Where have you gone Charlie Frenafratz?

I’ve come to know a lot of interesting characters in my travels.
One of the most interesting, however, is a guy I never met. I do miss him though now that he’s gone.

I arrived on the campus of the University of Minnesota as a freshman in the fall of 1978.
I was fortunate enough to have a student job with the Golden Gopher football team which began practice 5 weeks before the fall semester started.
Sure that made for a shortened summer break, but I was making a whole lot of new friends and finding my niche in this massive campus and community.

One of the nicer guys that I got to know was an older equipment guy by the name of Francis “Bud” Kessel. Buddy, as many people called him, stood about 5 feet 2 inches tall. Maybe that’s part of what drew us to each other as I was only a few inches taller than him.
I know I mainly liked Bud because of the interesting stories he told about the things he had seen and done in his life time.

Buddy was born in 1928 in the Bronx, New York. He spoke with a New York accent.
“Todd” was pronounced as “Tard”. People had good idears and some things were yuuuge rather than very large.

Being a kid in New York City back in the day sounded like a magical experience. Buddy and his pals used to hang around the stage doors of Carnegie Hall and the Broadway Theaters. They used to walk in with the performers and stage hands. What did they care if a handful of kids saw the show for free. It didn’t matter that much back then.

Bud never got to SEE a Frank Sinatra show. But when Ol’ Blue Eyes appeared at Carnegie Hall early in his career Buddy and his friends stowed away in the orchestra pit multiple times to just HEAR him perform with Tommy Dorsey’s band up on the stage.

Bud’s first teenage crush was on a young model and Broadway actress and dancer called Diane Belmont. Her real name, as we all came to know her later, was Lucille Ball. I love Lucy indeed.

The Bud I met wore big old glasses (like a lot of us did back then) and khaki work pants every day I ever knew him. He loved to laugh, and often nudged you with his forearm to make certain you were following the story he was telling.

As the equipment manager for Gopher hockey back then Bud needed to be poised and ready to fix anything that may break during practices and games. The task is made easier by teaching an eager student employee the finer points of the trade and letting them handle a lot of the grunt work. I was learning similar skills, as they applied to football, in my job at the other end of campus.
I worked Gopher football, but my passion was Gopher hockey.

  

The hockey Gophers played in the old Mariucci Arena where the locker rooms were located in the basement, one story below the ice level. Both teams trudged up and down old wooden steps for pregame, between periods, and after games.

By the time I met him a 50-year-old Buddy had seen and worked enough semi-pro, minor league, national team, Olympic, college and professional hockey games that he typically let his student employee handle things upstairs while Bud sat outside the locker room with Irv, the septuagenarian security guard, listening to the game on a radio and telling old stories. I’d bring a loaf of bread, some cold cuts and mustard, and we’d have a wonderful time until we heard the clatter of forty pairs of sharpened steel skate blades clomping down the steps signaling it was time for us to swing into action.

 I can still close my eyes and hear that clatter, smell that odor, and feel my heart beat faster, as it’s time to prop the door open, pass towels out to the players, and offer water and juice to any and all that need hydration, as if I were still an undergrad lucky enough to be in my Graceland, the inner sanctum of Gopher hockey, helping Bud with anything that needed doing.

And hearing Buddy’s great stories.

The same year that Bud was born the Graf Zeppelin began transatlantic service from Germany to New York. He told stories of he and his schoolboy friends running outside and looking up as these yuuuge airships cast massive shadows over the New York skyline. He recalled all too well watching the Hindenburg sailing over the city on its ill-fated journey to Lakehurst New Jersey as a nine-year-old kid on May 6^th, 1937. Most concluded after that day that hydrogen filled airships used for long distance travels perhaps was no longer a good idear. 

Bud got his start in the athletic equipment business as a kid. He was a bat boy for the New York Yankees and used to tell of the time that Babe Ruth waved him out to the on-deck circle to sit on his knee as the Sultan of Swat waited his turn while Lou Gehrig was at bat.
That was a far simpler time and legendary players did stuff like that back then.

Many of the stories that Bud laughed hardest at while he told them involved he and his traveling partner, Charlie Frenafratz. Charlie sounded like a ne’er do well with a golden heart.

The first time I heard of Charlie was when Bud saw a student employee who lacked focus and was easily distracted. The student reminded Bud of the time, riding in Charlie’s car, they stopped to fill up with gas. Service stations back then were all full-service, so that day the attendant put the nozzle into the gas tank opening and walked away to help other customers while Charlie’s tank filled.

