Heart of a Tiger: Growing Up With My Grandfather, Ty Cobb

by Herschel Cobb

  He used the bat to help him stand up straight. He touched Susan and me on the head as he turned and started to walk away. His stride was slow and for a moment he glanced over his shoulder, and then walked purposefully toward the house. He didn’t want to be in sight when Grandma arrived to pick us up.

  Her blue Chrysler arrived in a few minutes. We were still excited, and Grandma knew why. “Well, did you children behave yourselves and have a good time? What have you got to tell me?” she asked, smiling and practically singing, knowing how excited we were to be going to Lake Tahoe with Granddaddy.

  I thought next Friday was a long time to wait, and I wanted to visit Granddaddy and see some more autographed pictures. I told Aunt Shirley about seeing his office and all the baseball stuff, and she casually mentioned that last time she looked, he had lots of large baseball memorabilia in the side room of his garage. Later that evening, while I was helping Grandma with the dinner dishes, I asked her, “Can we go see Granddaddy this week before we go up to Tahoe?”

  “Well, I don’t know, rightly. Let me talk with your aunt when we’re done here and see what she thinks.” This reply was a good first step. I stayed around to help dry the very last pot, took out the trash, and grabbed the broom to sweep the kitchen floor.

  Grandma looked almost startled when I appeared with the broom in my hand. “My, my, you are certainly helpful this evening.” I started sweeping while she took off her apron and stepped over my pile of crumbs to leave the kitchen. I peeked around the door and saw her follow the usual route to Aunt Shirley’s part of the house. I swept fast, going over the floor a second time, and wiped the counters again, just in case they both came back into the kitchen.

  The conversation must have been short, because when I sauntered back to visit Aunt Shirley, Grandma was already gone. Shirley was sitting at her desk in her library, listening to old jazz records on her record player, puffing on a cigarette with the silliest grin on her face, her eyes closed and her head swaying to the music. The voice coming from the machine was as sweet and sorrowful as any I’d ever heard.

  I coughed, and Shirley responded in a dreamy smile, “Hersch, may I present to you, Miss Billie Holiday.” And she swept her hand over the record machine in a grand gesture of introduction. “Sit down and enjoy, my young adventurer.” I took one of the soft chairs next to the small fireplace and settled in to listen to Billie Holiday’s haunting voice. All the shelves were filled with books. Next to me were some Japanese vases and oriental metal plates, and on a lower bookshelf was an artillery shell Shirley had fired in World War II. While it was hot, she signed it and the soldiers gave it to her as a gift of thanks for all the things she gave them while she was in the service in Italy. She had refined tastes but stayed firmly grounded.

  When the record ended, I asked, “Let’s play the guy with the great voice.” She knew exactly who I was talking about.

  “Mr. Louis Armstrong, ‘Satchmo,’ coming up, young man.” She changed 78s, and we listened to the voice that could sing, rasp, lilt, talk, and impart rapture all at the same time.

  When the record was finished, I started to speak, but she interrupted me. “You three must have gotten along fine today. That Old Goat already called and said you’re welcome anytime. So, maybe the day after tomorrow. I’ll check in the morning. Okay, bub?” Aunt Shirley was in a buoyant and playful mood, and this was her way of balancing things out. She held no exalted notions of people, but had her father’s instincts to see people exactly as they were. If she could call her own father an “Old Goat,” she could call me “Bub.”

  I nodded enthusiastically and then asked, “Who else you got?” I was ready to hear more music, very pleased with myself, anticipating a second visit to Granddaddy in two days.

  Grandma was ready to go at mid-morning on Wednesday. The drive from her home in Portola Valley to Atherton took fifteen minutes. I noticed that she changed into a pretty blue summer dress and white gloves, and applied a spray of lavender scent. She looked like she was going to an afternoon tea party. Her light blue Chrysler slowly rolled into the drive at 48 Spencer Lane with tires grinding over the pebble driveway, creating a distinctive crunching sound. She pulled past the front door and stopped her car, but left the engine running. She would not look at the front door, and he would not come outside until she left. We knew this, so we leaned over, kissed Grandma, and hopped out.

