by Richard L. King
Something I read a few days ago brought back a memory of my childhood so I made a few notes and decided to get back to it later. It’s now later.
When I was a kid a bunch of us from the neighborhood used to get together to ice skate on a pond in our neighborhood. Our closest neighbor lived over a quarter of a mile away so when I say neighborhood, it takes in quite a large area. The ice skating pond was nearly a mile from our house, but that wasn’t much of a walk in those days. We used to build a fire out on the ice and mess around all afternoon and well into darkness.
Of course, what passed for ice skates in those days certainly wouldn’t pass muster in today’s world and the ice skates that I called mine had been through three older brothers and who knows how many total strangers, but a bonfire is a bonfire, even today.
I still think that roasting hot dogs using a stick broken off from an old bush is probably more enjoyable than using roasting forks from Field N Stream or Outdoor Life. In those days, a loaf of homemade bread served as our hotdog buns, but catsup is catsup and mustard is mustard. Then or now, there isn’t/wasn’t much difference. Thinking about it now, I can almost taste that hot dog. There’s just something different about one that you roasted yourself over an open flame, when it’s below freezing and it’s a long walk home.
Scraping the snow off from an area large enough to become our “rink” was half of the fun, but coming up with a stick that even remotely resembled a hockey stick, was highly unlikely. Old wooden lath held together by screws and adhesive tape may have looked better, but they were very fragile and rarely made it through an entire game.
Being the youngest boy in the neighborhood, meant a lot more watching, than playing,,,, although I will say that it’s awfully hard to eat a hot dog while your playing.
There may be something to be said about watching after all.
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Gramps use’ta say
© R.L.King 2012 #282
About: Friendship
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