Tag: games

The Hulk

…A few years later we got a real indoor, artificial rink to play on: Central Park Arena. It was huge with real dressing rooms, a canteen, washrooms, a canteen, showers, viewing areas for the parents and a canteen. Did I mention a canteen?  It even had a Zamboni or ice cleaning machine. Above the west end area of the rink was another viewing area and offices, glassed in, and just below that on the wall was the requisite large portrait of the Queen with the appropriate crossed national and provincial flags adorning the image, which was looking down on us with that side glanced smile of hers: a monarchial Mona Lisa. Yet it seemed as if she was mocking us in some imperial fashion.  Not quite cricket this hockey.  We kids hated that image. So much so that we used to fire spit balls with pea shooters at a similar portrait while in class at school. Monarchists we were not, although we were not quite sure what a monarchist was.

It was during a rare afternoon game that the most interesting thing occurred. I can remember the incident as if it happened yesterday and not some 55 years ago.  The game was going on as per normal.  We were playing against the team with that giant anomaly of a player.  The game was close. They were up about 20-1 I think. The game was almost over. I was out on the ice, a defenseman, not a great position to play against this team, especially if the Hulk was on the ice. Sure enough, in this instance he was. We were somewhat down, a tad depressed, forlorn. I think he sensed it for just then in his usual fashion, taking the puck from behind his own net, he began his trek down the ice toward us and our poor depressed, timid looking goalie.  What could we do?

Suddenly he stopped and with the puck he skated back behind his own goal. No one dared go after him but to leave him alone with whatever murderous thoughts or misdeeds, pain, he must be construing in the small brain of his. He just stood there for what seemed like an eternity.  Suddenly he relaxed, sighed, as if a huge strain had suddenly come off of him. He took a deep breath and in that instance he began to move, slowly at first, then picking up speed while pushing the puck forward with the blade of his stick.  Faster and faster he went, weaving and leaving his opponents, our teammates, in his wake as if they were caught flatfooted in a cold mist of snow and ice.

As he approached his own blue line he looked up briefly as if to catch his breath and his bearing, adjusting his course ever so slightly to the right. No one could stop him, touch him or attempt to check him. He was just too fast and too agile and too big for our liking or ability to curtail him. He seemed to be able to swat us away as he skated by as if we were an annoying swarm of flies.  We just let him pass and opened up an unrestricted lane straight down to our end of the ice and our goalie. I would hazard to guess as to what was going through our goalie’s mind at this moment in time. He must be shitting his pants.

“Hey, what on earth are you guys doing?  Stop him for heaven’s sake” he seemed to curse to no one in particular with words to that effect.  No need to bother as there was nothing on this god given patch of ice that was going to curtail this monster.    

Just then he stopped, just shy of the red line at centre ice.  He stood straight up, his legs slightly apart and athwart the direction to our net.  The puck securely ensconced against the blade of his stick. He looked at his bench, his teammates, his coach, and his fans. Then at our bench, at us, our parents and our fans. What on earth was he doing? All of this took about a nano second in the fullness of time.  He must have sensed our confusion, disbelief, wonderment, impatience in exactly what he was up to.  He seemed to be saying to us telepathically:  “Watch this.”…

Man We Hated Those Guys!

…Kid’s equipment varied as well. We were all working class kids: lower middle class and some of us regrettably, came from poor families.  But the Catholic diocese, being the loving, benevolent and charitable organization that it was would never exclude some poor kid due to a lack of funds.  Everyone played.  Equipment was another matter.  There was no such thing as a CSA or UDL approved piece of kit.  Some of the kids had telephone books for knee pads or skates that were sometimes too big or too small with no ankle support.  No helmets, or neck guards, or mouth guards for that matter.  Skates being too big were the worse thing because no matter how hard you tried you could not control yourself on the ice in skates that may have been one, two or three sizes too big:   constantly falling on your ass.  Mother would invariably stuff rags or paper into the toe areas of the skates to make them fit or to stiffen them up.  This had the added benefit of keeping your feet warm.   Skates that were too small were torturous not only because was the threat of gangrene was all too real with circulation being cut off but your tootsies bloody well froze as well. Getting a puck on the toe of the too, too small skates was analogous to stubbing your big toe really, really hard.  It was torturously painful.

