THE SUMMER OF '67: PLAYING FOUR SQUARE FOR FUN AND PROFIT

By Dan Durning
January 2012
In Spring, 1967, I was sitting on the top of the world. I was completing my sophomore year at the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville and had received word that I had been awarded a scholarship to spend the next academic year studying at the Institute of European Studies in Vienna, Austria. Also, I five job offers for the summer: (1) intern in Rep. John Paul Hammerschmidt's office in Washington D.C., (2) post office summer worker, (3) summer worker for the national parks service somewhere in Northwest Arkansas, (4) umpire for the Fayetteville Babe Ruth League, and (5) supervise a Fayetteville summer parks program. I calculated that I would make the most money working for the post office and would learn the most working for Rep. Hammerschmidt. Reluctantly, I turned down both of these. Working for the post office had no cache, and was likely to involve actual physical labor. The internship in a congressional office was an enticing prospect, but it was not timely because I was preparing to go away for a year and thought it would be better not to prolong that absence for a few months. I decided to take two jobs that would keep me in Fayetteville for the summer: working for the city's summer parks program during the day and umpiring at night. The choice of umpiring was a disastrous decision for all involved, including me. It turned out that although playing baseball is fun and self-fulfilling, umpiring is not only dirty work, it makes you unpopular. Especially when you are not very good at it. As I stood behind home plate wearing a thick chest protector and shin guards, sweating in the sticky July heat, listening to some parent yelling something unpleasant at me, I would think: I could be working for a congressman right now. Fortunately, Bubba McCord was my fellow umpire, and he seemed to enjoy umpiring and was good at it. Bubba and I had played baseball together and against each other for several years in Fayetteville's organized baseball leagues, and we had gone together twice to the Big State Baseball Camp near Dallas, Texas. He made the transition from player to umpire much better that I did. The day job was much better. I was assigned to the Fayetteville City Park and worked with Kathy Dulan, who had entranced me since my sophomore year in high school. We didn't get paid too much, but then our duties were not very heavy. We 1

showed up at the city park and assisted the kids who came by to have some fun with a variety of games. The kids were great to work with. Many were sons and daughters of university professors. Others just lived in the City Park neighborhood. All were well behaved. Also, all were small enough that I dominated the daily four-square competition, going the whole summer without losing a game!!! Among the kids I really liked were brothers Mark and Curt Rom. They were a delight. I was happy to run into Mark Rom twenty or so years later at a public policy conference. He was working for the Brookings Institution at the time. After that he joined the political science faculty at Georgetown University. His brother Curt has been on the faculty at the University of Arkansas (horticulture) for decades. I attribute their successes to the humility they learned while playing against me in four square. The park program was managed by Jim Brown, who seemed a nice but entirely too intense guy. He ran the Fayetteville Youth Center and was put in charge of the summer programs. Apparently, one of his management techniques to go to the back of swimming pool office to look through the window to see what Kathy and I were doing to earn our keep. Probably we were playing some goofy game, or loafing -- not teaching archery or volleyball as we should have been doing. I don't think he liked me very much. As the newspaper clipping on the next pages shows, one of the summer activities was fishing on Lake Fayetteville. I helped on several of these trips, but Semon Thompson was, thank goodness, in charge. My role was to help keep the kids under surveillance to help insure they would not hook one another, or themselves, or me. Fortunately, the mission was accomplished and the need to extract hooks from fingers, hands, noses, and other body parts was kept to a minimum. However, a few small perch prematurely lost their lives due to this endeavor. One week that summer, I headed up a section of kids at a week-long city summer camp in Siloam Springs (see the list on the last page). In that position, part of my job was to confiscate all contraband (candy) that had been smuggled in. Also, I arbitrated disputes among the kids and tried to persuade homesick kids to stick it out a bit longer. My group of kids were sub-teenagers, so they were fun and easy to deal with. The highlight of my week was learning to sing "Little Rabbit Fru-Fru" while eating the confiscated candy. The city had another park program at Walker Park in the south part of town. My old Fayetteville High School basketball teammate, Bill Crook, worked at that one. The two programs were supposed to have competitions against each other every week in different sports. We probably did, but I don't remember much about them. However, I am sure that when the game was four square, my City Park kids -hardened by the intense daily competition -- dominated.

From the Northwest Arkansas Time, July 21, 1967

The comely Kathy Dulan teaching native arts; working for an outdoor parks program means you can get a good tan without much effort

The City Park four-square court where I dominated the sometimes vicious competition

Fishing at Lake Fayetteville: Watch out for the hooks. I think the kid to the far right is the brother of Linda Faulkner (FHS Class of '65).

List of campers in my unit, Fayetteville Summer Camp, July 1967 (the camp was in an isolated location near Siloam Springs). Good group of kids most of whom were away from home and parents for the first time.