Hockey

            I had just come back from watching my 8 year old grandson play a game of hockey.We had been well entertained.The teams were evenly matched and the crowd cheered their players along.The areana was bright and cheery and after every game the ice cleaning machine came on the ice,scraped up the snow,spread a light layer of water on the surface which froze smoothly and quickly,the job all completed in about 5 minutes .Then the next game could begin.Above the long bench seats on the one side of the areana was a type of a long tube of a gas heater and people sat in warm comfort behind thick glass panes with netting up above to stop any puck from flying into the crowd.  

            The boys and girls playing the game,my how well they were protected.They wore hockey gloves,shin pads,shoulder pads,helmets with face protectors even mouth guards.I got to thinking of the changes in our national sport since the 1940’s when I was an 8 year old and playing the game.I never played on an organized team.It was just a make up game with a few friends.I learned to skate on a patch of ice on a farm field.We put our skates on out there sitting on the ground beside the ice.We had no safety equipment not even hockey gloves.Sometimes we would tie a pair of old socks on our shins as shin pads.At school sometimes we would play with a piece of frozen horse manure as our puck.Other times we used an old tin can.Then when someone  would have a real puck we would use it.There were accidents in those days.The tin can flew up and hit you in the face.The puck would take a few teeth out and the boy would have a mark for life.It is good to see all the safety improvements.

            Often we would have to clean the snow off the ice in the field before we could start our game.At school we would carry pails and pails of water pumped by hand from the well in the school yard to make an ice rink .I took piano lessons from my aunt in Atwood every Saturday in the winter.I could hardly wait to finish these lessons and get over to the church shed where they used to tie up the horses.Now with cars driven all winter the town built an indoor hockey rink for the children to play on.You could always find a pick up game of hockey going on there.Usually there were no adults just kids having fun and playing.There was no official referee.Everone who came was given a chance to play.You would appoint two captains,choose up teams and the captains ran the game.

            Two miles from our farm was an area in the bush where marl had been dug up  years earlier.Marl is a lime-rich mud sometimes called mudstone.,when fired it could be made into bricks or tile.Years earlier this marl was being loaded on rail cars  and taken to Henfryn about 10 miles away to a brick yard.Some of the old brick yard was still there when I was a boy but the tracks had all been torn up along this old rail line.There was only a slight rise or mound through the fields to let you know that a rail line had been there.The marl beds would be 20 or 30 feet across and 40 rods long.The mud had been dug out to a depth of 3 feet.Water lay in this trench all summer and froze in the winter.After a thaw or mild spell it would freeze again sometimes leaving a glassy smooth ice surface which was perfect for our ice rink.We played many a game of hockey out in the fresh air on this great natural piece of ice. Such are my hockey memories of the 1940’s.

December 20, 2010

Ava Maria

MAKING KITES

                When I was a boy growing up on the farm making kites was a yearly spring hobby. When those March winds came there were plenty of stiff winds blowing and you could get any weight of kite flying in the air. I would use my jackknife and whittle a piece of cedar off a long cedar rail until it was round and smooth enough and small enough to be used for the size of kite I wanted to build.

            I made kites out of old newspapers. I made kites with tissue paper and I made kites out of cloth, some worn out flannel shirts or cotton shirts or bed sheets. One year after the war our neighbors got a silk parachute. They cut this up and used it to make clothing. They gave me a piece. I smoothed off a piece of cedar rail to make the wooden frame for the kite that was six feet high .Then I covered it with the parachute silk. I made a long tail for it tying cloth bows on a long string of binder twine. Then on a very windy day we got the kite flying. It went up and up and up. We had lots of binder twine and the kite began to look very small way up in the sky.

            The wind was so steady and strong that we tied kite to a fence post and watched the it  fly all afternoon. When it was time to bring the kite down we wondered how we were going to wind up all that string. Then we got a bright idea. We hooked a wooden spindle onto the power takeoff of our Farmall A tractor, put the power takeoff in gear and let the tractor do all the work of winding  all that binder twine string attached to our kite.

            These are fond memories of kite flying and still when March rolls around I think of the excitement of flying a kite.

December 18 2010

Bobbing For Apples



Do you remember the fun and excitement of bobbing for apples? I always looked forward to playing this game. We usually played it at birthday parties and Halloween. My sister’s birthday was August the 5^th.This was usually a nice hot day in the summer and we could set the round galvanized tub up on the lawn. Often we would just wear our bathing suits and not worry at all about getting wet or making a mess in the house. The tub was the same one we used to get our regular Saturday night bath in by the warm kitchen stove.

            All the boys and girls along our farm line were invited to the birthday party. Many games of tag and chase were played. We would have a 3 legged race and a sack hop, play a game of ball or anti-anti over the milk house but my favourite game was bobbing for apples. You would fill the tub full to the top with water, then throw in 10 apples of different sizes and kinds. Then two children would kneel on the grass one on each side of the tub, put their hands behind their backs and see who would be the first to get an apple out of the water just using his teeth. You would make a quick dart at the apple but it would dart away from you. Your head might hit the head of the other person as you moved around the tub with your hands behind your back trying to catch an apple. Sometimes you would get this apple by the stem but the stem would break and the apple would fall back into the tub. Sometimes you would put your head completely under the water and pin the apple on the bottom of the tub and bite into it and bring it out of the water.

            The winner was always given a big cheer and of course he would get to eat the apple. This was one of our favourite games at our Halloween parties at our school. Someone would bring the tub from home. It would be filled with water on the school room floor and we would have to be careful not to spill water all over the floor. We would get our shirts pretty wet though.

            Often at school we would tie a string across the classroom, tie a string onto the stem of the apple and the other end of the string tied onto the string across the classroom. You would tie a row of these apples onto the string. The children would stand in a row with their hands behind their backs. The teacher would say go. Then the fun began.

            Memories, such simple and fun games.

December 18 2010