  Granddaddy was inside, and Kit and I told him what we wanted to do. He gave the okay, and we set out to explore the side room of the garage. Susan stayed behind to chat with him and that was fine with us. We rummaged around for a while, finding huge posters, old pictures of people we didn’t know, game score cards, some trophies, magazine covers, and old bats and equipment. Things had been just put here and there in no particular order. After a while, I decided he might tell us about some of this stuff, so Kit and I went back into the house.

  When I walked into the living room, he was standing by the bookcase, showing Susan some of his books. “Oh, Hersch, there you are. Did you get enough of a gander at all that old stuff in the garage?” He didn’t wait for a reply, but continued, “Susan, see if you can find Louise and take Kit, and you three run over to Edy’s Ice Cream Shop and see if they have some of this rocky road ice cream I’ve been hearing about. I think I should have a taste before I give up chocolate.” He leaned down and said something private to Susan, and she smiled at him and then at me and left. In a minute, I heard the car tires roll over the pebbles in the driveway, crunching their way out to Spencer Lane.

  Granddaddy fiddled with a book as he walked over to his chair. “Hersch,” he said, “I’ve been thinking . . .” and then he didn’t finish his thought. “Have a seat, over here,” pointing to the ottoman next to his chair. “You know, about what you were saying the other day . . . about your season and all, and the other people at your game?”

  I replied, “That’s okay, Granddaddy. I kind of get it now.” I knew he was referring to the heckling and jeering I suffered through in Middle League baseball. I still didn’t like it, but I didn’t think I could do much about it either, knowing what I now knew.

  “No, Hersch, I want to say,” he went on, “you can’t stop them from yelling and razzing you—maybe even your own teammates razz you. But that’s just part of it.”

  The heckling was what really bothered me. I thought he was going to tell me I just had to take it. That’s what my dad would have said.

  “It looks to me like you like to compete, and you’re strong and fast, so you’re probably pretty good. That’s what I’m getting at.” I could tell he wasn’t going to tell me I had to just take it, so I sat up and looked squarely at him.

  I told him, “Yeah, I’m the fastest in my class.”

  “Good. That’s good.” He squinted and looked squarely at me. “If you’re going to compete, you need to prepare yourself. Some things you can control and some you can’t. You can practice hard, but you can’t stop razzing from the fans or even your teammates. You know, maybe another fellow wants your position.”

  I’d never thought about that, but quickly remembered that I’d beat out a lot of guys to play center field.

  “To compete, you have to prepare to win.” He was focused now. “You have to prepare and practice every detail, over and over. Running, hitting, sliding, all that. That’s your body. You have to prepare your mind to win too, and then when you go to play, play your hardest. Make the other guy know that you’re prepared and will never quit, that you’ll never give up.”

  I had moved to the edge of the ottoman, caught up in what he was saying.

  He continued, “After a while, you’ll have successes, but you have to keep preparing because sometimes there’s a slump, know what I mean?”

  I heard myself say, “Yes, sir.”

  “Okay. And after some successes, your confidence will build and you’ll know how to work out of a slump. But with the heckling, you can’t control those things. So, work on not listening. Don’t pay attention to it. Pay a
ttention to everything you need to do to come out on top. Train your mind. Hear me, every little detail?”

  I nodded again.

  He shifted gears and said, “Oh, and Hersch, be your own person. Be able to stand up for yourself. Know what I mean?”

  “Not really,” I said, and I meant it. I thought of getting shot with BBs by my dad and never feeling like I could trust anybody again, but really wanting somebody I could trust.

  Granddaddy seemed to read my mind because he continued, “Sometimes kids get hurt, maybe by their own parents, and they want to hide so they don’t get hurt again. If you’re your own person, no matter what, you can accomplish what you set out to do. It’ll be there when you prepare yourself, have some success, and get your confidence going a bit. You’ll notice something.”

  I was perplexed and asked, “Like what?” The advice sounded slippery and a little over my head.

  His voice had gained a distinct rhythm. “You remember the oars on the rowboat up at Tahoe, and the rudder?” I must have looked as puzzled as I felt. “Remember all the hours you spent out there on the lake, rowing around, steering exactly where you wanted to go?”

