Memoir
Ira Gunning
The Knothole
May, 2013
Editor’s Note: Ira Gunning reached into his memory trunk and pulled out another part of his autobiography
for our reading pleasure. He originally wrote this piece on his typewriter in the 1960s. He tells of his
experience as a 10 year old boy, going to a football game in the mid 1930s at the Oklahoma State Univ.,
where his father was attending the U. in pursuit of his Masters degree in Education. Watch for the twist at
the end of the story when Ira returned to the U. as a student himself in the early years of World War II.
Red Dog Hewes vowed he wouldn’t shave until State won the
Conference, and he was getting a pretty good crop of whiskers already.
When he took off his helmet you could see the dark shadows, even from
the top row of the stands. He had it off right now, trotting off the field at
halftime, and we got a good look while he dodged in and out between some
band members. From Row 58, you could see his whiskers were definitely
dark red. Then he went out of sight under the stands.
The band crossed the cinder track and started lining up along the yard stripes in the middle of
the football field. They got formed up and the drum major was just lifting his baton for the first
number when the starter pistol cracked on the other side of the field and the cluster of cross-country
runners broke from the starting line for their lap around the track before they left the stadium. This
was the part I liked as much as watching the football game. The other kids were already leaning over
the back wall to drop pebbles and other junk and watch it fall to the sidewalk down below, but I kept
on watching the runners. They started to spread out and set their strides, being careful not to jostle
each other or trip themselves while they were still close together.
I saw Floyd as soon as the first runners got clear of the pack, wearing number 28 pinned on his
red-trimmed white shirt. He and two men in the black and orange suits of the visitors were running
almost stride for stride. Because Floyd’s legs were shorter than the others he seemed to be running
faster. That was funny—when I run along beside him I still have to take three steps for every one of
his. He laughs at me and calls me “little britches,” but he lets me keep up for a while before he sort of
waggles his behind and pulls away. I usually yell after him “red bloomers” because of the shorts he
wears.
The runners were pretty well strung out when the first one left through the gate at the end of
section A. I went over to see them head south on the first leg of the course. I watched Floyd’s blond
hair lay out behind and bounce up and down with each step. I told him his topknot flaps like a soggy
pancake and he ought to be called “Flapjack Floyd.” By the time the band finished the first song, the
runners were already going out of sight behind some trees. Then I looked at the band long enough to
tell what their next formation was going to be, and went on up to drop some of my own stuff over the
wall.
We had to be careful not to come too close to anybody down on the sidewalk or it would be too
bad for us. Some other kids got thrown out of the stadium when one of them dropped a marble so close
to a man it bounced up and hit him in the leg. The ushers told us if it happened again they would throw
everybody out and close the Knothole. This would be tough because we only had to pay a dime to see
the games. The college was pretty nice to give the seats to the grade school kids even if it was the end
section and probably would be empty otherwise. The college called us the Knothole Gang and put
something in the paper about us after almost every game. So we had to be careful.
Hank wet a Kleenex in a cup of ice he was saving and aimed it to land back of a guy close
enough to hear, but not splatter him. But the guy turned around just when Hank let go and the
Kleenex scored a bull’s eye on the toe of his shoe. Before he could look up we all turned around and
sat down and shoved the rest of the ammo under the seats in front of us. The band was forming an “S”
and playing the State fight song. We all cheered and kept paying close attention while they broke up
and reassembled in an “M” for the visitors. The band played “Hold That Tiger” and a few people
cheered. Hank booed once but the rest of us kept quiet in the spirit of sportsmanship. I thought about
Floyd and wondered if he was ahead of the two black and orange runners yet.
I saw Floyd the first time before school started. He was running down the road in front of the
house we had just moved into on the south edge of town. Then, every day for a week while we were
straightening up the place, I’d see him go by about the same time. One day I went out to holler and ask
him where he was running to, but he only grinned and waved and kept taking big deep breaths. I
never saw him come back the other way along the road.
After school started, I was playing in the front yard one day when he came walking by, limping
a little and taking toe-hops every once in a while. I waved but didn’t say anything, and he looked at me
and asked me if I had ever had a cramp. I said, “Not that I remember,” and offered to get him a drink
of water, but he turned it down. I walked along and watched him work out the cramp. That’s when he
told me he ran out to the river, which is five miles farther down the road, and back every day because
he was getting in condition for cross-country track. When he got loosened up again, he said it was
nice talking to me and why didn’t I come see him race, and he took off.
When he said Saturday, I thought he meant any Saturday, so I found out where the track was
and showed up at the stadium the next Saturday morning. There wasn’t anyone there but a few guys
messing around the jump pits. I asked one of them when Floyd was racing and he laughed and told me
about cross-country events being held at halftime of football games, and that I would have to go to the
games to see Floyd run, and that I wouldn’t see much anyhow because they ran mostly out and away
from the stadium. They only started and finished there. After that, I went over and trotted around the
track twice, then went home.
