Ball of Yarns: from 87 years of worthy experience

By Franklin Ball

An engaging memoir, distinguished by its singularity, presents a series of unique stories from a life well-lived. The recollections once conveyed only to a close circle of family and friends, are shared in guileless prose. Follow the escapades of Frank Ball through his lifelong journey of youthful exploits, daring exploration, and unordinary adv

• Language: English
• Publisher: Franklin Ball
• Release date: Jan 14, 2020
• ISBN: 9781734210224

Franklin Ball

In 1931, the author, Franklin R. Ball, was born in San Diego. He grew to maturity in southern California as the middle member of a doctor's family, went to college in Utah, and did military service in Georgia, before returning to California for extended employment and recreational pursuits. He married and raised a small family before deploying to Antarctica, with his wife, in the launch of a secondary vocation. A third occupation developed in his advanced years as a volunteer master mechanic at a truck museum, again in Southern California. These callings provided enough practical and visionary exposure to give him a unique perspective for authoring engaging prose that can be recreational, even educational.

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Chapter One – Early On

In 1931, when the light of the world first entered my eyes, having gestated for the usual nine months, my birth surprised no one. Years before my baby brain could ascribe any significance, I found my family living in a rented house on El Cerrito Drive, in the part of San Diego City called Normal Heights, and normal was my head-to-toe condition, newly revealed when I came to the light, as the Italians say. As stated in America, I grew out of diapers there as the third living child of a young doctor’s family, the second son, surviving whooping cough and other afflictions, almost universal at that time to small children. It is likely my arrival, enlarging the family by 25 percent, triggered the move to a more expansive house in La Mesa, rented for $35 a month in 1932, probably a bargain even in the gloomy financial atmosphere following the economic depression after 1929.

In our La Mesa house, I first became aware that other creatures besides me could feel physical pain, which was an epiphany for me. My brother blew a household fuse by inserting a spread-out bobby pin into both holes of a wall socket. The injury, not an electrical shock, was the pain of blistering spring steel held by juvenile fingers, ending that childhood experiment stripped of the deliberate composure, so evident at the beginning.

The Reo

At the age of three, the expansion of my early experience continued, this time involving me more directly than just as a bystander. It occurred on the street outside the La Mesa house, on Lookout Street, now Lee Street. The house was situated next to a paved roadway, urbanized with curbs on both sides but houses on only one, a grade, not steep but with significance as you will see, and an undeveloped field at the roadside across the street from our house. This field on the other side of the road sloped downhill from the pavement, where wild oats grew about knee-high to an adult. My father’s car, parked a little improperly on the left side of the street beside the house, was a 1931 Reo Flying Cloud sedan, four-door, with a parking brake operated by a straight vertical lever reaching through the floor to the driver’s right hand; the brake lever had a shiny release button at the top. The car was parked pointing uphill, with the curb on the left, the driver side, the front wheels turned away from the curb as they should be, but parked somewhat farther from the curb than would be allowed by sound practice, there being perhaps a foot and a half of space between the front tire and the curb.

In the front seat beside me, my brother Newt, a year and a half my senior and having a keen mind for mechanical things even at this tender age, explained that the button on top of the parking brake lever was hard to depress, but the pressing could be made freer by first pulling back on the brake lever. Having accomplished this tutelage without a completed manifestation, leaving me in the car, Newt lost interest perhaps to go search for another mind, just as vacuous, to fill with bad ideas.

Remaining alone in the front seat with the driver door open to the curb, I contemplated the details of the recent lesson, wondering what it would be like to press the button, perhaps to see what hidden jewel of knowledge pressing it could reveal. In time I could not resist the urge to complete the demonstration. First pushing down on the stubborn button, then pulling back on the lever while pressing the button down, released action beyond my expectation. The brake lever flew forward, releasing the wheels to roll freely. In silence, the car glided backward and to the right, swinging the left-front wheel to climb the curb with a jolt, throwing me out of the open driver door onto the street.

