Robbie S.

Baseball should not be played one-on-one yet Robbie and I did just that everyday for three summers in a row. It started with a tennis ball in our back yard until Robbie got a hardball for his birthday and we moved the game to an empty lot across the street from the McCloud girls' house.

Robbie followed the Yankees and his starting lineup went Willie Randolph, Mickey Rivers, Nettles and Jackson. I countered with Lou Whitaker, Ron Leflore, Steve Kemp, and Lance Parrish. It bothered Robbie that my lowly Tigers usually would beat his might Yankees, notwithstanding my advantage being seven-years-old to his six.

As baseball season waned and school started back up, Robbie's Pittsburgh Steelers faced down my Detroit Lions in two-man tackle football. We found our games limited to the daylight between school and dinner, and every other weekend when he wasn't visiting his real mom or taking care of his stepbrother.

I remember clearly the dreary week in early summer 1980 when my family moved to Michigan's Upper Peninsula. It snowed on June 6th. Our rented house hid behind a pine stand atop a steep hill about two miles from town. I spent most of my time exploring the nearby woods on my own or listening to Casey Casem's Weekly Top 40 recorded on my cassette tapes. I'd have to say it was my loneliest summer.

Probably around mid-July or August, Mom took me with her to ShopKo to get me out of the house. I found the Sports aisle and was inspecting a soccer ball pump when I noticed a kid at the other end spinning a basketball on his finger. It looked like Robbie! The thing was, his dad and stepmom moved away about a year before we left for the U.P. He had grown and I just couldn't be sure it was him.

I told my Mom, hey, I think I see Robbie. Her eyes opened wide and she shout-whispered, "Where?" I led her to the Sports aisle but Robbie was gone. She peeked around the endcap and then grabbed my shirt by the shoulder and whisked me out of the store to our Ford Econoline. She peeled out of the parking lot and headed straight to the State Police Post.

"What's going on, Mom?"

"She took him!" she said. "I never told you...maybe they are going to Canada!"

She explained to the desk sergeant what we had seen and he dispatched a trooper, but by the time he arrived they had gone. Mom called Robbie's dad to report the sighting. She said he sounded encouraged.

I'm married now and have a son who is about the age Robbie was when I last saw him in the Shopko. My previous marriage ended in divorce and jealousy kept me from seeing my daughters as much as I would have liked. In all the places I've moved for work, I've never made a real best friend. I miss Robbie.