Friend Hawkeye Wizard

[Bill Calfee]

Friend Hawkeye Wizard


Friend Hawkeye Wizard:


Ron, I just finished reading your new book and I thoroughly enjoyed it.


The most insightful parts, for me:


1....The reason you gave for becoming an engineer, which is the antithesis of why I became involved with 22 rifles.


2....Your comment at the bottom of page 90, last three sentences.....yes, throughout the ages the advancements we all take for granted as human beings were inspired by artists and implemented by engineers.


Hawkeye, readers of your new book will thoroughly understand exactly who Ron Elbe is.


Now, I have one mild criticism.........I personally wish there were less softball in your new book and much more Blue Streak....


Ron, again, I thoroughly enjoyed your new book....


You need not respond as I'm simply thinking out loud after finishing an excellent book...


Your LBK and pistol fool friend, Bill Calfee

 

[Hawkeye Wizard]

Well, Bill, as you can imagine there’s a story behind my softball career.

My father was a great baseball player. Unfortunately his opportunity to become a professional baseball player was curtailed by WW II.

(Here’s an aside. When Dad joined the Army, he was asked if he had any special skills. He was a great wing shot. He wanted to be an aerial gunner in a bomber so he told them “If it flys, I can knock it down. If it’s alive, I can kill it.” So the Army made him a medic.)

Because of the war, he never got to try out for the St. Louis Cardinals, but he still loved the game and the Cardinals. And he shared that love with me.

Baseball was a perfect sport for me. I wanted to make Dad proud of me. And it was a very inexpensive sport (unlike golf or bowling, or any other sport that cost money to play). Once I had convinced my doting uncle to buy me a glove, I was in business.

Dad was a center fielder. Not an outfielder.—- a center fielder. Naturally I became an outfielder too. Dad spent hours and hours teaching me the subtleties of outfield play.

After I graduated from U of Iowa, I still needed an inexpensive hobby. I found that there were many more opportunities for an adult to play softball than to play baseball. So I converted to softball.

I wanted to give back to the game that had given me so much. I began to coach.

Then I realized that my hobby could actually enhance my meager government income. Umpires were being paid $10 to $15 per game. I could umpire three slowpitch softball games a night three nights per week. That was $90 to $135 per week all summer!! I tried umpiring and enjoyed it.

For many years my Dad came to watch me play, coach, and umpire.

From reading my autobiography you understand how close Dad and I were.

Now you understand why there is so much softball in my autobiography.

Ron