When I was about 11 in 1959, my allowance was 10 cents a week. It would buy a 12 ounce bottle of Coke, but you would get back 2 cents on the bottle refund. I lived in a small town where there were a few street lights but none over the path that went over the railroad track on the way to the combination skating/curling rink. In the winter the town side of the path was a gradual slope but on the rink side it was steeper and one had to be careful not to slip.
Every family paid a small fee to all for their children to skate during free skating time between 4 and 5. It was considered mandatory for all the kids to go skating during this time so it was often that a group of us would be slithering down this hill on the way to skate and we often would be joking and jostling each other on the way.
Being a small town far from shopping centers, a lot of the kids did not have proper hockey or skate bags to carry either hockey equipment or even a pair of skates in so a practical alternative was to use a gunny sack that one held a hundred pounds of potatoes. That is what I (and several of my friends) used to carry our skates.
When we got to the rink, we would gather around the large wood filled stove to warm up, take our bulky coats off, find a spot on the bench and put our bag under the long bench that stretched across both sides of the warm-up room and take off our boots and begin to put on our skates.
That is when I discovered that I only had one skate in my bag. When I left home, I remembered that I had put both in, so I immediately assumed that someone had taken my other skate and hid it somewhere. I started to do a thorough search accusing my friends of playing a trick on me. That is when I spied by skate in the bottom of my friend Bobbie's gunny sack. I could see the shine from my skate blade through the mesh of the sack and it matched the length of my skate blade and he already had taken both of his skates out. I demanded that he open his bag and when he refused, that was when I KNEW that my skate was there! So the fight was on! The more he resisted the more that I knew I was right. But I wasn't able to get to his bag by myself so I enlisted the help of another friend, Hughie to fight Bobbie. Finally, Hughie's older brother Brian came to help and while we held Bobbie, he opened his gunny sack and there at the bottom was a shiney bottle of Coke-cola!
My chagrin was almost to the point of being apoplectic! Why was I so silly as to being fooled? Why did he have to be so stubborn in not showing me that it wasn't my skate? Why did I start a fight and falsely accuse my friend who was totally innocent? So after mumbling an apology I continued my search and even checked the side room where the kindling and split wood was stored. I moped around for a while and watched my friends skating for a while before I decided to make my lonely trek home. As I trudged home with my head down on that dark winter night with a quarter moon barely giving enough light to see the path, a small thought crossed my mind.....what if my skate had somehow fallen out of my bag. Was it possible that there was a hole in by gunny sack? I check and there was a small one, but surely my skate couldn't have slipped through it. I started to look at both sides of the path up the steep hill leading to the railroad track and there in the shadows was a dark object. Could it be...? Yes, it was my skate!
When I got home I tested my theory, and sure enough the small hole expanded when I tried to slip my skate through the hole and it mostly closed when the skate was through. But why did Bobbie protest so much when it was just a bottle of Coke? Note to self: "Don't be too quick to accuse!"
When I was about 11 in 1959, my allowance was 10 cents a week. It would buy a 12 ounce bottle of Coke, but you would get back 2 cents on the bottle refund. I lived in a small town where there were a few street lights but none over the path that went over the railroad track on the way to the combination skating/curling rink. In the winter the town side of the path was a gradual slope but on the rink side it was steeper and one had to be careful not to slip.
Every family paid a small fee to all for their children to skate during free skating time between 4 and 5. It was considered mandatory for all the kids to go skating during this time so it was often that a group of us would be slithering down this hill on the way to skate and we often would be joking and jostling each other on the way.
Being a small town far from shopping centers, a lot of the kids did not have proper hockey or skate bags to carry either hockey equipment or even a pair of skates in so a practical alternative was to use a gunny sack that one held a hundred pounds of potatoes. That is what I (and several of my friends) used to carry our skates.
When we got to the rink, we would gather around the large wood filled stove to warm up, take our bulky coats off, find a spot on the bench and put our bag under the long bench that stretched across both sides of the warm-up room and take off our boots and begin to put on our skates.
That is when I discovered that I only had one skate in my bag. When I left home, I remembered that I had put both in, so I immediately assumed that someone had taken my other skate and hid it somewhere. I started to do a thorough search accusing my friends of playing a trick on me. That is when I spied by skate in the bottom of my friend Bobbie's gunny sack. I could see the shine from my skate blade through the mesh of the sack and it matched the length of my skate blade and he already had taken both of his skates out. I demanded that he open his bag and when he refused, that was when I KNEW that my skate was there! So the fight was on! The more he resisted the more that I knew I was right. But I wasn't able to get to his bag by myself so I enlisted the help of another friend, Hughie to fight Bobbie. Finally, Hughie's older brother Brian came to help and while we held Bobbie, he opened his gunny sack and there at the bottom was a shiney bottle of Coke-cola!
My chagrin was almost to the point of being apoplectic! Why was I so silly as to being fooled? Why did he have to be so stubborn in not showing me that it wasn't my skate? Why did I start a fight and falsely accuse my friend who was totally innocent? So after mumbling an apology I continued my search and even checked the side room where the kindling and split wood was stored. I moped around for a while and watched my friends skating for a while before I decided to make my lonely trek home. As I trudged home with my head down on that dark winter night with a quarter moon barely giving enough light to see the path, a small thought crossed my mind.....what if my skate had somehow fallen out of my bag. Was it possible that there was a hole in by gunny sack? I check and there was a small one, but surely my skate couldn't have slipped through it. I started to look at both sides of the path up the steep hill leading to the railroad track and there in the shadows was a dark object. Could it be...? Yes, it was my skate!
When I got home I tested my theory, and sure enough the small hole expanded when I tried to slip my skate through the hole and it mostly closed when the skate was through. But why did Bobbie protest so much when it was just a bottle of Coke? Note to self: "Don't be too quick to accuse!"