Tumbling just out of the way, I was barely brushed by the car as it launched a lonely journey. Wheels unguided by human hands and turned hard to the right, the Flying Cloud flew silently through more than a U-turn in a tail-first coast on the street. Stopped by gravity as it started going uphill backwards, the car now angled toward the far curb and the oats of the open field beyond. Gravity caused the vehicle, now aiming downhill, to roll forward, continuing across the street and jumping the other curb with a lurch.

My father, coming out to verify the wisdom of the activity of his two curious sons, belatedly it must be said, rushed to the scene, wearing only a bathrobe and slippers. Taking a quick look to see that I was unhurt, he proceeded to sprint across the street, over the field of wild oats, in pursuit of his only car, which was still picking up speed. I sat on the curb to watch, never before having seen a running adult, not even an adult more modestly clothed. The car, finally coming to a stop, level ground diluting its impulse to move faster than my father’s middle-age sprint, allowed the race to finish in a tie about fifty yards away. Exhausted and exasperated, Father returned the Reo to the street, parking it correctly and feeling, I think, some fault for the fiasco.

If this description strikes you as fictional, allow me a technical explanation, given here for those with mechanical training or those interested in delving into more detail. Automotive suspension design—in particular, the steering geometry—incorporates what is called caster. Caster, as in the wheels of a shopping cart, will conduce the front wheels of a forward-rolling car to roll straight ahead, negative feedback tending to resist any side-to-side direction applied to the steering system. A result of this design feature is that if the car is rolling backward instead, feedback is reversed to positive so any directional setting of the steerable wheels will be exaggerated, directing the steering system to swing spontaneously to one stop or the other.

This effect is muted in modern cars by the subsistence of power steering; in older cars, the results can be dramatic. It so happened the right-turned setting of the front wheels at the start of this story was enhanced first by the car rolling backward, turning the driverless car around to be stopped by gravity. Then the car moved forward, again by gravity, causing the turned wheels to straighten, rolling across the street and beyond.

My brother, Newton, the other child participant in this story, telling me more than eighty years later, said before the time of my experience, he tested his understanding of the brake-lever system once or twice by himself on other days. In his experience, releasing the parking brake as I did, permitted the car to roll back only a little; the left-front tire engaged the curb with a satisfying bump, without climbing the curb for a run-away result.

Grandparents

As a family with three children, an older daughter and two sons, we often drove to South Pasadena to visit my mother’s parents, Cora and Newton Evans. Newton, with medical training at Cornell University School of Medicine, was a leading member of the California medical community, a pioneer, and instrumental in the rescue of the educationally and financially struggling medical school in Loma Linda, the College of Medical Evangelists, now Loma Linda University. He became the medical director of White Memorial Hospital before death put an end to his medical career. As grandparents, the couple could seem pretty austere; their Seventh-Day Adventist religious persuasion dominated the household.

On the wall behind my grandfather`s office desk, above his head, a framed statement hung in strident view of any student that might come to him for a sympathetic review of a personal problem.

"The atmosphere is darkened by the murmurings and whimperings of men and women over the non-essentials, the trifles that are inevitably incident to the hurly burly of the day’s routine. Things cannot always go your way. Learn to accept in silence the minor aggravations; cultivate the gift of taciturnity and consume your own smoke with an extra draught of hard work, so that those about you may not be annoyed with the dust and soot of your complaints.

Sir William Osler (1849-1919)"

I don’t mean to be hard on them; they were loving grandparents, even forgiving. Once, they purchased a new mohair sofa upholstered in a pelt of fine fibers, all standing straight out from the structure of woven cloth, which was stretched tightly. I was a lone visitor, my family requiring a parking place for me while on some errand that was inappropriate for a child of my age. Deciding on my own that the new sofa fabric could be made better, I found my grandmother’s sewing scissors and trimmed a patch of the mohair bristles, about the size of my young hand, as close to the woven fabric as possible, in a highly conspicuous place on the back cushion. It is more than likely that suffer the little children … came into play, saving me from a thrashing of lasting memory.

