Sports

I have mentioned in previous Blogs that at the end of the war, my parents were not very well off. The more stories that I am putting down on paper, the more I realize that within 3 or 4 years after my father got out of the army, he and my mother had ‘come along way’. The one area that was lacking all through my childhood was the fact sports equipment for ‘Davie’ was not included in the budget. Only once did I ever get a ‘new’ pair of ice skates and as far as other equipment for playing hockey, I relied on a couple of older boys to give me their hand me downs. As I am writing this for my offspring, it is a wonder you were born, as I never ever had a jock. My shin pads, were home made with thick felt on the knees and willow sticks stitched in burlap as the shin pad. When I was 15 I finally got an actual pair of shoulder pads, and proper shin pads (but still no jock). My skates were often given to me by the local shoe repair shop that was owned by the father of an older friend of mine. Hockey sticks, again were hand me downs – tis no wonder I was not a very good player!!! Heh – blame it on the equipment! Also, I never had a new baseball glove, and again relied on others. In the early fifties, the gloves were not made with much lining, and by the time someone discarded theirs, it was pretty ‘slim pickins’. Unlike hockey, I was pretty good at baseball (as long as the opposing team had a Left Handed pitcher) – could not hit a Right Hander then and never could, but again with my fielding ability, and the lack of a great choice of people to chose from, I always made the team. Our school did not have a gym (until my last year at home) so basketball and volleyball were foreign to me. Soccer and North American Football we never played. As an individual sport, I did play tennis otherwise it just seemed to be hockey and baseball – but what more did we need – Oh and Curling!!! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curling  Yup – winter time, cold = ice = curling = (for some) boring. I loved to curl, as did most everyone in the town, young and old. On a cold evening you could always go to the Curling Rink (heated in the viewing area) and watch teams playing on the three sheets of ice. Back then, everyone used corn brooms and some of the sweepers could really make them ‘snap’ when hurrying a rock down the ice. I was on a team that made it to the Provincial playdowns, but alas – we came home from the big city, with only the memory of loses and going to a ‘real’ movie theatre. In later entries, I am sure I will relate some of my battle scars from playing ‘yard hockey’ with tin cans, or pond hockey, etc.