The Arm

Few things struck more fear into my young heart than seeing my brother, John, with a snowball. For in the skirmish that would ensue, I knew John would triumph.

There were good reasons why John was one of the pitchers for his little league baseball team. He had a great arm. He threw hard and straight. I learned early on to run when John started throwing projectiles as he was the best thrower in my family. Snowball fights were an annual tradition. John liked to instigate these fights. I’m certain that my brothers and I spent more time building and throwing snowballs than we ever did in attempting to build snowmen or snow forts. And true to form, in these battles I found that John was to be feared the most. John threw with painful accuracy and was daring in his attacks. His smirk and twinkling eyes revealed his confidence and joy at the sport we were sharing in those times. Mom and Dad were usually not around to monitor these fights. We had to fend off our older brothers’ attacks on our own. 

I suspect that John was the one in my family who perfected a special pair of snowball-making gloves that allowed the user to craft hard, near-perfect baseball-sized snowballs. Making snowballs, you see, has certain challenges. Using ones bare hands produces compact snowballs, but you could only build a few before ones hands became too numb to make more snowballs. Heavy gloves kept your hands warm, but their bulky nature prevents you from sculpting the snowball into the desired shape. My older brothers perfected a design by combining lightweight cotton gloves, which allowed your fingers to move freely while providing some warmth, and covering them with a pair of Dad’s surgical gloves. The result was a pair of gloves that allowed the one wearing them to stay warm and dry while perceiving exactly what the snow was doing beneath your hands. Again, I am not sure if John was the main engineer behind these gloves, but I remember that he used them to efficiently manufacture and dispatch numerous snowballs. 

Snowballs were not his only projectile. He also threw tennis balls, water balloons, Nerf footballs, rocks, dirt clods, and eggs; all of which tended to be thrown in the general direction of his younger siblings. I, for one, was happy to oblige these impromptu skirmishes by throwing whatever projectile he was using back at John.  One day at our uncle’s house, John decided to make the game of darts more exciting. Instead of throwing them at the target John proposed that we throw them at each other. And by proposing I mean that he started tossing them at us. And, as you have no doubt come to suspect, Mom and Dad were upstairs, unaware of this interesting turn to the game. 

Now it wasn’t as dangerous as it sounds. Well, that’s what we tell ourselves now. The goal was simple: to not flinch while we alternatively threw darts close to the feet and legs of the other competitors. And, in keeping with his throwing prowess, John won the competition as he was able to make us flinch more than we were able to make him do so. (Granted, John was called on one fault when he sunk a dart into my shoe. Fortunately, my shoes were oversized and the needle of the dart landed between my toes.) It was fun, but we did realize later that “Flinch" was not the wisest game we every played. 

John Todd enjoying time in the mountains.

Walking home up our driveway from elementary school did pose certain dangers regarding projectiles. My older siblings would be dropped off earlier by the school bus and, on occasion, would post themselves atop a haystack or behind a section of fence in the corral with an armful of rotten eggs they had gathered from our chickens. You can imagine our horror when we realized that we were under assault from these odiferous orbs. We had a distinct disadvantage as we had no eggs to throw back and no shelter, so we just had to run, occasionally throwing a rock to keep my brothers back at a safe distance, and hope that we could make it inside the house before getting hit. Our parents, I realized gloomily, could not stop the carnage as Mom was well up the road at home and Dad was still at work. 

One afternoon John opted to carry out this kind of attack on us by himself. And due to his growing skills, the attack arose in us the same fear that we had when he and my two oldest brothers had thrown eggs at us in years past. Fortunately, he ran out of eggs and went in search of some more ammo in our hen house. This was an opportunity! I knew I couldn’t match his arm, but I was stealthy. I furtively approached the hen house and locked the door just as I saw John returning.  He had two handfuls of eggs. Even though he could not throw eggs through the fence that enclosed the hen house, I ran, glancing back in time to see the familiar smirk disappear from John’s face as he came to understand his predicament. I think I left him in there for twenty minutes. That’s what happens when Mom and Dad are not on hand. The best that I can recall, John never threw an egg at me again. 

John’s skill in throwing made sense to me when I considered his interest and aptitude in physics. He enhanced his understanding of projectiles by becoming a master of Ping Pong  He was clearly the best of us at the game. He bought a book to learn more about how to play and he developed a strange way of holding his paddle that produced a great deal of spin and power when he unleashed a backhand hit. John even bought a pricey paddle with a tacky surface that could be used to generate more spin on the ball. John’s interest in projectiles extended to the field of physics, where he ended up graduating with a physics degree from CU. 

After Mom divorced Dad, and my older brothers had gone on to college, the annual snowball fights were no longer a tradition. But I do remember that John was back on Christmas break from college one year and fresh snow had fallen to the ground. And as usual, John was instigated a grand snowball fight that night. That was a fun night.

After John graduated and Mike and I went off to college, our projectile battles were no longer possible. John and I did not see each other for years as work took us to different states. But once he and Heidi moved back to Colorado, we found that we were able to visit in the summer. I was also able to stop by when my travel schedule allowed. On a visit to his home one summer I was reminded of our friendly battles as children. I found John and his son, Sebastian, enjoying playing catch in their backyard. Given John’s love for thrown projectiles, I found the scene most fitting.