I almost forgot the most important part. The college guy that told me about the races said if I
wanted to see Floyd Lockman work out, I could come in the afternoon after school because he did his
warm-ups and sprints on the track here before he went out to do roadwork. So that’s when I started
showing up at the stadium every afternoon that my parents would let me. And that’s when, after a
while, I got to run a lap with Floyd while he did his warm-ups, until one day the coach came over and
spoke to us and said that fifth graders weren’t ready for cross-country yet, and that too much strenuous
exercise would expand my heart.
After that I just came and watched, and later on the coach would leave and I would do some
laps. I worked up to a mile after two months. When I told this secret to Floyd, he looked serious and
asked me if I wanted to get him thrown off the team, and then he laughed and said to tell him when I
was ready and he’d race me.
We sat still while the band finished up, and nobody ever showed up to run us out. They played
their last song and broke up one row at a time, trotting to the sidelines while the snare drummers beat a
little clackety-clack rhythm on the wooden rims of their drums. The formation started piling up on the
sidelines because some officials were holding them back off the track and pointing to our end of the
stands. Then, the first runner, a State guy named Griswold, came through the gate. Behind him were
two “M”s, maybe the same two, I couldn’t tell, and Floyd was fourth. When Griswold got to the white
stripe across the track at the fifty-yard line, the official timer fired his pistol again and all the runners
began speeding up into their kick for the last lap. Floyd had to speed up more than the rest because of
his short legs, but he kept chugging along, keeping up. I remembered the cramp and hoped he
wouldn’t pull up lame. He didn’t. Before the lap was over he caught one of the “M”s and came in
third.
The rest of the pack crossed the finish line and everybody walked another lap around the track
to cool down. The band rushed across the track to be seated for the second half and the two teams
started out of their dressing rooms back onto the field. Red Dog came out just when Griswold and
Floyd were walking past, so he reached out and slapped both their fannies on the way by. The band,
some of them still rushing to sit down, started playing the State fight song again in a sort of jerky, offtune way.
That’s what I remember of the ’34 football season at State. After Dad finished his master’s
thesis, we moved away to his new job.
***
I returned to State eight years later, the proud owner of a track scholarship. When I finished
registration, I hustled across campus to the field house to find Coach Adams. Except for the high
school track meets, I hadn’t been back to State since we moved away in ’35, but it all looked pretty
much the same except for the number of uniforms. Two of every three men I passed were in one or
another military training program. I had a year before the draft board would be breathing down my
neck, so I hadn’t given the service much thought yet. I would do my basic R.O.T.C. and decide on
something before the year was over. Meanwhile, I was there on a track scholarship and was anxious
to set up a workout schedule. First things first.
I was told that the coach wasn’t in his office, but was expected back any minute if I’d care to
wait. I wandered onto the basketball court where I had spent many halftimes scrambling for pennies
down on the floor while a three-piece German band oompah-ed up and down. To one side, back of the
folded stands, was the gym room where I had to shinny up the upright so I could do chin-ups on the
horizontal bar. I peeked at the swimming pool out back, which was just being built then, where I had
gathered discarded pieces of tile to build toy forts.
Back in the lobby, I started to check with the secretary when I noticed the display mounted on
the wall between the two entrances. A rainbow-shaped scroll above, in gold letters, read “Letter Club
S Honor Roll.” Two rows of photographs and the start of a third row occupied the top portion of the
board. I moved closer and saw that the photos were of athletes dressed in uniforms of various sports. I
studied the athletes in turn, recognizing some, and knowing of others through their exploits.
The first picture was a heavily bearded man in football togs, standing with feet planted solidly
apart and helmet cradled in his arm. The legend beneath identified him: Charles “Red Dog” Hewes,
’35. Lt. (jg) US Navy. Gun crew commander, torpedoed off Murmansk.
The last picture showed a runner in full stride, light hair streaming behind: Floyd Lockman,
’36. SSgt, US Army Medical Corps. Evacuating casualties, Kasserine Pass.
I rushed outside to hide the tears that welled up in my eyes. I stared at the clock tower across
the street, black hands and black-notched hours on red brick face. Its inverted image peered back at
me through patches of lily pads in the reflecting pool. In the background, two massive concrete stands
curved upward, rows of seats ascending to a point where, behind Row 58, the walls dropped vertically
to street level, just as I had remembered.
Ira Gunning was born and raised in southwest Oklahoma during the 1920-30s, the son of itinerate
school teachers. He completed Navy pilot training in 1945 and continued as a Naval Reservist until
1969. He completed his college education at the U. of Oklahoma in 1949. He worked in various
engineering jobs as a Civil Service employee of the U. S. Navy, primarily at the Naval Air Test Center in
Maryland. Ira and his wife, Beth, moved to Lake Wildwood in 1989. You can send e-mail comments to
the author at [email protected].
File: 513-M-Gunning-Knothole14.pdf
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