Marv Dauer called Sunday afternoon.

Tuesday, March 07, 2000

Marv Dauer called Sunday afternoon. I was sitting in the rickety back yard Adirondack chair I assembled from a kit.

Skyler, our youngest, is afraid to sit in it. It, the chair, is not as stable as ones I grew up in at Mallard Point, a resort north of Grand Rapids where we spent the third week of June for as far back as I can remember. I thought then that the resort was the only place in the world that had Adirondack chairs.

When we first went there my feet didn’t even reach the ground. I grew into it over time and continued to go there on into adulthood.

I flew over Mallard Point when I was just out of the service in a pontoon plane. It looked like a Mallard. Following the brief flight my father would tell people that I was up there scouting fish.

My father was one of those fisherman who, when asked where he caught those walleys or crappies would respond, "In the lake." I think if he were ever tortured to get information he would ‘spill the beans’ unless asked, "Where did you catch those fish Frank?"

"In the lake," would have been his answer. "That’s all I will tell ya."

John Murphy, another classmate from high school, had sent Marv the column on the regional basketball riot Skinny Stevens launched about this time of the year in 1961.

Marv called from Los Angeles, where he makes a living as an agent of sorts. He was also a member of the varsity basketball team, the leaders in the front line of their grand finale. He shared his recollections of some strategic "moves" he made in the melee.

"Were you there?" he asked.

"Of course," I answered. Gene Chrz (another good Bohemian) and I were down court or up court or whatever it’s called. The players and fans were under one basket occupying almost half the court. Chrz and I pretty much had the other half of the court to ourselves. We were kinda going through the fight motions a safe distance away saying things like "Give ’em one of these or one of those" and we would swing into the empty air – sorta like shadow boxing.

On the way back from Rochester Chrz was saying how great it will look on the 10 o’clock news – they will show the fight then pan down to the two of us at the other end cheering them on.

Marv and I go way back. At Banfield school he knew everyone’s batting average in the major leagues, though doing somersaults was a bit of a challenge to Marv.

We used to go over to his house on Friday nights in junior high and he’d dial random numbers then proceed to talk to whoever answered for several minutes. Sometimes telling them he was calling from KAUS radio station with a question for them to answer.

Marv worked hard in sports. He still does at golf. In fact my good friend Ken Maxfield told me just this past week that the greatest catch he ever saw in high school baseball was the one Marv made at the fence in left field.

If I remember right Marv was pulled over on the Brownsdale road on the suspicion of driving under the influence – weaving back and forth over the center line. Marv doesn’t drink. Marv just likes to visit with whoever he is riding with. He looks them in the eye and forgets the road ahead.

He is also a big Dodger baseball fan.

I remember once going to a softball game in Los Angeles. Marv was playing left field with a transistor radio next to his ear, listening to the Dodgers. Terry Brown – another excellent Austin athlete, from the class of 1960 – was playing on the same team. It was almost like being in Austin.

Marv said one of his Hollywood starlets has just written a book and he’s mentioned in a number of pages. This woman was a star in one of the soaps who became pregnant in real life and was bumped from the show. This went to court and that’s what the book is about I guess.

I think Murphy has got Nemitz’s looking for a copy.

Last summer when Marv made his annual pilgrimage back to Austin I stopped at the country club to caddy for him the last few holes. In the clubhouse Marv was attempting to explain and convince the waitress of the people he knew in Hollywood. When she asked the others for confirmation, Dick Seltz, local sports legend and former coach said, "No. Don’t believe him. He’s really a farmer from down in Iowa."

Anyway, for all of you, who, like my daughter Lydia, long to live in California, Marv reported that it was raining and the temperature was 41 degrees in L.A.

And – as we know and as Marv had heard – it was 70 degrees here.

Bob Vilt’s column appears Tuesdays