Note: Mike was my next-door neighbor when I was growing up in Fort Branch, Indiana. He lives in Wisconsin now, and writes novels, books for middle school children, and an on-line newsletter. In the following article, he mentions my parents, Bud and Edna Blevins, and a very well-known Hoosier.)

Mom never was much of an outdoors person, but during the late 1960s when she was in her fifties, she and Dad bought one of those huge, heavy canvas tents, stocked up on supplies, and took up camping. One of their favorite destinations was Indiana’s Turkey Run State Park, north of Terre Haute and a little over a hundred miles from their Fort Branch home.

During one stay at Turkey Run, a troop of young Boy Scouts camping nearby took a liking to them and their longtime friends, Bud and Edna, who were camping with them. The boys hung out with them the entire weekend and even put on a skit Saturday evening and sat around their campfire for most of the night. Larry, a good-natured boy some of the others called “Bird Legs,” struck Mom as an especially nice boy. She often talked about the weekend the scout troop “adopted” them, and the boy she loved to tell about the most was Larry.

Fifteen years later, Bud and Edna stopped by my folk’s home for a visit. Bud pointed to a large picture in the sports section of the Evansville Courier on the coffee table that showed Larry Bird, then a famous Boston Celtic forward, taking a jump shot. “I’d say our little Larry Bird Legs has made it big.”

Mom glanced at the picture and nodded. “He certainly has.” She wasn’t a sports fan, but she knew who Larry Bird was, and she knew he was much more than just a basketball superstar. He was the man that the good-natured boy called “Bird Legs” had become.

I was reminded of my parent’s encounter with young Larry when I read a Jeff Eisenberg article that told of Indiana State University’s plans to erect a fifteen-foot bronze statue of their most famous basketball player on the Terre Haute campus. Sculptor Bill Wolfe decided to make it taller than the twelve-foot statue of longtime rival Magic Johnson that was erected at Michigan State.

Bud and Mom were right. That nice boy called “Bird Legs” has, indeed, made it big. A three-time NBA Most Valuable Player, he’s the only person in NBA history to be named Most Valuable Player, Coach of the Year, and Executive of the Year. And he’ll always be exactly three feet taller than Magic Johnson.

(Be sure to check out Mike’s website at www.mikemcnair.yolasite.com.)