ISBN: 978-1-952320-50-7
A Bandicoot Holiday
Copyright © 2020 by Sherman E. Hister
All rights reserved.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events and incidents are totally the product of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, events or locales, is entirely coincidental. Opinions expressed are entirely those of the author.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.
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Published in the USA
The Rivers
Strum River flows through the sleepy little town of Pickerville as the winter’s snow falls yet again around the Advent holiday. This is not an ordinary Christmas in Pickerville. It’s the first Christmas the Rivers boys are involved with the preparations for the coming season, not the coming season of spring but the new baseball season in Pickerville. Dalton Rivers has owned the Bandicoots minor league team of Pickerville for the last several seasons. Mr. Rivers has decided that it was time for his oldest son, Wayne, to become the team’s manager like he has always hoped for. Dalton Rivers also hopes for his son Quail to join the team as well, not for management or a position on the team’s board but as a player. Quail played baseball growing up but never wanted to play professionally. Instead, he dreamed of playing for the Bandicoots. The Bandicoots were very important to the town and people of Pickerville. Wayne and Quail both planned to take care of the team like their father had.
On Christmas day, Quail and Wayne watch Strum River flow from their parents’ back porch when Quail says something very important to Wayne. Quail tells Wayne, “I’ve got no plans to play professionally no matter what, not even if the board thinks I should.” The Bandicoots were the farm team for one of the most promising professional clubs. Part of the reason Dalton’s team has been so successful is because he manages from a far and doesn’t get too caught up in its business. He administered a board of seven men, about his age and experience, to deal with the daily business of the pro team. Dalton spends most of his time mentoring the new recruits who are signed to play with the Bandicoots.
This gives Dalton exposure to the person behind each player before they’re called up to the big leagues. Quail has always admired his father for this. He also has never been a fan of attention and just loves the game of baseball. This is why Quail tells Wayne he has no plans to play for their father’s pro team. Wayne acknowledges his brothers wishes, but reminds him, “You might have to tell that to the board yourself.” Quail didn’t have a problem with that. He knew the board members were wary of him. Heck, a lot of people were a little wary of Quail. Quail was not a mean person, but if aggravated, he could get mean. The temper Quail’s got is almost legendary in the town of Pickerville. It resulted from a dual causing the loss of front teeth one time during a high school practice. Quail had to learn early in life what to stand for and how to protect who he was.
Before the two brothers rejoin their parents inside on this special Christmas holiday, Wayne looks at Quail and says, “Young brother, you don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do.” The team was just as much Quail’s as it was Wayne’s, and they both believed this. Both were equal partners but had operational interests in different areas. Quail was the worker while Wayne was the administrator like their father.
During summer’s growing up, Wayne paid attention to the players’ progression and helped with the business side of the Bandicoots. He worked in the ballpark’s head office, learning how to develop new marketing for the team. Wayne even sat in on luncheons with future prospects discussing contracts.
Quail took care of the physical aspects, maintaining Strum Stadium and its field. He made repairs to the stadium, cut the field’s grass, chalked lines before games, and did menial tasks like throwing batting practice or shagging balls.
The Rivers brothers eat, sleep, and breathe Bandicoot baseball. It never made much sense to the townspeople why the two brothers never paid any attention to the pro team a lot like their father. The Rivers brothers left the business of the Bandicoots pro team to the members of the board. They were from Pickerville, the place they call home, and there was nowhere else they’d rather be.
The Rivers family residence is somewhat of an odd addition to the family business. Their home is also a dairy farm that supplies the town of Pickerville a large portion of its milk. The dairy farm has thirty cows, and as a family, the Rivers take turns milking the herd. They do this around three times a day. Quail does the early rotation while Wayne takes care of the midday milking, and at night, Dalton Rivers usually ends his days with a good squeeze. Sometimes Mrs. Rivers even helps with the chore.
The cows are milked in the old barn Dalton built when Mrs. Rivers wanted to have the family’s own dairy. The herd was much smaller originally, so the old barn housed the dairy comfortably. When the herd reached its present size, Dalton decided to have a larger barn built. After its construction was completed, Dalton wanted the barn to keep warm during the colder months. He planned to have the entire operation function within the walls of the monstrous barn while the cows kept warm when it was too cold for them to be outside. So Dalton decided to insulate the new edition to the Rivers dairy farm.
Quail happened to be interested with what was going on when Dalton hired an insulation crew to insulate the interior of the new barn. The crew arrived the day after Christmas to start working on the barn’s interior. Quail asked if he could watch the men work. The three-member crew didn’t mind this at all and told Quail he was more than welcome to watch. After the first few hours of work, Quail realized there wasn’t much he couldn’t handle insulating the new barn. Quail almost asked if he could try the work himself, but the men, out of nowhere, stopped what they were doing and asked Quail if he would go get his father so the men could talk to him about the job.
It turns out the crew bit off more than they wanted to chew. They were worried the barn wouldn’t be finished in time to start other jobs they already had scheduled. This would result in a loss of their business. They explained they were used to doing houses and it would take too long for the three-man crew to finish. The men quitting would have been a problem, but Quail got to watch long enough to figure out what to do. When the crew told Mr. Rivers they didn’t want the job after all, Dalton Rivers made a deal with them before they left.
Mr. Rivers was aware of Quail’s eagerness to learn the insulation trade. Dalton also knows his son as well as he knows himself. Dalton told the men that if they intend to leave without finishing, they had to leave enough equipment for one man to do the job and all the material Mr. Rivers already paid for. The crew laughed at this request like Dalton himself would be taking on the task alone. Mr. Rivers didn’t even notice their quick remarks because he wasn’t going to do the work.
As the crew was leaving, Dalton called to the men, “How long do you estimate a job like this would take if you worked until the job was finished?”
The men agreed, saying, “At least a month.”
Mr. Rivers laughed and told the crew to be back in two weeks. The insulators asked why, but all Dalton could do was laugh, and say, “You’ll see, two weeks.” Quail picked up on what his father was talking about. When the men were gone, Dalton turns to Quail to say, “Son, I know you can, and I know you want to insulate this barn. Do you think you can do it in two weeks?”
Quail looks at his dad with a big toothless grin