New Car

The Reo and I engaged again in another setting. I was riding in the front passenger seat, my father driving, my older brother and sister in the back seat, so their view of the sky in front of the car was limited by the top border of the windshield. My father spotted, from the driver’s seat, a flying seagull nearby. He pointed it out insistently to us children, but my brother and sister were unable to see the bird from the back seat. The focus of his driving was diverted long enough for Father to run squarely into the back of a car parked on the side of the street, the sudden stop projecting me headfirst to meet the dashboard of unpadded steel, slicing the skin of my forehead. A fountain of my blood decorated the scene. The inside of the car was only stained, and my scalp recovered nicely following first-aid treatment, but the crash damage in front of the engine was extensive enough to motivate my father to buy a new car, a 1937 Lincoln Zephyr.

Bat and Ball

Another event drawing blood resolved a childhood misunderstanding between my brother and me. For Christmas, probably, we were given a baseball bat and ball to provide wholesome entertainment and exercise. Newt’s first attempt to make the swinging bat connect successfully with the ball was a miss. His focus was on doing a better job with a second try, while my attention was on crowding in to see that my rights to a turn were not infringed. With the next try, Newt connected with a ball all right, but it was the wrong ball. The skin of my eyebrow, pinched between a swinging bat and hardheaded bone, yielded its blood supply to the surrounding world. The jolt to my head and the blood running into my eye from above altered my attitude, and that of my brother as well. Now on the same team, our focus was to obtain adult help to stem the bloody flood. It was a joint learning experience, so we both used better judgment in the following use of the sports equipment.

Dogs

My family lived in La Mesa long enough for me to learn to tie my shoes and ride a bicycle. A baby sister, Mary, was born, pleasantly diluting the parental attention paid to my brother and me. In addition to children my father acquired a handsome Doberman Pinscher bitch, Mina, to whom he became very attached. She produced a purebred litter of puppies. To be groomed to the Doberman style, they needed their tails cut short and their ears trimmed to a sharp point, standing noticeably and militarily erect. My father, who was medically trained, saw no reason these operations should not be accomplished by him personally. He had no difficulty cropping the tails, but the ears did not turn out so well, in some cases drooping insistently, making the amateur nature of the surgery cruelly apparent when the two sides did not match. One pup had an ear that refused to heal straight, the scar tissue pulling the shape into a permanent curl; likely to Father’s dismay, the puppy’s name became Curly.

Parents

My parents had a reasonable relationship in many ways. They were legally married, until my father’s death parted them. My mother, a homemaker of cognitive aptitude, was loving and showed a studied interest in children’s development. My father, a good provider, devoted to his clinical practice, showed a vindictive streak when confronted with marital friction. In place of verbal arguments containing any fragment of logic, he would, like a scratched record, repeat a ditty he composed for such occasions:

"Ooo she’d rather be pitied than loved, than loved.

She’d rather be pitied than loved.

For when she’s not pitied, she gets sooo nitwitied,

She’d rather be pitied than loved."

Regardless of how my mother might respond, by voice or silent blush, or even without any response at all, he would recite another rendition of the ditty, the emphasis increasing with each repetition, until absurdity prevailed.

Sex was part of their relationship, as evidenced by the family of five children. But eventually, my father took up with a lady employee, in whose bed he passed away with a second coronary occlusion.

As an employer, my father was well liked by his employees, even though their number was limited to a half dozen or so. As a rule, he stood up for them in a crisis and took an interest in their personal needs, but he was not above some trickery on occasion. At the clinical laboratory, from time to time, the supply of the chemical reagent ethyl alcohol fell below explainable levels. For those readers that do not know, ethyl alcohol is the intoxicating alcohol type responsible for a giddy feeling enjoyed by some when taken internally by mouth and inebriation when the giddiness is overdone.

Study of the problem of the missing reagent, revealed a correlation between the shortages and the house-party dates of one of the lab technicians. As a party date approached, my father laced the lab alcohol supply with a prokinetic agent, a powerful laxative. The resulting tone at the party added septic urgency to the giddy conversation. The message reached its mark, putting an end to shortages of the alcohol reagent!

