Pavlovian response in my bladder.

I had to urinate with extreme prejudice. Stephen Spielberg's mechanical Great White shark literally scared the piss out of me. At one point, while moving sideways past those seated to my left - on the fourth or fifth restroom trip - I heard a woman say; "Now this is just getting ridiculous. That damn kid has something wrong with him!" I felt bad but bladders and bowels reign supreme in the physiological hierarchy; it was out of my control. Emerging into the sunlit uplands of the parking lot following the film we discovered the shark got to Mom as well. She had chewed completely through the strap of her purse, carrying it by the severed band on the way to the car. It was a quiet trip back to Canal Winchester.

On the other side of my bedroom - to the left of the windows in the corner - rested a small wooden ladder. Dark brown and with two small hooks atop each post, it was once part of a twin bunk-bed set. Its six rungs served as shelving for my beer can collection. Like Jaws, beer-can-collecting was popular in the 1970s, at least in Canal Winchester, Ohio.

Several friends boasted collections of three and four hundred cans. In my particular case the obsession with locating and acquiring said cans began two years earlier in Fifth grade. Strolling through town, Pabst Blue Ribbon, Black Label, Stroh's, Schlitz Malt Liquor, Miller, Budweiser, Rolling Rock and Busch beer cans were easily salvaged from alleys, dumpsters and back yards.

Unfortunately, Mom's reaction to the new hobby was not positive. MOM: "What are you doing with those?" STEVE: "I'm starting a beer can collection." MOM: "Oh, for God's sake Steven Paul, I don't want those nasty things in the house." STEVE: "Oh Mom, please! I promise I'll wash them out and it'll be really cool." MOM: "Uh, huh." Despite her dim view she hadn't said no – a definite green light to ten year olds - and so the acquisition, cleaning and sorting of discarded beverage containers commenced in earnest. Neat, linear and alphabetically ordered on the rungs of my little ladder the beer-can-collection inadvertently exposed my growing and pronounced anal-retentive streak.

Dad's reaction was somewhat different than mother's. Glancing at the neat rows of cans he said, "Cool," and then promised to help fill the rest of the ladder. "I'll drink em, and you save the empties boy." As with everything else in my life – both then and later – fanaticism, in this case regarding beer-can collecting, reared its ugly head. Cans quickly multiplied exponentially as junkyards, trash bins, the banks of Little Walnut Creek, alleyways and parking lots were scoured for empties.

In Mrs. Gardner's fifth grade classroom a thriving black market developed in beer cans. We traded beer cans; evaluated beer cans, priced beer cans and carried on earnest discussions as to the merits of each can's size, future value and present worth. One student even purchased an entire collection; an action deeply frowned upon by those of us without the liquidity to do the same.

Wagnall's Memorial Library in neighboring Lithopolis, had a beer can collection book in circulation; and after checking it out repeatedly its worn pages were eventually committed to memory. Alas, no one in the family circle was immune from beer can collecting responsibilities. Aunts and uncles, grandma and grandpa, friends of Mom and Dad all kept their eyes peeled for unique, unclaimed beer cans.

At Grandma and Grandpa Riddell's in Middletown that summer, Grandma took us to lunch one day to Frisch's Big Boy. Sitting in the back seat with Laura - scanning the roadside for cans – one prized cylinder caught my eye. I yelled "Stop Grandma, Stop!" Immediately slamming on her brakes my terrified grandmother - convinced she'd hit someone or something – pulled off the road. "Grandma, can you please pull into that parking lot? I see a beer can."

Mom was none too pleased, but Grandma pulled into the lot and stopped. Jumping out, I grabbed an empty, slightly dented, 24 ounce, Colt-45 Malt Liquor beer can. Climbing back into the car my sister rolled her eyes before shooting a disdainful 'Harrumph!' in my general direction. Grandma, sitting with her hand across her chest, kept repeating the words, "Mercy, mercy child; lord have mercy." Later, mother laid out explicit instructions not to do that while in transit - ever again.

The collection outgrew the ladder and so Grandpa Riddell spent an entire weekend building custom beer-can-shelves that eventually covered two walls. By the summer of 1975 it had grown into a handsome display containing well over 300 different cans of various sizes and colors. The crown jewel - a 132-ounce, gold and blue Oktoberfest beer can - rested dead center on the topmost shelf. Grandpa had surprised me with the can during a weekend visit. Reaching into a brown paper sack, he pulled out what looked like a small beer keg, placing it into my eager hands.

The memory of his handing me that can is clear to this day because it marked one of the few times when speechlessness fell upon the fountains of my great deep. Mute, silent, a literal cipher; beaming at the big gold shiny can, suspecting a hoax, a cruel joke. Perhaps a gag from some novelty-shop offered up to wrench uncontrolled emotion from a squat, slightly neurotic, hormonally challenged twelve year old.

(Continues...)

Excerpted from Little Locke and the Mighty Indians of 1975by Steven P. Locke Copyright © 2012 by Steven P. Locke. Excerpted by permission of iUniverse, Inc.. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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