Gregg Doyel

gregg.doyel@indystar.com

ZIONSVILLE – Lavoy Allen is calling the numbers, but he’s calling them wrong because Rose Ann Murray is one number from winning – and Allen can’t get it right.

“N-38,” Allen says.

Not what Rose Ann needs, and Boomer can’t believe it. Boomer – big blue bear-looking thing, the Indiana Pacers mascot; you can’t miss him – is standing next to her, waiting for the good news. N-38? That’s not good news. Boomer covers his face and shakes his head.

“O-68,” Allen says.

Boomer turns and stares down Lavoy with fabric eyes that drip disdain you can feel across the room here at The Hearth at Tudor Gardens, a senior living facility in Zionsville.

Pacers center Lavoy Allen is here because … well, I’ll tell you why he’s here later. Boomer, too. We’ll get to them, but now Allen’s 3-year-old son, Kai – more on that adorable kid in a minute, too – is pulling a ball from the hopper and whispering the number to his father.

“B-12,” Allen says.

Rose Ann looks at her card. Boomer is nodding.

“I got it,” Rose Ann says softly. “What do you say? What am I supposed to say?”

Someone tells her: Bingo.

“Bingooooooo,” she says.

Lavoy Allen, all 6-9 NBA center of him, walks over with her prize, an electric foot massager of some sort. Rose Ann cranes her head up to thank him and then whispers to me:

“You know, I really needed something like this for my feet,” she says. She has been silent for most of an hour, but now the ice is broken.

“I won the other day, a cover-all,” she tells me. “You know what that is?”

Cover the whole board? Sounds like the jackpot.

“It is,” she says. “All I won is 50 cents! Two quarters. I put it in my little jar that was my mother’s. It’s almost full now. I want to wrap them up in those little wrappers at the bank and put it into my checking account.”

Great idea, I tell her. And this evening with Lavoy Allen? Priceless, I tell you.

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* * *

The room has some ringers. Sally Allen showed up in a gold Pacers T-shirt, which she wears when she watches Pacers games on TV in her room.

“I watch all of them,” she says.

She attended Pacers games in the 1980s, when her husband bought season tickets. They went throughout the '90s, too. Her husband died in 2001. She hasn’t been to Bankers Life Fieldhouse.

“We went to Market Square Arena,” she says, and it sounds like: Squay-uh.

Where are you from, I ask Sally.

“Virginia,” she says. “But I’m a big Pacers fan. So is my son, David. I told him Lavoy was going to be here and he was so jealous.”

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One table over, Julia Lund is beautiful and regal, like the Tri-Delt she was at IU in the 1950s. She leans closer when she has a point to make. Like this one:

“I sang at Slick Leonard’s wedding,” she says.

You what?

“I met (his wife) Nancy in the Tri-Delt house,” she says. “I sang in an awful lot of weddings from that house, let me tell you. I still get a card every Christmas.”

It’s a fascinating world, is what you find when you follow Lavoy Allen to a senior center in Zionsville. Julia Lund sang at Slick’s wedding. Peggy Capaldo had a book published last year, a children’s book called "Peanut Butter and other Stories" illustrated by her grandchildren. Arlene Morrison of North Dakota, who whispers when she talks, gave birth to one set of twins – then to another.

And Jean Redman? She wasn’t going to leave her room tonight – she doesn’t play bingo – but says she came “because the Pacers are here” and then asks me a question:

“Do you know Will Higgins?”

Well, sure. He writes for IndyStar.

“My daughter was married to him once,” she says. “The families are still close. The Redmans and Higginses spent Christmas Eve together.”

The things you learn. Just by visiting people. Like Lavoy Allen did. Why did he do it? Now it’s time to tell that story.

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* * *

OK, it’s not a long story. But it’s a great story.

Lavoy Allen called The Hearth at Tudor Gardens last week and asked if he could visit residents. He didn’t know how. Just knew he wanted to do it. He’s a good dude, Lavoy Allen. So is Boomer, who is here on an off night – it’s a recent Thursday, sandwiched between home games on Wednesday and Friday – because Lavoy Allen came. Boomer heard about it and tagged along.

Two Thanksgivings in a row, Lavoy Allen has shown up at the Wheeler-Dowe Boys & Girls Club at 30th and Keystone, giving away 100 turkeys to families there. He doesn’t talk about that but he shows up. He visits. He makes our area just a little bit better, one gesture at a time, whether most of us know it or not.

He’s here with Kai, who just might be a genius and is certifiably precious. He’s wearing a tiny Pacers warm-up suit and trying to get Boomer’s attention.

“Boom-AIR,” Kai croons. His dad is an NBA player, but Kai’s in awe of the mascot. Kids.

Lavoy directs Kai back to the hopper, and Kai pulls out a ball. “N-four-four,” he tells his dad, and Lavoy tells the room, “N-44.”

“Oh, a blue one!” Kai says, pulling out B-15. He calls it, “One-five-B.”

The kid turned 3 in October and already knows his alphabet and numbers. Is that impressive? I don’t remember my kids knowing that much, that young. I ask Lavoy if Kai’s a genius. He grins, says Kai has a smart mom, and keeps calling numbers.

It’s grand prize time.

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* * *

“So you can watch Pacers games,” Lavoy Allen says as he unveils the 32-inch TV someone’s about to win. “And see my face.”

Lavoy smiles. He never mentions who bought the TV, the foot massager, the other goodies he is giving as prizes. A Pacers official tells me later: Lavoy bought them.

Lavoy is smiling and calling out numbers and Mary Mauch is frowning. Even with the oxygen tube in her nose she’s as pleasant as she can be, but it’s getting late and Lavoy’s going so slow!

“Tell him to speed it up a little bit,” Mary tells me. “We play faster than this.”

Lavoy, I say. They’re asking you to go faster.

Lavoy Allen does the noble thing. He blames it on his 3-year-old.

“It’s him!” he says, pointing at Kai, and Mary Mauch is laughing around that oxygen tube.

Pretty soon a hand goes up – bingo – and voices shout from all over the room.

George. George! George!

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Julia Lund leans over and says: “Want his name? George Mountain. He’s very popular.”

“A friend to everybody,” says Jean Redman.

Lavoy summons George Mountain to the front of the room to check out his prize, and George offers a glimpse of the humble humor that makes him so likeable.

“Now I’m going to get kicked out,” he says as he shuffles up front. Allen stands to greet him, and George blurts, “Where are you from?”

Philadelphia, Lavoy says.

“And I thought I was tall,” George says, all 5-6 of him.

The table of Julia Lund, Jean Redman, Mary Mauch and Peggy Capaldo calls for Lavoy. The NBA center approaches and Peggy says, “We want your son to be our caller every time!”

Lavoy Allen is beaming but Kai doesn’t hear. He’s following Boomer around the room, asking the blue bear-looking mascot for an autograph. In this room anything seems possible.

Find Star columnist Gregg Doyel on Twitter at@GreggDoyelStar or atwww.facebook.com/gregg.doyel.

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