the summer of '67: playing four square for fun and profit

8/3/2019 The Summer of '67: Playing Four Square for Fun and Profit

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THE SUMMER OF '67:

PLAYING FOUR SQUARE FOR

FUN AND PROFITBy Dan Durning

January 2012

In Spring, 1967, I was sitting on the top of the world. I was completing mysophomore year at the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville and had received wordthat 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 thesummer: (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 servicesomewhere in Northwest Arkansas, (4) umpire for the Fayetteville Babe RuthLeague, and (5) supervise a Fayetteville summer parks program.

I calculated that I would make the most money working for the post office andwould learn the most working for Rep. Hammerschmidt. Reluctantly, I turned downboth of these. Working for the post office had no cache, and was likely to involveactual physical labor. The internship in a congressional office was an enticingprospect, but it was not timely because I was preparing to go away for a year andthought it would be better not to prolong that absence for a few months. I decidedto take two jobs that would keep me in Fayetteville for the summer: working forthe 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. Itturned out that although playing baseball is fun and self-fulfilling, umpiring is notonly dirty work, it makes you unpopular. Especially when you are not very good atit. 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 somethingunpleasant 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 againsteach other for several years in Fayetteville's organized baseball leagues, and wehad gone together twice to the Big State Baseball Camp near Dallas, Texas. Hemade 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 andworked with Kathy Dulan, who had entranced me since my sophomore year in highschool. We didn't get paid too much, but then our duties were not very heavy. We


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showed up at the city park and assisted the kids who came by to have some funwith a variety of games.

The kids were great to work with. Many were sons and daughters of universityprofessors. 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 adelight. I was happy to run into Mark Rom twenty or so years later at a publicpolicy conference. He was working for the Brookings Institution at the time. Afterthat he joined the political science faculty at Georgetown University. His brotherCurt has been on the faculty at the University of Arkansas (horticulture) fordecades. I attribute their successes to the humility they learned while playingagainst 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 thesummer programs. Apparently, one of his management techniques to go to theback of swimming pool office to look through the window to see what Kathy and Iwere doing to earn our keep. Probably we were playing some goofy game, orloafing -- not teaching archery or volleyball as we should have been doing. I don'tthink he liked me very much.

As the newspaper clipping on the next pages shows, one of the summer activitieswas fishing on Lake Fayetteville. I helped on several of these trips, but SemonThompson was, thank goodness, in charge. My role was to help keep the kids undersurveillance to help insure they would not hook one another, or themselves, or me.

Fortunately, the mission was accomplished and the need to extract hooks fromfingers, hands, noses, and other body parts was kept to a minimum. However, afew 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 summercamp 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, Iarbitrated disputes among the kids and tried to persuade homesick kids to stick itout a bit longer. My group of kids were sub-teenagers, so they were fun and easyto 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 oldFayetteville High School basketball teammate, Bill Crook, worked at that one. Thetwo programs were supposed to have competitions against each other every weekin 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.


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From the Northwest Arkansas Time, July 21, 1967


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The comely Kathy Dulan teaching native arts; working for an outdoor parks

program means you can get a good tan without much effort


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


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


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

the summer of '67: playing four square for fun and profit

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