I cleep, you cleep, he cleeps

[Wilson Gray]

On Sat, Sep 18, 2010 at 10:56 AM, Joel S. Berson <Berson at att.net> wrote:

> tossing a coin would be faster, and
> less liable to chiseling. Â (A sly lad might gauge the remaining
> distance and place his fist a little apart from the other's, or
> attempt to push the other's back a bit.)


When I was living in Texas in the early '40's, my buddy, Alherod "B.B"
Newhouse, noted schoolyard athlete  famed for his ability to win at
bat-toss almost like clockwork, confided in?/to? me that he routinely
scammed his opponent by curling his thumb and only three fingers,
rather than four, around the handle of the bat, as necessary, to gain
the top position. Smart enough never to try to get away with using
only two fingers, more likely to catch the attention of his opponent,
he was amazingly successful at gaming the system.

Naturally, as his friend, I chose not to "eat cheese on" him, to
resurrect a bit of '60's L.A. slang.

B.B. was born in 1935, hence the prefix, _Al_, of his forename greatly
predates the current practice among some black people of adding that
prefix or _La_ to a name in order to, I suppose, "glamorize" it. My
WAG is that his parents liked the sound of the name, "Herod," but, as
everyone knows, *King* Herod was a bad guy. So, they modified it to
make it cool.

As for his nickname, "B.B." I have only the WAG that he was once known
as "(Mama's) Big Boy" or some such, as I myself once was.
--
-Wilson
–––
All say, "How hard it is that we have to die!"––a strange complaint to
come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
–Mark Twain

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