Day 128, "Every picture has a story"
It was the winter of 1959/60. Dad said I could play basketball for the Cayuga grade school team. I had never played on a team but I did play ball at home. In the winter, at times when our hay barn was not full of hay, Dave and I had a 5 gallon bucket with the bottom cut out. We used a hack saw and neatly cut the bottom out and then put electric tape around the edges so they were not sharp. We then measured from the barn floor 10 feet up and mounted the bucket on the south wall. It really did not work to use a basket ball as the bucket was not the same size as a basketball hoop but we would bounce a rubber ball about the size of a baseball and shoot hoops. It worked pretty well and was a lot of fun. For the REAL basketball Ronald had helped us put up an old telephone pole on a grassy spot between the barn and the granary. We then pounded some boards together and made a back board. To that we used lag screws to attach a basketball hoop and Ronald even brought home a net for it. There was no need to mow the grass there as Dave and I would play hoops a lot in the summer. It was not all that easy to dribble as the ground was not so level but I did sharpen my shooting eye!
So it was with some confidence that I told Mr. Murray that I would be able to play on the team. I thought I had a pretty good chance to play as I was the tallest guy and there was only one other boy that I thought was a pretty good athlete. So it happened, on a Monday, December 7th of 1959 school was out at 3:30 and most of the boys in the 7th and 8th grade walked at a brisk pace towards downtown Cayuga. There really was a downtown at that time. There were the two liquor stores, Bub's grocery store, Kiefer Brothers implement store which was very larg, Benny Flash had a creamery and Ceilia a small cafe. BUT the only building I was interested in that day was the Cayuga Hall. It was a quonset type of building and it was the largest of any in the surrounding towns. There were bleachers on each side of the building and it had a hardwood floor. On the south end it had a kitchen which was used for wedding receptions and funeral receptions too. There always was a large gathering on Memorial Day after the cemetery program. On the north end there was a stage where graduations etc would take place. Each end had a basketball hoop attached to a backboard. In the winter the big thing was roller skating on Saturday night. I would say that did nothing good for the floor. Well the hall was where the troop of boys headed. There was excitement in the air as we knew it would be a lot of fun and we would be playing teams from Rutland, Cogswell and Forman. We arrived in a short while and immediately caught the aroma of Mr. Murray's cigar smoke so we knew he was already there. The hall had NO lockers or bathrooms/showers so it was a matter of putting our bags on the stage floor and changing clothes. I was relieved that Mom had put a pair of socks in that did NOT have holes and I did not have to fold the toe over either! My shorts were pretty darn nice as we had received a California box of clothes from Aunt Ragna the week before AND there near the bottom were shorts that pretty much fit me! Shoes, well they had the look of dirt and grim but they would do. I did not have the "in" shoes of the day which would have been Chuck Taylor high tops! When Mr. Murray came to talk to us in school he made sure we knew that one had to wear tennis shoes in the hall. Some of the things I learned the first week were kind of important. If you stopped dribbling you had to pass as starting to dribble again was called "double dribble" and you lost the ball. The center line across the middle of the entire gym was there for a reason. If you had the ball and crossed that line you could not go back. That was called "over and back" and you gave up the ball! The two lines parallel and 90 degrees to the basket are there for a reason too. If you team has the ball you can not stand between those lines for more than 3 seconds. That is called the "3 second rule" and you would lose the ball. Oh my I found out in a hurry that shooting baskets in the barn or in the yard was a LOT different than playing with a team. By the end of the season I had pretty much learned the rules and actually had begun to play pretty well. As one can see we did play in a tournament and came in second place. I am sure we were successful because we had such fancy uniforms!!! Interesting as I look at the picture I know at least 5 of those boys have died. They would be ages 71/72/73 today.
That is my story for the day. No tennis today or tomorrow as this body needs a bit of rest. Maybe, just maybe, I should try to find some work to do and finding it would be easy! The FP is long gone.
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