Memory's Key(es)

 So now comes word that Leroy Keyes has laid down his burden, and suddenly there is a hint of Lemon Pledge in the air. This is an odd sentence, I'll admit. But context is all.

The context is a Saturday afternoon -- a lot of Saturday afternoons, actually -- and the sun is painting the living room carpet in the burnished patterns of fall, and the radio is on at 3029 Castle Drive in Fort Wayne. My mother is cleaning the house. Everything smells of, yes, Lemon Pledge. And Leroy Keyes just ran for a first down for Jack Mollenkopf's Purdue Boilermakers.

Out of the radio he comes, with that black 23 on the side of his old gold helmet and the same number on his black jersey, and a certain 12-or-13-year-old boy with a vivid imagination can see him. Keyes is gliding away from shoals of Minnesota Golden Gophers or Wisconsin Badgers of Northwestern Wildcats, and Bob Griese and Mike Phipps are back there throwing darts to Jim Beirne and Bob Dillingham, and this will always be fall for me, this will always be my most distinct memory of that lovely haunted season.

Leroy Keyes and Purdue football and the smell of Lemon Pledge: It's a sensory thing for me, and maybe not so odd now that I've presented it as such. I grew up with all of it because Mom always cleaned house on Saturday afternoons, and she was a Purdue grad who was always faithful to her Boilers. And there was a lot to be faithful to then.

Keyes, of course, was at the center of it, the black kid from Newport News, Va., who could run and catch passes and return kicks and even, on occasion, play defensive back. That skill set helped carry Purdue to the Rose Bowl in 1967 with Bob Griese at quarterback, and then to consecutive 8-2 seasons in 1967 and '68 with Mike Phipps at quarterback. In Keyes' three seasons in Purdue's backfield, the Boilers went 25-6.

Then he went off to the Philadelphia Eagles, where, long after it was fashionable, he played both ways for awhile as a running back and safety. 

Now he's gone, at 74. And I smell Lemon Pledge again. And see the sun on the carpet and hear Leroy Keyes barging out of the radio, making some hapless Gopher or Badger or Wildcat miss in wondrous ways in the overactive mind of a boy.

Rest well, Mr. Keyes. And know we were always listening.