Surprisingly there were very few accidents to speak of.  Then again the majority of us still had our baby teeth.  Mouth guards didn’t really matter at that young age. Fighting and checking were also an integral part of the game, at all ages.  Being a young kid didn’t qualify as an excuse to avoid body contact.  What was comical was watching a squad of players skating on their ankles and sliding down the ice in controlled chaos.  In time we did improve and the dedicated ones became quite skilled at such a young age.

In every league at every level there were the stars. Those kids who had been playing hockey from the very minute that they surfaced from the womb.  Out they came with their hands clutching some imaginary stick: their smiling faces already aglow with a toothless grin. That slap on the ass was their calling card to wake up, take a short breath and get the hell out there on the ice.  Fathers were so proud. These kids were the stars for they scored the most goals, hogged the puck, played dirty, knew how to check at such a young age, could deek like a caged rat and shoot a puck faster than a speeding bullet. The rest of us just sat there in awe at their display of talent and skill.  Man we hated those kids.  Hate them maybe for all the talent that they had but we were not scared or intimidated by them. No, no, no.  They would just leave us flatfooted on the ice as they deeked past us in full flight and glory.  Their shots, as fast as they were, were not accurate enough to cause much damage or to scare us or the goalie. Their prowess lay in their ability to skate from one end of the rink to the other, deeking here and deeking there. Man those guys could deek everywhere: nudging, bowing, leaning to and fro. Smooth skaters, graceful and smart: calculating every move until the target, the goalie, was in sight.  They would deek right, deek left, deek the goalie out of his pants then tap the puck into the wide open net.  Cheering, arms raised, team mates aglow in congratulatory rapture while the goalie just lay there on the ice, bewildered, dumbfounded, gobsmacked in disbelief, and not quite sure exactly what had just occurred to him.   Some of these guys could and would score about 10 goals in a game.  Man we hated those guys…

Big Maxx

…Big Maxx’s uncoordinated approach to this game was something to see and experience. Maxx could not and would not stand appropriately in front of and to the side of the square. He would stand off to one side of course and slightly angled off to the left of the square so the pitcher could see his target but held his back against the backstop itself.  Somewhat like a rat caught in a corner with no avenue of escape.  And when the pitcher began his rotation, his motion toward the white chalked square, Maxx would begin to crouch, his whole body as tight as a tight spring and so tightly focused like a panther waiting to launch.  His eyes seemed to be on fire with facial features that were designed only for intimidation.  And if looks could kill, Big Maxx’s sneer could annihilate.

Maxx would position his body so as to present himself with a full frontal aspect to the pitcher. He held the bat in front of his mass, vertically; with just a slight back and forth motion, toward the pitcher.  Not your typical practice swing mind you but a slight to and fro rhythm.  As if to say to the pitcher: “okay asshole, give me all ya got. – if you dare”.  Without having to say a single word Maxx’s physical presence spoke volumes and to a young lad, a young pitcher like me, spelled B-U-L-L-Y.  It was bully-ish like behaviour for sure. Perhaps this was the reputation that Maxx inadvertently, but unintentionally, presented to the world around him.

And when the pitcher finally found the nerve, wound up and fired that ball from about 45 feet way, Maxx in anticipation would turn, and run with the bat still vertical at what seemed like a gallop, toward the ball’s trajectory, but to an invisible spot that only he could fathom in his mind’s eye then swing that bat as bloody hard as he could muster with all of his massive might in a frame that convulsed in such physical rapture and tumultuousness.  The entire evolution was not unlike “Happy Gilmore’s” golf swing.  Most times Maxx missed and fell on his ass but when he connected, look out, that ball was gone or destroyed.  Indeed, I think one of his batted balls is still up there in orbit somewhere. 

We normally played for 2-3 hours then quit. Hot, thirsty, ready to cool off. Then of course came the requisite juvenile male banter:

“So, whatdaya want to do now? Oh, I dunno. Whatta you wanna do? I dunno whatta you wanna do? Oh, I dunno, whatta you wanna do” or something similarly profound, and on and on it went.

Good friends, good cheer and awfully good conversation among us.  You know, judging from Maxx’s and our own literary skills, his physical strength, his hand / eye coordination, his and our conversation skills and diction, boys really are different than girls.

