Before the Super Bowl this year I started writing my ‘When We Were Lions’ series and thinking of Mr. Peterson as I was writing.
My younger brother was reading the posts and shared them with Mr Peterson’s oldest son, who was also on the Lions team.
Bottom right.
Here is a picture from the championship day with Coach Mytton.
Through Facebook he connected with me and I let him know what I was contemplating, a series of articles to honor his dad.
He thought he would like it and he provided me a team photo.
I asked him to keep it quiet until I could ask his dad if he would be interested in doing an interview. He agreed.
It was right before the Super Bowl when I contacted my little league coach to ask him for an interview.
He agreed.
I let him know what my schedule was and because I know he is a big sports fan I let him know we would shoot for a meeting after the Super Bowl and after March Madness.
Go Badgers!
Wednesday April 5th 2017
A quick, confirming, text message and I was on my way to talk to Mr. Peterson.
In honor of Mr. Peterson‘s teaching past and a little nod to how my mom would do it, I would like to invite you along for a little walk.
It won’t be too long of one, just around the country block, past the artesian well, and turning before we get to Blueberry Road so we’ll be coming around the corner, headed for home just in time for supper.
I turned onto the road that would take me to see Mr Peterson and was reminded of the neighborhood he lives in.
It has a neighborhood pond and back in the day I knew kids and young adults who would sneak into that pond.
I was greeted by a long white wooden fence and as I turned into the driveway I could already smell the wood smoke.
The horse trailers confirmed I had the right fire number and driveway.
To be honest, I was nervous. This would be my first real interview. I couldn’t think of a better one, but nervous I was.
He greeted me at the door, along with his little dog and invited me in.
We were finishing shaking hands and his phone started to ring. It was awesome.
It had the old ‘aaahooooga!, aaahooooga!’ horn going off and he let it ring while we sat down and that was just what I needed to settle my nerves.
Great minds think alike, as my ring tone is an old school bell or the aaahooooga horn depending on my mood.
He offered me something to drink, he offered up some of the usual sodas, Pepsi, Sprite, root beer and then he said, “How about a Butterscotch Rootbeer?”
“That’s different, sounds good.” I said.
Dang good rootbeer!Â
No, no… that’s the name.
He went into the kitchen to grab the soda’s and as I looked around the sitting room we were in I felt very comfortable and mused to myself that this space fits what I know about him.
He and his wife have decorations, collections really, of hand crank cake beaters and a whole line of what looked like old wire rug beaters hanging along the walls.
The wire rug beaters were very interesting as I did not see any two that were shaped exactly the same.
My mom would have loved those and gotten some good use out of em’ too…
and we didn’t own no rugs!
He brought the soda’s in and an old school bottle opener, I was feeling happy, here I am, talking to my coach, an interview 37 years in the making, the smell of wood smoke from the stove, the antiques on the walls, needing an old school bottle opener for a Butterscotch rootbeer and before we start to talk he says,
“Here, these are for you.”
He handed me three team pictures of the Lions little league ball team, we took a sip of butterscotch rootbeer…
and settled in to have a nice visit.Â
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