  “Yeah, I remember.”

  “Well, it’s a little like that. You’re the guy who gets you around, and you’re the guy who steers your own rudder. You choose, you decide, nobody else.” He looked at me. “You’re your own person. Only as you get a little older, it’s bigger than just that.”

  He went on, “Make the other guy know you’re your own person and that you’ll never give up. You’ll do just fine, and the razzing won’t matter a bit. Understand me, Hersch? You’ll be just fine.” His voiced sounded certain and reassuring, and I could tell he was done.

  I understood the basic point and I said, “Yes, sir, I think so.”

  I turned my head toward the front of the house at the same time Granddaddy said, “I think I hear them coming in the drive. Let’s go have some of this rocky road.” Susan and Kit had brought the new ice cream, along with double chocolate. We all tasted the rocky road. I liked the double chocolate best, and Granddaddy tasted them both and left for the kitchen to get some peach ice cream out of the freezer and some large spoons. We sat around, talked about Lake Tahoe, planned our trip, and ate lots of ice cream.

  We spent three weeks at Lake Tahoe with Granddaddy, and returned to Portola Valley to spend the rest of the summer at Grandma’s house. The three of us returned to Santa Maria late in August, about a week before school started. While we were at Grandma’s, Mom bought a larger house, with two stories and a nice backyard. Also, Ayako had returned to her family in Seattle. I would be attending a different school.

  On the Saturday before school started, I was in the kitchen in the late morning, and Mom came in. She sat at the kitchen table and said, “Hersch, sit down, I want to talk to you.” Her voice was business-like, as if she had rehearsed what she had to say over and over.

  She continued, “I don’t want to take care of you anymore, so I don’t want you to live here. You’ll have to live somewhere else. Your sister and brother will remain here with me, so you won’t see them anymore.”

  I could tell she was serious. I sat, stunned and speechless. I felt a little sick to my stomach, and I’m sure the blood drained from my face. I hadn’t done anything wrong; nothing had happened. My eyesight became fuzzy, my mind blank, and I just sat there.

  She took a breath and said, “I’m sure you can find some place to live. Maybe a foster home, maybe with another family.”

  I sat listening, motionless, speechless, my mind whirling. I felt almost dizzy.

  Then she asked me, “Do you want to say anything?”

  I said, shocked at what I’d just heard, “You mean, leave?”

  “Yes, leave. You’ll have to live somewhere else.” And she repeated, speaking very slowly, “I don’t want you here.”

  I had nothing to say. I sat, looking past her, out the window, wondering what was going to happen to me.

  She didn’t wait for me to say anything else, but pushed her chair away from the table and left.

  I sat for a long time. Nobody came into the kitchen and I could not hear any sounds from other parts of the house. I had to gather myself. I looked out the window at the street, and the sidewalk, and the gutter. It all looked so forlorn.

  I had to stop looking outside. My gaze settled on the telephone attached to the wall between the kitchen counter and breakfast table where I was sitting. I took the phone off the hook and dialed my grandmother. I felt awful because Grandma was old. But she answered on the second ring, and I told her what had just happened. The phone was quiet for a few seconds and then she said, “She’s your mother, Hersch.” I couldn’t understand what that really meant.

  The following silence on the other end of the line lasted for what seemed like forever. Then my Aunt Shirley came on, asking me to tell her what had just happened. She listened as I repeated it all over again.

  Shirley said, as if giving me drill orders in the army, “Hersch, you stay at that house. Don’t go anywhere, don’t leave.” She repeated all this and asked me three times if I understood her. She must have heard the fear in my voice. I told her that I did, and she said she had to hang up and make a phone call right away.

  Nothing else was said that weekend. Not by my mother, at least. When Monday came, I dressed, got my stuff together, and rode my bike the two miles to my new school.

  A day later, I came in from playing and Susan greeted me. She took my arm and pulled me toward her, saying in a low tone, “Granddaddy called while you were outside. He told me to give you a big hug and tell you, ‘Don’t worry, everything is okay.’” Then she let go of me and asked, “What does that mean? What happened?”

