they 'd park around the side of the ice-cream stand , eat their cones , and maybe he 'd tell the kid a few war stories about his own boyhood , not enough to bore him , kids had a low tolerance for tales that started `` when i was a boy , '' he knew that , he guessed every dad who did n't have his head too far up his own ass did , so maybe just one or two about how he 'd tried out for base-ball more or less as a lark , and goddamned if the coach had n't - `` johnny ?