Claims have been made that the first official handball court was constructed in Brooklyn in 1877. There have been disputes over this fact (get a life. All good things come from Brooklyn) but it is indisputable that handball was a large part of the culture while I was growing up and remains so today, thanks to our great public parks system. Scenes similar to the one above/right have been typical for decades; people playing while others are lined up on the fence waiting for the next game.
I suppose in part, my interest had a great deal to do with the fact that my dad had been handball champion of Brooklyn for two years in a row during the thirties. Family legend has it that he beat Chuck Conners (The Rifeman) in the finals one year. I went with him every weekend, and sometimes after he came home from work, I'd follow him up to the playground. My dad played in all seasons - loved the game. In fact he played his whole life, until he was about 70 years old, and I was never able to beat him once. Put us in a racquetball court, however... but that's a different story.
Back in the late fifties/early sixties, on the court on 65th Street between 3rd and 2nd Avenues, in our neighborhood in Bay Ridge, there were living legends of the game with names like; "The Mouse" (a small very quick man), "Mr. Slick" (a sweaty guy who never wore a shirt so you slid right off him) and of course, "The Killer" - who was regularly able to make killer shots - seemingly on demand. A 'killer' is a shot wherein the ball is hit by a player and lands so close to the bottom of the wall that, when it comes off the wall, there is no bounce produced - the ball simply rolls away from the wall - and the opponent cannot return it.
Handball can be played in 'singles' - one player against another - or in 'doubles' - two players on each of two teams. With four players on the court it can get a little crowded, but it's still alot of fun and a good workout.
One day during school - must have been in the 3rd grade - my teacher, Mrs. Gorenson, asked the class if anyone had any sports or games they would like to introduce to the class. Presented with this opportunity to brag about my dad and teach the kids something that I knew about, my hand was the first to shoot up. Mrs. Gorenson picked me and I began telling them about handball.
After I described the basic rules Mrs. Gorenson agreed that we would all try it during gym class, outside in the school yard. I went to a very small elementary school. There were only about 20 kids in my classroom and that encompassed 1st through 4th grades. Of the 20 kids in the class, about 10 of us were in the higher grades - 3rd or 4th - and possessed enough eye-hand coordination to participate. Probably the same crew of ruffians who played 'crack-top' and 'buck-buck' or 'Johnny on the Pony' at recess.
When Mrs. Gorenson said "all", she meant all. There was only one wall area in the school yard large enough to consider playing handball against, and no one was to be left out. I tried to explain to her that playing doubles makes it crowded enough. To have 5 people on each team - for a total of 10 people running around trying to stay out of each others way, in an area 20 feet wide by 30 feet long - was insane. But there was no reasoning with the white haired Mrs. Gorenson. "No one is to be left out, David."
So how do you alter the rules to play handball with 10 kids at the same time? Normally, when you play doubles, there are 2 outs per side - one for each player on the team. When one team reaches 2 outs the serve switches to the other team, where they serve until they have reached two outs. When you complete the cycle; 2 outs for one team, then 2 outs for the next, you have completed one 'inning'. The only logical approach seemed to be to have each of the players on a team serve until they're out, then the next player and the next until 5 outs are reached. Then switch serves and follow the same approach. Logical, right?
To show everyone how it worked, I was selected to make the first serve. Immediately 9, 8 and 9 year old kids rushed the ball - including the kids from my own team. Big collision.
Long story short; by the time we were done with one inning of 5 on 5 handball, the score was 35 - 3 (handball is typically a '21 points wins' game), 5 kids were sitting off to the side crying, with bloody knees and elbows or black eyes, and recess was over. Mrs. Gorenson pronounced it the worst sport ever invented and I was forbidden to play it - or to even mention it - again at school.
8 comments:
I'll never forget that "handball court", right next to the "basketball court" behind the school. Mrs Gorenson was a real piece of work, strict, yet look at all the future "comics" she had to handle, all by herself! Dolphy sure was one of the last of her kind, that's for sure. COMPLETE control in the classroom of all 8, then 4 grades when we got a new teacher. I remember a ruler she would use for discipline, were you ever on the receiving end of it? She didn't need to use it much, that I know, she was very stern. Do you remember her husband, our "Gymnasium teacher", got all this equiptment donated for us to do all sorts of gymnastics, trampoline, mats, etc.......?
