The defending champion, out of Pittsburgh, Pa., clearly merits the honor in the “Most Names” category, “handz-dahn” croak the locals in the Allegheny valley. Over the years the list has continued to grow. To many in Lewisburg during those heady [sic] days in the mid-seventies, he was simply “Wally.” As many notables of his era; e.g., Liberace, Elvis, Bozo-he didn’t need a surname; he was “Wally”, period. Initially, to me, he was the elf that lived down the street from Brocky [Prof. Richard Brockhaus] on South Sixth Street. Eventually, smugly seeing ourselves as removed from such crass informality at “The Apartment,” we referred to him by what we all knew must be his proper name, “Walter”. “Hello Mitch, Hello Reef”, he would quip. “Hello Walter, need a beer?” we would respond, all too frequently in unison.
So let’s clarify: the guy’s name is “Robert Wallace Pease” (pronounced like “Peas” or “Pees”). And right—not Walter. For thirty years we’d called him Walter—in fact, he frequently evokes the name when playing, after a rare bad shot, “Ahh, Walter”… What the hell did we know? Or care, for that matter? Finally, he tells us a few years back that his middle name is Wallace and Mitch and I look like utter fools (neither the first nor the last time for that).
When he was the keyboardist and a vocalist for TELAPATH, Wally, Walter, Wallace, became “Bob”, or as Fonz [a name Wally gave to Ron Fahnestock, aka Ronnie Stockton] used to refer to him, “Bobby” or “Bobby Paze” (pronounced “Pays”),and we were all terminally confused. Soon, I suspect for thoroughly infantile reasons, “Bob” became “Boob”, which morphed swiftly to “Booby”, then “Booby Paze” & ultimately to “The Boob”. He still refers to himself exclusively as “Bob and Rosie’s little boy Boob”. Think about it this way: we are just a handful of the many people who know and love this man—whatever name anyone wants to give him—he just might have thousands of names…
My first memory of Robert-Bobby- Bob- Boob- Booby-Wally- Walter- Wallace-Pease, Peas-Pees-Pays-Paze- Pazely is a summer concert out at the Bucknell Mods in probably ’73 or ’74. He was fronting a make-shift and rather mangy lot of assorted musicians, quasi-musicians, gypsies, tramps and thieves. They were playing Dave Mason’s “Feelin’ Alright” (perfect for this “group”: two chords in the same repeated rhythm); and they were rockin’ it solid. And there he was. I was finally hearing the guy play and sing. He was tick-track perfect and singin’ his balls off. He made music out of a repeated, rather mundane two-chorder. He was and still is a natural. Back in the day, he was in bands I could have joined and I was in ones he could have joined. We played one gig together. Eventually, we did play many rounds of golf together and I am certain Wally would have preferred more gigs and less golf.
Ever the hospitable one, Wally was a good sport when, in the summer of 1993, he offered to host Kate, Nick (then 11 years-old) and me while we were spanning the eastern realms of the republic attending (and keeping proper score in a scorecard ; Nick insisted) professional baseball games. We saw ten games in eight cities over a fifteen day period, including two in The Burgh: one Pirates vs Braves and another, with “Walter”, Pirates vs Mets, in Three Rivers Stadium (may it rest in pieces.
32 Orchard Road, Florham Park, New Jersey.
Well, no sooner do we arrive than Nick rudely attacks the refrigerator, finding little: an open slab of Velveeta, a colorful , virtually full jar of something resembling mayo, a two gallon jug of Heinz Ketchup, little mustard packs clearly smuggled out for decades from fast food emporiums within a minute’s drive, a box of eggs, expiration date 3/15/88, a tightly wound, vaguely green, half-loaf of Wonder Bread, a plastic bag half-full of what was at one time, borrowing shamelessly from Matthau as Oscar Madison, “either new meat or very old cheese”, and two Coor’s Lights. Wally stepped in quickly, doing his best Richard Pryor, “Don’t you worry none, boy. For To-night, I’m taking your ass to the finest eatin’ es-tablishment inna citah ah Pittsburgh.” And we were off to “The O”.
Fittingly, the place where we ate has as many names as…well, you know…”him”. Located smack in the middle of the campus of the University of Pittsburgh, “The O” or “The Dirty O”, or “The Original Hot Dog Shop” is as American as Campbell’s Pork and Beans.
curling and snapping in their natural casings. The aromas were intoxicating, heavenly even. Off to the left were a dozen, five gallon deep fat fryers, all on timers: LED readouts as to how much longer was required to produce French fries the likes of which I had never had before or since. They were perfect, served drained, salted and steaming in deep white cardboard wells laced with ketchup. So too were the hot dog rolls themselves, even the mustard, the onions, the green relish—all the best I ever had. The four of us had a total of eight dogs, four large drinks, and what was known as a “Mountain of Fries”.
We went through six hundred napkins, easily. It doesn’t matter which one of us picked up the tab [Ed. translation: Paze]; it was less than twenty bucks. The “O”. The “Boob” took us to The “O”.
Then it was off to Tres Rios to see Sid Fernandez…
Wally drove that night. Made sense. If he didn’t know where we were going then who would? We parked in what appeared to be a run-down section of south Pittsburgh, halfway down an alleyway, between four-story, empty warehouses; life all around for sure - throbbing, ghetto life. Following Wally down that same alleyway four hours later was a decidedly different adventure—at least it was for the Reifsnyders. Reasonably assured that my wife and child and one of my best friends were about to be sacrificed, most likely in front of my eyes, I shut said eyes and followed…Booby, of all names. When, out of the yeasty darkness, a voice said, “Coach Paze? Dat you Paze? Shit it is.” It was a group of Wally’s former students and football players…never felt so comfortable and protected in my life.
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