Pine Hills

We bought a plot of unimproved rural land in Pine Hills, an acre or two I think, near Julian; by we, I mean my father purchased the property, often taking the family there on weekends. In season, we looked forward to picking wild strawberries. Using only childish judgment not yet jelled by experience, I single-handedly, and successfully built a small campfire on the forest floor. Becoming distracted, I left the burning fire alone, focusing my attention elsewhere. Much later, on the automobile ride home, it occurred to me that I did not extinguish the fire! The mental image of the dire results likely to ensue tormented me with painful intensity, but the torment failed to outweigh the embarrassment I would suffer if I were to confess my foolishness. Luckily, the fire went out harmlessly, without the company of its child progenitor.

On the road near our Pine Hills property, my father would often let the dog, Mina, run beside the car for exercise in the final mile or so. One such trip did not turn out well. My uncle, Clare, my father’s brother, was visiting; he asked to drive the car with the dog running alongside. The road was narrow and rough, confusing Clare’s callow judgment, and he somehow ran over the dog. It was fatal for the dog and nearly fatal for Clare, as my father reacted in emotional desperation.

Move to Alpine

About four years hence, the human and canine population outgrew the rented living space in La Mesa, motivating my father, who always felt a kinship to the Vermont farmers with whom he was raised, to purchase an improved but rural property in Alpine. El Rancho Metate was five acres with three houses and two functioning water wells, now subdivided and served by Ball Ranch Road. Shortly after our move to Alpine, my mother closed her childbearing years with a cesarean birth, another son, John William, nicknamed Billy. Billy completed the set of living children born as my siblings, two girls and three boys. By age, I rank dead center, by mature weight, the smallest of the set.

Church

As a young family, we attended church with the Seventh-Day Adventist persuasion, usually choosing the meeting location in Lemon Grove. Following our move to Alpine, we continued to participate in the usual place, but the travel time was much longer. Gradually our attendance slacked off until the devoted segment of the congregation counted our family among the backsliders.

During the time we were still attending church, a community of kids about my age would gather in the churchyard. While the adults were engaged in ways to improve our religious purity, we entertained ourselves with mumbelthepeg, a competitive game that involved balancing a pocketknife, blade pointing down, on a fingertip, and trying to flip the blade to stick in a target on the ground. Another pocketknife activity was prying open the door in the nest of a trapdoor spider, with the spider struggling to keep it closed. We found that spiders of this species can demonstrate extraordinary strength and determination.

Among our group of entertainment-seeking youngsters was one young man who was born with a cleft palate. His condition had not been corrected with surgery, so even though his speech sounded odd, we were all amazed and much entertained to watch him put a blade of grass in his mouth and pull it out of his nose. The Lemon Grove church was close to the railroad. When we would hear a train coming in the distance, we would place pennies on the track. Sometimes, after the train passed, we could find the smeared coppers as if on a treasure hunt, pocketing the thin elliptical scraps as souvenirs.

As juveniles, none of these activities helped cement our attachment to the events behind the large double doors at the front of the church. An example of a dreaded event, abiding as lasting in my memory as a tattoo on skin, was the activity called witnessing. The preacher, with pietistic zeal concealing his lack of preparation, would ask for someone from the audience to come forward and bear witness. In response to this plea, some brave member of the congregation would–hesitatingly, it must be said–step up to the podium, relating in a voice wavering with tearful ardor, self-consciousness, or both, some moving circumstance that brought them closer to God. The investment of time to accomplish the first success, the icebreaker, steeled our preacher to coerce more volunteers to step forward.

When the portion of the congregation in this fervent mood began to look like a majority, I, having no appropriate existential experience to draw on, went into a full panic, apprehensive that I would become the only person remaining seated in the pews, which would be a most inelegant circumstance. It never came to that, but I felt pressed to contemplate the stage of this proceeding when I would be forced to bolt for the true peace outside. Would I say, Excuse me or feign nausea?