I also meant to say that the "handball court" was actually the back wall of the local Bohack's grocery store on 6th ave between 50th and 51st.
Well... I sure was on the receiving end of Mrs. Gorenson's ruler. I'll never forget the first time. I was scared shi*less with anticipation. What would happen out there 'in the hall'? Lowel has survived. Will I? After my first time I wondered what the big deal was. I'm ashamed to say that after a couple of years, it became a badge of honor to be told to "get out into the hall!"
The one thing that amazed me about Dolphy's husband (Pastor(?) Gorenson) was that he was as white-haired as she was and a million years old, but could lay on his back on the tumbling mat and spring up onto his feet, simply by using his legs and back muscles. Do you remember that? Man, he was an amazing athlete.
Yeah, I sure remember the Pastor (don't remember, or even know if I knew, his real first name!) He went on a letter writing campaign to all these gym companies, and got the school a bunch of donated gymnastic equiptment. He got professional mat's, trampoline, vault box, and that contraption whose name I can't remember, but I would always be embarassed on, the one I think called parrallel (sp) bar. We actually had "GYM" class after he got all that stuff, and I was always part of the "base", or lower level, of when we'd make those human triangles. I think that's why I now suffer from back problems! But you're right, what a fit old Man he was. As I remember, he could use every piece of gym equiptment with great competence, even at his age, what, of at least 60? Watching him hit that trampoline then do a flip over the vault was a transforming life experience for me. I'd never seen ANYONE do that, let alone a 60 year old, white haired man. God surely blessed that man!
Remamber Mr Mengees =I think that was his name , He would do that woody woodpecker thing. Ms.G had a shoe box full of stuff of mine. Including handballs ,golfballs,cigar pens ,fart pags.finger nail pen,Apple blossom perfume{a small vile rotten egg smelling liquid},Super balls of all sizes and what ever she had confiscated from me over the the years.Looking back, I like to think of all those things she took from me, thinking they were a distraction, as my teaching aids.I needed that stuff to learn and she took them away. boohoo I forget who I was with when we found the stuff in her unlocked closet.She had a yit load of stuff she had confiscated from all of us, from first to fourth grade. The smell of orange zest always brings back the memories of Ms. G at lunch time . She had an orange peel ritiual after eating .She would scratch her nails on the peel and make that fresh orange aroma fill the class room.
Wow,
Lowel, you just brought back a flood of memories. We used to buy Apple Blossom down at that joke/novelty shop on the corner of 52nd Street(?) and 4th or 5th Avenue. They had all sorts of stuff in there, including the 'French' playing cards. Nothing left to the imagination in there. I remember once you threw some Apple Blossom into Lydia's hair. She was pissed and it stunk!
Remember the 'Zulu Guns'? The blow dart gun that we put needles into one end of and tied a string to the other end so you'd blow it out into someone's butt, then pull it back real quick? They never knew what hit them.
I remember Mr. Mengees too. He was the higher grade (5th - 8th grade) teacher when we were in first grade. He went to school (GNYA) with my brother. Once you, James, Ted(?) and I were outside the school and I was saying, "You know why his name is Mengees? Because when he eats grilled cheese sandwiches, the cheese gets all over his face."
Nobody laughed, but looked guiltily over my shoulder. I turned around to see Mr. Mengees glaring at me with those gigantic piercing eyes of his. I jumped 10 feet in the air and took off running. He never brought it up.
Weird how these things come back.
That 'apple blossom' stuff WAS really popular back when. Lowel, I guess you were the only one with big enough cojones to use it at school!!!! I can still smell it now, forty plus years later!!!!!
James G.
awesome memory...thanks for the share. as gratitude towards ur share, i posted ur article in https://www.facebook.com/NewYorkHandballersNews?fref=tck with aims for the handball community to hear ur story. :D
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