Uncle Bubber's Home Is Youth Center For Tryon Hills Rd.

Just ask any youngster in the sprawling neighborhood of Tryon Hills if you want to know about Uncle Bubber.

Knock on any door along Catalina Ave. or the streets to the east and west and mention his name. Uncle Bubber is more famous than Rocky Marciano and more popular than Santa Claus.

There isn't a park in Tryon Hils. So the neighborhood children play basketball on Uncle Bubber's basketball court, skate on his skating rink and dance in his basement game room to the music from his record player.

Every afternoon, 25 or 30 grammar grade youngsters can be found digging in Uncle Bubber's sand pile, swinging on his swing or sliding on his slide. Two or three nights a week, as many as 100 crowd into his basement for a movie.

Uncle Bubber is a truck driver. His name is Norris R. Short, and he is not a rich man, not in the common meaning of the word.

What he is wealthy in is is love of children. That is what has led him to turn his home at 2420 Catalina Ave. into the only recreation center in the community.

It all started seven years ago when Mr. and Mrs. Short moved into the brand new Tryon Hills development. Their own children needed a place to play and since they were young and wanted a sandbox, Mr. Short installed a sandbox.

The children - Rae, Gene, Benny and Jeannean - started growing up and gaining friends. And first thing anybody knew, there were a lot of friends, of all ages, and they were making the Short's a sort of a second home and calling Mr. Short Uncle Bubber.

To take care of the crowd, Uncle Bubber dug into his own pocket and bought a basketball and net, a football, a swing and slide, baseball equipment, games of all kinds.

Much of his long-distance driving was done at night, so in the daytime he supervised the games.

A child told him there wasn't any place but the street to skate, so he built a concrete skating platform.

In the summer, some of the junior high school boys started talking about softball. So Uncle Bubber laid out a miniature softball field. One of the rules was that the batter had to swing left-handed to keep from braking neighbors' windows.
No grass has grown in the Short's back yard for six years.

Eighteen months ago, Mr. Short went to the hospital for a serious operation on his back. When he came out, a cast covered most of the body, and for a while he was reduced to sitting at a window and watching the youngsters in his backyard park.

It was then that the neighbors stepped in to help. Robert Saxton, who lives next door, organized a basketball team with Uncle Bubber co-coaching from the sidelines. Another neighbor contributed uniforms and when the uniforms got dirty the neighborhood laundry washing them free.

Still another father in the community got the football team going during Mr. Short's convalescence. The team practiced in the Short's back yard.

Casting around for something to help pass the time, Mr. Short hit upon movies. He dug up a 16-millimeter projector and rented some films. The moves are shown every Friday night and whenever the youngsters appear in mass to see one.

Those who can afford to pay for the movies do. Those who can't, don't. The money goes into film rental, and if there's any left over (what could be more natural?), Uncle Bubber gives a party for the children.

At one such party at Christmas, the children gave something to Uncle Bubber - a cigarette lighter and a card. On the card were the names of every boy and girl in the neighborhood.

Talk to the police and they will tell you that Tryon Hills, without a park or playground, is a place where “delinquency” is almost unheard of.

And that's part of the idea. “If I could keep one child - just one - out of trouble, then that's all I want from this,” Mr. Short says.

Uncle Bubber's batting average is considerably better than that.

This week, Mr. Short went back to driving a truck for the first time since his operation. But the playground and recreation center will go right on operating, with Mrs. Short at the helm whenever her husband can't be there.

It couldn't be otherwise, of course. Because if Uncle Bubber didn't show movies there wouldn't be any place to go. And besides, the basketball team has won one and lost two so far and that's a record that will have to be improved.

There are a lot of other projects in the works, records to be bought for the teen-agers, dancing sessions, a reorganization of the softball team in the spring, enough to frighten any average man.

But you couldn't say Uncle Bubber is exactly average.

Charles Kuralt's People (Kenilworth Media, copyright 2002)
ISBN 0-9679096-1-9 | Hard cover | 384 pages with photos | $25.95

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