  I didn’t answer, but smiled weakly, relieved, took my hug, and went back outside. I wanted to be by myself. My mother never said anything more, but I stayed on, knowing more than I ever wanted to about her. I did not know the difference between resentment and jealously, but she blistered with both. I’d made some friends through sports and liked school such that my grades were good. Also, I did not hide that I learned valuable lessons from Granddaddy. She saw the world through a lens of spite and envy. When others had accomplishments, she felt slighted; when she did something, she wanted others to feel diminished. She held that any good would be met by an equal amount of pain. If I was pleased or succeeded she felt cheated. If she was pleased, then I must feel left out. Strange. She had few friends, resented other’s accomplishments, disliked academics, and despised my grandfather. She resented all that I was developing. Also, I knew that my grandfather would stand by me no matter what, and his steadfastness comforted me greatly.

  She continued with her quart of Old Crow in the evenings. Ayako never came back from Seattle, and my mother expected Susan to take up the role of maid, which she did, at least as to “us boys.” She never complained about fixing us breakfast, lunch bags for school, dinner, and chocolate chip cookies, or acting as the buffer between Mom’s outbursts and us.

  By the time the spring arrived, I was looking forward to the end of the school year, certain my mom would ship us to Grandma’s for the summer. When we arrived at Grandma and Aunt Shirley’s home in Portola Valley, I cornered Aunt Shirley in her office and insisted she tell me what happened. She didn’t say a lot, except, “I told the Old Man about you and your mom. He called her bank and her lawyers. That took care of that. Go have some fun, bub.”

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  A Chance Meeting in the Night

  The door to the bedroom that had been used by Granddaddy and Grandma when they were married was always closed. Whenever I visited El Roblar, I wandered and explored throughout most of the house and the grounds, but I knew the front bedroom was off limits. It was next to the room he used as an office, so whenever I went into the office to look around, I glanced to my left to see if that door would be ajar, allowing me to peek inside. It never was, and each year that I visited Granddaddy, my curiosity grew.

&n
bsp; Susan was even more curious than I was, and we often talked about “that bedroom.” It was as if “that bedroom” contained precious secrets. Secrets, not only about Granddaddy and Grandma, but about my father, Uncle Ty, Aunt Shirley, Aunt Beverly, and Uncle Jim, and us, meaning me, my sister, and brother. They were raised at 48 Spencer Lane from 1932 until they started life on their own.

  “What do you think?” my sister once asked me.

  “I don’t know.” I fidgeted with my fingers, avoiding Susan’s eyes. “I want to go in and look around. You remember what Shirley said.”

  “No, what did she say?” She tugged on my arm, practically jumping into my lap with excitement.

  “About all the babies. You know.” I pulled away from her, knowing I was now stuck, trying to explain something I didn’t know anything about. I was at the age when my body was changing, and what I saw in the world and heard in conversations had new meanings. I didn’t understand them all, and it seemed like secrets and forbidden knowledge flitted just beyond my grasp. In particular, nobody had explained what occurs when a young boy enters puberty.

  “That bedroom,” located at the front left corner, is set forward from the rest of the house; it forms the left border of the wide patio of earthen-colored tiles that spans the front. The right corner of the house is the dining room, which is also set forward. Whenever I entered the driveway of El Roblar, the front door was slightly hidden by the walls of the protruding dining room, and the master bedroom was the first thing that caught my eye. On the patio side, it has a slender iron-framed glass door and double windows looking out to the front yard. On the north side is a small window, which looks out on the scrubs and bushes next to the house.

  I continued explaining what I knew about the bedroom to Susan. “You remember,” I began, “when we were in Aunt Shirley’s bedroom and she was talking to Dixie, her husband, about Grandma. She told Dixie, ‘Charlie was pregnant thirteen times. Eight miscarriages or stillborns. She was with child practically every year.’” Shirley always referred to her mother as Charlie; we grandchildren called her Grandma. Her official name was Charlotte Lombard Cobb, but she preferred to be called Charlie, and that’s what people called her all her life.