Georg and Hal

Living in a Body

Georg and Hal

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Georg and Hal

Episode 40 -- The Nothing to Do Book

Hal Walker

Nov 12, 2022

Hi. I’m Hal. Thank you for being here.

Georg and Hal

My Best friend in late elementary school was my next door neighbor at the time, Georg Baumann. Last week, I called Georg on the phone and we talked for about an hour. He's in Rochester, New York now. The Walker and the Baumann families have stayed in touch over the years, but Georg and I haven't really spoken for more than a few minutes since sixth grade. I'm grateful to be connected again. As grown men on the phone, we had such an honest and enjoyable conversation. By the end of the call, we were each expressing an interest in rekindling our long paused friendship.

In 1972, my parents packed me and my three sisters into our Volvo station wagon and moved us from the south side of Chicago to the west side of Kent. With a little help from my grandparents, mom and dad were able to afford their dream house on the Beech Drive/Norwood Street circle. It was a 1950's ranch with majestic trees for climbing and lots of open space for exploring. We were just a stone's throw up the hill from Longcoy Elementary School. I could roll out of bed, run across the Akron Right-of-Way and skip down the hill right into my second grade classroom. These days, due to my illness, I don’t get to visit my mom's house all that often. But for 50 years now, I've had the privilege of calling that ranch on Beech Drive "home."

It took me a couple years, but eventually, I realized the joy of having a boy about my age living in the house right next door. It wasn't just any boy though, it was Georg Baumann -- one of the great young inventors of the 20th century. Georg was a couple years older than me, but we had similar temperaments and we were just about the same size. In late elementary school, we became the very best of friends. Looking back, as a duo, Georg and I were unstoppable.

The Baumanns were first generation immigrants from West Germany. They moved from Dortmund to Kent, Ohio in April of 1970, just two weeks before four students were killed by the National Guard at Kent State. On our recent phone call, Georg recalled the profound impact that the May 4th shooting had on him and his young family. I can just imagine -- Mr. and Mrs. Baumann and their two children, strangers in a strange land, greeted with lockdowns, riots, shootings and the National Guard. Thinking that the US was a peaceful and stable place, the Baumann's showed up right in the middle of the turmoil of 1970.

Georg and his sister Kathrin arrived in Kent speaking no English. He remembers that for the first few months of first grade, his mom, Elsbeth sat right next to him to translate the lessons. I love the comforting sweetness of that image. But Georg also shared with me the story of bullies calling him names on the playground. With no other German families around, the Baumanns were like aliens. The mean kids called sweet little Georg derogatory names like "kraut." It touched my heart to hear these recollections for the first time. I guess it's these early life stories that helped make Georg the man that I admire so much today. Thanks to the tutoring of Georg’s teacher Ms. Young, by the end of the first summer, Kathrin and Georg were both fluent in English. Just a couple years later, when the Walker family arrived with three girls and a boy, a lifelong connection between two families was born.

Georg remembers meeting me for the first time. Interestingly, I was sick in bed. He came over to pay a visit and the first thing that he noticed was the calendar on my wall. The fact that it was a Tolkien themed calendar gave Georg a good feeling about the potential for our friendship. To this day, I've never seen the movies, I've never read the books, and I know very little about Tolkien, but apparently I had the calendar on my wall. This calendar was actually the impetus for Georg to become one of the biggest Tolkien nerds on the planet. Georg still has the calendar in his possession as the cornerstone of his vast collection -- complete with my original handwriting and all.

Georg and I became inseparable. I'd dial his number on the phone and when his mom would answer, I'd say politely, "Hello. May I speak with Georg?" When Georg would pick up, the boy in me would come alive, "Hi Georg... you wanna play?" Within seconds, we'd meet at the halfway point for our next adventure. There was no fence between our yards -- just grass and trees and sun and sky. We had the whole neighborhood for our roaming -- that is, as long as we didn't set foot in Mr. Casto's yard. That was our only limitation.

The Baumann's house was an exotic mystery to me. In the home, among themselves, they spoke mostly German. My friend's name was Schörschchen which is the diminutive for Georg. There was "Big Georg" and there was "Little Georg." Every morning, they ate homemade German waffles with anise flavoring. They kept german candy in the candy drawer and Georg's mom sunbathed topless in the backyard -- German style. When Georg and I would play in the basement, Mr. Baumann would sometimes call us into his office to quiz us on Math facts. I was younger than Georg and not quite as smart, so I remember being mildly terrified as Mr. Baumann questioned us with his stern German accent.

Georg and I were creators. Back then, we didn't have video games and we weren't that interested in TV, so we had to make up our own fun. In fact, we created our very own book called, "The Nothing to Do Book." It still exists somewhere today. This was a spiral bound Kent State manila notebook where we listed categories at the top of each page. The categories were objects like BALL, BIKE, FRISBEE, RAMP, and TIRE. Below each category, we listed the names of the games that we invented. Interestingly, there were no explanations and no rules written on the page. I guess all those details were stored in our young impeccable memories.

