When I was ten tears old, a week or so before Easter, my Father took me to downtown Milwaukee to a little basemant tailor shop to get the pants of the new corduroy suit he had gotten me for Easter fitted and tailored. Afterwards we went around town a bit on various errands; stopping at what was then the New Central YMCA on Wisconsin Ave. and two or three other stops. I don't remember the purposes of the stops, but my Father was involved with religious drama, YMCA fund raising, and the Greater Milwaukee Council Of Churches at the time. He had even involved me as a child performer in a few fund raising skits for the YMCA. On the way back he decided to run over to a little grocery store for something, I don't recall what, but we made our way there in a roundabout fashion, as I recall walking through town part of the way, after leaving the car parked in front of another errand site.

 

As we were walking along, and I'm not even sure what street or alley we were on, I noticed two boys a little older than me playing catch with a baseball out on the sidewalk. All of a sudden a little girl in a beautiful white dress ran scrambling out onto the sidewalk, situating herself between the two boys, and jumping at the ball as they tossed it back and forth. The boys began to yell at her, "Cut it out. It's a hard ball. You'll get hurt." Finally one boy said, "You'd better watch out. We're going to throw it real hard." They began throwing the ball harder and harder to each other, and closer and closer to the little girl. She became frightened and ducked into a fetal position on the sidewalk whimpering, "Stop it. I'm scared." By then I had proceeded close enough to them to intervene. I ran in between the two yelling, "Cut it out!" The boys were bigger then me, but my Father was just behind me; and I guess the instincts learned from having two little sisters of my own caused me to feel protective of the little girl.

 

Just as I bent over and began to kneel down to assist the little girl, I felt the ball hit me in the lower back and skip up over my shoulders. It should have hurt as the momentum of the impact threw the ball up over the head of the other boy, and out into the street. I don't recall any pain, just a thump and a brushing feeling across my back that made me aware I had been hit by the ball. I kneeled down and assisted the little girl to her feet and said, "Don't be afraid. They won't bother you now. My Dad will chase them away." She looked up at me, rubbing the tears off her cheeks, put one little hand on each side of my face, and looking right into my eyes said, "Oh thank you. Thank you boy!" Then she ran off through the yard and disappeared behind a house. I didn't know it at the time, and wouldn't realize it until after we were together as adults, but that little girl was my Zaz. She was around four and a half years old. My family had just moved to Greenfield Wisconsin from Minneapolis Minnesota the year before. I didn't know anybody from Milwaukee, except for adult associates of my Father.