You may recall that this story reminded Bud of people who lacked focus. Evidently Charlie Frenafratz was the poster child for that malady.  Before the employee could return to remove the nozzle and collect payment from him Charlie was on to his next task. Pulling away from the pump stretched and then snapped the hose with a spray, and then a steady stream of gasoline accompanied by a shower of sparks. 

 
A half block up the road the loud clunk, as the disembodied nozzle eventually fell to the pavement, finally caught Charlie’s attention. He pulled over, hopped out of his car, and assessed the situation. Continuing around the block to return to the scene of the crime Charlie pulled back into the gas station, parked, rolled down his window and yelled at the attendant,
“HEY! YOU FORGOT TO PUT MY GAS CAP BACK ON!”

The story always ended there. I’m not sure if the gas station owner chalked up the repair expense as part of the cost of doing business or if Charlie had to dig deeper in his pocket or not.  We’ll never know. But I’ll bet that back in the day, being that it was a simpler time, attorneys didn’t get involved like they would today.

Bud was a big fan of fire departments, fire stations, and firefighting paraphernalia. He began collecting unique fire hose nozzles, badges, and insignia. At one point in time an unemployed Charlie Frenafratz was traveling with Buddy on one of his trips to Canada with a US National hockey team. Bud had pulled a few stings to have him added as an equipment assistant, so he could earn a few bucks and stay busy for a while.

Bud only asked Charlie to do two things on this trip;
1. Follow orders, and,
2. Keep his mouth shut.

The 10-day trip went pretty well for 9 days.
The team won more than they lost, Bud was able to trade game tickets for some antique brass fire hose nozzles and a few badges and pins, and Charlie had worked out pretty well as an assistant.

The tenth and final day, however, was another matter.
Facing the prospect of having to pass through customs on the US/Canadian border, and possessing some unusual firefighting items he hadn’t carried into Canada, Bud did what every self-respecting equipment guy would do; he buried them in an equipment trunk and just hoped that one was not randomly selected for inspection.

 
As the caravan of vehicles approached the border crossing there was a backup as vehicles were slow to pass through the check point. With each passing moment Charlie grew more agitated and vocal since he wanted to get home as soon as possible.
Bud reminded him to cool down and that his irate comments would only inflame the situation and could cause more delays since typically, when traveling with a team, the border agents took the equipment guy’s word for it that there was nothing to declare and they were waved right through.

Charlie either didn’t believe Bud, or perhaps he figured there would be no problem if he said a thing or two. 

So he did.

And then he said more.

And then a little more.

Next thing we know Bud and Charlie have been ordered to pull the equipment van to a holding area, unload it all, and start unlocking trunks and unzipping equipment bags.
The undeclared firefighting items were found, but no questions were asked.
Buddy believes the border agent didn’t really care what was in the van. He just wanted to inconvenience Charlie for having such a big mouth.

Now two hours behind schedule Bud and Charlie began repacking bags, reloading trunks, and piling everything back into the van.
I gotta believe that in this day and age of heightened security there would have been closer scrutiny of the van’s contents, more questions asked, and most likely confiscation of the firefighting items.
Needless to say Charlie was NOT a member of the traveling entourage when Bud was the equipment guy for the 1980 Miracle on Ice US Olympic hockey team.

The final job of Buddy’s career was as the assistant equipment manager for Gopher football. He retired in 1988 and I replaced him in that position. Months after taking that job I found out from a few ballplayers that many of them thought for sure I was Bud’s son. They probably assumed as much since Bud and I had the same stature. With all due respect to my actual dad I’m honored nonetheless to be linked with Bud even if mistakenly as his son.

Even in his retirement years I enjoyed getting together with Bud to grab a nice sandwich and to laugh about old times and even older friends.
I always loved hearing Bud’s stories about his old friend Charlie Frenafratz.
I never met Charlie however.
I’ve often suspected that Bud and Charlie were the same person and that Charlie was merely a fictitious scapegoat that Bud used to tell of the humorous things he himself had done, but didn’t want to admit to.

Bud passed away in June of 1998 at age 70. And with his passing the legend of Charlie Frenafratz died as well.

In the song, “Mrs. Robinson,” Paul Simon asks the question, 

“Where have you gone Joe DiMaggio? A nation turns its lonely eyes to you.”

Simon has stated that the line was a tribute to heroes of a long gone past and remembrance of simpler times.

Bud and Charlie are a couple of my heroes from more recent simpler times even though I only ever met one of ‘em.