“Fris-cycle” was one of the most memorable games. One player is on a bike and the other player is throwing a frisbee. The object was for the frisbee thrower to strike the bike without hitting the person riding it. If the rider was able to catch the frisbee, then the roles were reversed. Georg and I don't recall if there was any scorekeeping or if there was ever a winner to the game. It seems that the point of Fris-cycle, like most of our other games, was just the endless freedom of long summer days spent playing with a best friend.

One of our greatest triumphs was the creation of a Frisbee Golf Course. This was a nine whole course that combined our two spacious backyards and the Akron property that spanned the area between us and the elementary school. We painted white lines around trees to signify each hole. I remember the first hole that teed off from Georg's deck. You had to throw the disc between two tall cypress bushes and aim for the cherry tree in the back. As I write this almost 50 years later, the white lines on the trees have long since faded. But I can still feel the amazing feeling when one of us would score a hole-in-one on that very first throw.

We had to make sure that the frisbee didn't land in Mr. Casto's yard. Mr. Casto was very particular about who set foot on his grass. I kinda wish I could meet Mr. Casto one more time. I'd love to find out if he was really as mean as I remember him being. I’m certain there must have been some warmth beneath his persnickety approach to lawn maintenance. Mr. Casto will live forever in the fabled story of my early life there on the Beech/Norwood Circle. I mean, who could ever forget Mr. Casto, Mrs. Woodring, Mrs. Clarke, Marylou White, the Troyers and, of course, the Petersons. (see Stolen Playboys)

In my parents basement, there was a large empty crawl space beneath the garage. The only way to enter this space was to climb over the plumbing and crawl through a big hole in the concrete block wall behind the water heater. For several days, my mom heard all kinds of commotion coming from the basement but she didn't inquire as to what was going on. Little did she know that Georg and I were in that dusty crawl space excavating, removing construction rubble and building cardboard walls. We were creating our Nothing to Do Book Clubhouse. It still exists today and the switchable light that Georg and I rigged up still works. In that secret space, there's a mural on the wall, some old carpet padding, a tire that was used as a lounge chair and a 1978 copy of the Guinness Book of World Records. I like to think about the day when the next owners of my mom’s house discover this clubhouse for the first time. It's like a time capsule from 1979.

Georg was a collector. He introduced me to the late ‘70’s craze of beer can collecting. I remember being so in awe of his collection that lined the windows and formed a pyramid on the wall. Georg’s dad would travel from city to city and bring back classy beer cans with cool designs. In order to keep them in pristine condition, Mr. Baumann would open the can from the bottom so the tabs stayed in tact. In terms of collecting, I was just a dabbler. My dad didn't travel from city to city. But I did have a few cool stamps, a few beer cans and some coins that my grandparents had given me. I could never live up to Georg though who, in terms of collecting, was the true master.

Georg and I were explorers. He was the first non-family member with whom I ever "touched tongues." It's a vague memory now, but Georg confirms that it did actually happen. In the place where the Walker's yard met the Baumann’s yard, Georg and I touched tongues and then we overreacted to the whole experience. It was just good old-fashioned curiosity between two pre-adolescent boys.

There's only one time that I remember Georg and I getting into any trouble. We had discovered the joy and the excitement of the slingshot. If I'm not mistaken, we made our own out of clothes hangers and rubber bands. On one summer evening, we were hiding behind some bushes on South Francis Street and we were shooting pebbles at the passing cars. Unfortunately, one of those unlucky shots smashed the passenger window of one of those unlucky cars. The car owner slammed on his breaks and chased us by foot through the neighborhood all the way back home. I made it home safely but I soon heard that dreaded knock on the front door. Georg and I were in big trouble. I don't think we ever did that again.

Sadly, in seventh grade, I abandoned my friendship with Georg in favor of a new best friend -- Dave Mastrionni. I'm ashamed to admit that when Dave made disparaging comments toward my old friend, I didn't stand up for Georg. Led by peer pressure, fear and insecurity, I joined in on the name calling. In our recent conversation, Georg and I both expressed our sadness that we went our separate ways. I'm not exaggerating when I say that as two young creatives, the partnership between Georg and Hal had earth shaking potential -- if only we'd stuck together. I'm sorry, Georg. I look forward to talking with you again soon. I send blessings to you and the whole Baumann family, especially in this time after the death of your dad. Well, Georg, I'm so glad we got plopped down next to each other all those years ago. Sincerely, your friend, Hal

Thank you so much for reading. Thanks for being here. Feel free to leave a comment. Tell me about your best friend as a kid. Tell me anything. I look forward to hearing it. As always, enjoy living in that body of yours. It’s not gonna be there forever. Have a good Saturday. ❤️ Hal