Kids are never as clever as they think they are

Even though we haven't seen one another in five years, a 40-plus years friendship between Tim Ephland and I has never dimmed. And, thanks to the inventiveness of one Alexander Graham Bell, we cover the distance bewteen Nevada and Fort Worth relatively easily.

I'd have to say our friendship actually began at Lyons Stadium in 1960, when Tim told me he was going to make a ballplayer out of me. While he never really succeeded in that endeavor, Tim grinned from ear-to-ear when I got lucky at Springfield's Meador Park in 1965 and hit a ball over the street somehow. He got up right behind me, and boom! Sure, it went farther than mine, but he got a bounce off the street that I didn't.

In a recent conversation, we laughed about some of the pickles with our parents we used to get ourselves into and out of.

At one point, Tim said, "I wasn't very smart, but I was slick." It got me to thinking if we were really as good at being clever as we thought we were.

As a senior in high school, I sincerely believed that there was absolutely nothing on the planet as important as baseball. Nothing. The fact that it was April was meaningless, as was the fact that I'd already seen an exhibition game the previous weekend between the Cardinals and Athletics at Municipal Stadium. This was an afternoon game the Cardinals were playing, it was on the radio. I could hear Harry Caray beckoning.

I had one of those small transistors with a cord and earplug. Piece of cake. I easily sneaked it past my mom and carefully placed it between my books in school. I put the radio under a book, ran the cord up my sleeve to the palm of my hand to the earplug and simply pretended to listen to the teacher while leaning on my elbow.

As soon as the bell rang, Don Ferguson got up and opened the door to the classroom. As I walked past, he said to me, "What's the score?" Befuddled but undaunted, I went up to Joe Barone's room and sat down. Barone started to take the roll, then said, "Kelly, turn off your radio." How did he know? No way could anyone have heard it.

I got home and told my mom I was going across the street to listen to the rest of the game with Charlie Ferguson at his store. She said, "Good. You didn't forget your radio at school."

The previous summer, I'd decided to attend what I thought was an important game between the seventh place Red Sox and eighth place A's. There was an older guy with a car and voila. It didn't seem all that important to mention just where I was going that night, but probably to the drive-in. So I'd be late.

Well, I came waltzing in and the first thing my mom said was, "Who won?" Before I could make up something really good and get mired in deep trouble, my mom said, "Don't worry. I won't tell your father if you promise to never pull another trick like this again."

So, I told her about George Alusik's grand slam home run.

And then there was that time in August of 1971. I came home that weekend and the first thing my mom asked was, "Did you enjoy the game?"

I wondered how she could have known I was there in what was at that time the biggest crowd to ever attend a baseball game in Kansas City. "How did you know I was there?" I asked.

"I know my son," mom replied.

Now I have to somehow convince Tim that both my mom and his mother, Ann, were a lot smarter than we used to think. They knew their own kids.