The gym at Ferry Park was one of those third great places

Workers begin the process of tearing down the Docie Bass Recreation Center at Ferry Park. Image courtesy of Del Stone Jr.

The gym at Ferry Park is going away and I’m a little sad about that.

I don’t fault the city for tearing it down. The building was old and lacked air conditioning. It cost a fortune to operate.

Still, there’s something to be said for neighborhood touchstones like gyms, taverns, grocery stores and restaurants. I think it has something to do with Ray Oldenburg’s “The Great Good Place.” Those “third places,” as Oldenburg put it — the first two being the home and the workplace — allow for public interaction on a more intimate level, thereby preserving democracy and fostering community involvement. America wouldn’t be the same without third places and they’re vanishing before our eyes, swallowed up by a sea of packaged, templated, franchised uniformity.

Once we went to Docie Bass where I threw a basketball at the basket and hoped I didn’t cold-cock somebody in the bleachers. I could not bounce a ball and run at the same time. To this day I don’t know how they do it. But it was a comfort seeing Docie Bass across the canal from the tennis courts, hearing the rubbery thump of basketballs and echoey shouts of kids sinking baskets.

Docie Bass was the first place I worked for money that didn’t involve a rake or a lawn mower. A neighbor who was involved in the city’s rec program needed help with the scoreboard and asked if I wanted the job. He would pay me 85 cents per game.

Knowing nothing about the rules of basketball, I foolishly agreed to this proposition.

What followed was a very steep learning curve in which I not only became schooled to a referee’s knowledge level but in the intricacies of the scoreboard itself. The scoreboard was a tricky proposition. You had to be very quick on the clock kill switch, especially as time was running out. If you didn’t stop the clock within a nanosecond of the ref’s whistle, you had a mob of angry guys in your face accusing you of rigging the game for the other team.

I enjoyed the youth leagues better. There weren’t many 12-year-olds who could take me down —well, maybe a couple. There wasn’t a lot of scoring in those games, so my scoring finger didn’t see much duty.

Confession: Over time, my objectivity as scorekeeper began to crack as I developed favorites. That’s not to say I did anything to help those teams, but I definitely enjoyed watching them.

One such team was the Chiefs. They were the underdog almost every time they played, but they had one standout who sometimes put them in a position to win – Ray Sansom.

Ray was a good athlete and I’ll wager he excelled at other sports, too. What stood out for me was that no matter how lopsided the score and how improbable the Chiefs’ prospects of winning, Ray always tried. You could see his determination. That quality served him well. I expect it still does.

I worked that job only one season and missed it the following year. I didn’t know it would be 36 years before I would set foot in that gym again.

The occasion was a roller derby match involving the Beach Brawl Sk8r Dolls and a visiting team. That Saturday night, crowds of us jammed into a stuffy, sweaty Docie Bass to cheer the Sk8r Dolls and our workmate, Robbyn Brooks. Those ladies had more collisions and pileups than NASCAR, but it was great fun and I walked out with a Sk8r Dolls T-shirt designed especially for me — it read “Old Man” on the back and my number was 100.

The gym seems forlorn now. Its doors are locked and electrical power is disconnected, the lines hanging impotently from the side of the building. Items that had been stored at the gym are stacked in the back. A spray-painted sign on the side indicates a sewer connection.

As of this writing it has not been demolished, but perhaps by the time you read this, it will be gone. It’ll be replaced by a park dedicated to the memory of Bud and Dorie Day.

For now, if you hold your head a certain way, you can almost hear the thumping bounce of a basketball and the excited shouts of neighborhood kids having the time of their lives.

Docie Bass was a third place for me and a lot of other people.

This column was published in the Wednesday, September 2, 2015 edition of the Northwest Florida Daily News and is used with permission.

About the author:

Del Stone Jr. is a professional fiction writer. He is known primarily for his work in the contemporary dark fiction field, but has also published science fiction and contemporary fantasy. Stone’s stories, poetry and scripts have appeared in publications such as Amazing Stories, Eldritch Tales, and Bantam-Spectra’s Full Spectrum. His short fiction has been published in The Year’s Best Horror Stories XXII; Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine; the Pocket Books anthology More Phobias; the Barnes & Noble anthologies 100 Wicked Little Witch Stories, Horrors! 365 Scary Stories, and 100 Astounding Little Alien Stories; the HWA anthology Psychos; and other short fiction venues, like Blood Muse, Live Without a Net, Zombiesque and Sex Macabre. Stone’s comic book debut was in the Clive Barker series of books, Hellraiser, published by Marvel/Epic and reprinted in The Best of Hellraiser anthology. He has also published stories in Penthouse Comix, and worked with artist Dave Dorman on many projects, including the illustrated novella “Roadkill,” a short story for the Andrew Vachss anthology Underground from Dark Horse, an ashcan titled “December” for Hero Illustrated, and several of Dorman’s Wasted Lands novellas and comics, such as Rail from Image and “The Uninvited.” Stone’s novel, Dead Heat, won the 1996 International Horror Guild’s award for best first novel and was a runner-up for the Bram Stoker Award. Stone has also been a finalist for the IHG award for short fiction, the British Fantasy Award for best novella, and a semifinalist for the Nebula and Writers of the Future awards. His stories have appeared in anthologies that have won the Bram Stoker Award and the World Fantasy Award. Two of his works were optioned for film, the novella “Black Tide” and short story “Crisis Line.”

Stone recently retired after a 41-year career in journalism. He won numerous awards for his work, and in 1986 was named Florida’s best columnist in his circulation division by the Florida Society of Newspaper Editors. In 2001 he received an honorable mention from the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association for his essay “When Freedom of Speech Ends” and in 2003 he was voted Best of the Best in the category of columnists by Emerald Coast Magazine. He participated in book signings and awareness campaigns, and was a guest on local television and radio programs.

As an addendum, Stone is single, kills tomatoes and morning glories with ruthless efficiency, once tied the stem of a cocktail cherry in a knot with his tongue, and carries a permanent scar on his chest after having been shot with a paintball gun. He’s in his 60s as of this writing but doesn’t look a day over 94.

Contact Del at [email protected]. He is also on Facebook, twitter, Pinterest, tumblr, TikTok, and Instagram. Visit his website at delstonejr.com .