Chapter Two – Alpine

In the 1940s, Alpine was a small community in the rural reaches of San Diego County, a place where young people were raised free of many of the civilized constraints dreaded by the youth of more urban settings. It might be said, my impression brings me to generalize too much, stemming from the example provided by my rearing. Free to do almost anything, I often did, occasionally experiencing eloquent personal pain, embarrassment, or damage as a result.

My father, a doctor, practiced his pathologist training, working diligently at his business—a clinical laboratory in downtown San Diego—and serving as the staff pathologist at several hospitals around the county. During the Second World War, he was the only civilian pathologist in San Diego, a circumstance that kept him out of the military, even though his age or health would not have. He did many autopsies, even on zoo animals that died mysteriously, in particular, the two mountain gorillas donated by Martin and Osa Johnson.

The gorillas died of valley fever, likely caused by public spectators throwing dirt clods at them to stir them to move in their cages. It is not unrealistic to presume that he performed more autopsies in his life than anyone else in the world. He spent nearly two hours a day just driving to and from work, which noticeably limited his time concession for domestic pursuits, but was compensated by personal effort. Seeing the exhaust manifold of our Fordson tractor glowing red-hot long after dark, and traveling slowly to and fro in the distance, is one of my memories.

My mother’s persuasion was to have faith in the innate ability of human children to choose activities that were proper training for the possibility that adulthood would be attained, even if some danger by lack of mature sense might chance to intervene. If this attitude strikes you as remarkable, as it does me, we can wonder together about its origin. It was—at least to some extent, I am motivated to guess—a reaction to her repressive early training, which came with an excessive emphasis on a substantial commitment to continuous comely and accountable behavior. She responded by becoming an advocate with the attitude that experimental human pursuit is powerful medicine, taken at any age.

The Woody

As a preteen, nothing interested me more than automobiles. In 1941, my father purchased a second car, a new Mercury station wagon, a woody in modern vernacular. When my friends came to visit, we could spend hours in this car, parked in the garage, taking turns in the driver’s seat, shifting, steering, and operating the throttle, clutch, and brake pedals, all the while providing plenteous vocalizations for proficient sound effect. In turn, each successive driver would try to put on a show to top the efforts that went before. The scenes we choreographed were realistic to us, even if they might seem a little preposterous to an unbiased observer. We began to visualize actually being in motion and driving the car on roads and traffic that can only be imagined by a fertile and dedicated wit—roads so treacherous and narrow the tires on the outside edge of a mile-high cliff trail would have only half of the tread contacting the pathway, the other half hanging over the edge, with nothing to grip but air.

We could drive on calls to transport a priceless cargo of diamonds while being chased by desperados firing guns, targeting to shatter our windows and inflict grazing injury to the chauffeur’s scalp. The challenge would include a creepy spider crawling into the driver’s ear or a large black bird flying in through the broken window to peck the driver’s eyes, blood running down his face and arms, making the steering wheel too slippery to grip. All this while the brake pedal falls to the floor because of some sinister sabotage; suddenly there is the need to double clutch for a downshift, slowing the car for an upcoming hairpin turn. Engine problems would include a knocking sound, made by throwing a rod from being over revved as the tires would lose traction on icy patches. All of this might come to a sudden end when the operator’s older sister, appearing suddenly from another world, would announce in a condescending voice coupled with disparaging body language, It’s time for supper.

First Car

When I was about ten years old, my brother, Newton, and I were walking around just exploring our Alpine neighborhood. The property adjoining ours was that of Ye Alpine Tavern, a commercial enterprise in the business of providing residential accommodations for rent by the day, week, or month. Ye Alpine Tavern, a hotel in function, looked to us like a large house with outlying cabins. As an institution, it had commodious historical significance, being in business since the days of the horse-drawn stagecoach. In fact, large photographic prints that hung on the walls of the lobby indicated, with vivid documentation, that it had been a scheduled stop for the horse-drawn stagecoach, one day’s travel east out of downtown San Diego.

We approached Ye Alpine Tavern by crossing their backyard, so