Maxx and I hung out quite a bit for awhile. He was always good natured to me even with his brusque approach to life in general. 

“John”, he would say, “You are my best friend. Hope to all of good hope that we stay good friends, always.”

“Sure Maxx” I reassured him.

In those days all of your friends were your best friends at any given time or another.  You always had a best friend hanging around.  We had some good laughs me and Maxx. In later years I loved to go over to his house Saturday nights, especially during those cold winter months, for his dad had a secret stash of booze in his basement.  Secret, only to his dad of course, for we knew where it was.   

Maxx’s basement was great. His was one of the few finished basement that I knew of in those days.  Only rich people had finished basements, with a wet bar, with a TV room, with a pool table, with a toilet, in the basement for heaven sakes. That was so cool. O’Grunts had a finished basement as well but for good reason. They had eight kids – 7 boys and one girl, plus Mom and Dad.  All living under one roof.  In Maxx’s house there were only four: Mom, Dad, Maxx and his sister.

Do the math. A small post war bungalow, 3 bedrooms and one toilet, small kitchen, even smaller living room and a tiny dining room, with a piano thrown in for Chopin’s sake.  In addition to the normal 3 bedrooms on the main level, Sean’s house also had a bed in the laundry room, a bed in the play room, bunk beds in the furnace room, double bed in the back basement room, another bed in the cold storage room and one bed in the garage. It was great! But, I don’t know how they managed given that the kitchen didn’t have stainless steel appliances.  Mornings must have been chaos.

So Maxx and I would play pool and suck back on a couple of shots. No more. Too dangerous. We didn’t quite smoke yet but the smell would have been a cruel giveaway. Maxx always won. He was damn good at pool. Maxx could also be somewhat philosophical:

“Hey John, do you think I’m stupid?”

Where the hell did this come from?

“Nope, yellow in the corner.”

“Do the other guys at school think I’m dumb?”

“The ones that are still breathin?” I joked “Nope” I continued  “And if they did I doubt that they would ever say it to your face.”

“So, they do then?”

“Nooo, no,” I lied “Sure you have some quirks Maxx. But your English compositions are great.  Everyone cracks up.” and that was the truth.

“I know, but sometimes I just can’t seem to understand what’s going on. What I see and think sometimes comes out as what I think then see. You know what I mean? Things seem to be bass ackwards.  My dad says I should go to Trade School but I don’t want to go.  I have nightmares just thinking about it.  I’d miss my friends too much. I’d miss guys like you and O’Grunts” 

Damn Nuns I thought.

“Don’t worry Maxx, everything will be fine.” Now let’s play pool.

He never brought that up again, at least to me.  Yeah, Big Maxx was somewhat of a lout. He had his problems but was a good guy. I liked him a lot.  Nevertheless we drifted apart after a few years primarily because of his tendency to repeatedly repeat grades. Then one day, I noticed that he wasn’t around at school anymore. And after about a week of looking out for him I finally worked up the courage and asked Ms McFayden – our resident chain smoker – if she knew where Paul was.  Courage, because deep down inside I kinda sensed that I knew his fate but I was afraid to hear the obvious.

“Paul’s gone to Trade School!” she announced.

“Damn.” I cried. 

No, Maxx was no bully.  The real bullies at that school were the Nuns and the Priests.

I lost track of Big Maxx after that. I did run into him years later though.  He was indeed dyslexic and once that condition became clear to him he excelled, scholastically and practically.  On completion of trade school he took an apprenticeship in plumbing. In five years he became a journeyman and did exceedingly well. He went back to night school, earned an undergraduate degree in business then opened his own plumbing business.  He then went on the get an MBA and is beginning to expand his business into a franchise based organization.  All is well with Big Maxx except, as he told me, he still cannot write a flowery English composition…

Bull Dogs

…Then there was the game of all games: British Bulldog.  I think every school on the planet that was tied to the commonwealth played British Bulldog. It didn’t matter if you could even spell it or pronounce it or even read it, especially in countries such as India, or Pakistan, Bangladesh.  Oh you say British Bulldog you say. Okay. Let’s play you British Maha-raj-dog you!

This game could be brutal. I truly believe it was the foundation that made the British Empire great or the modern day commonwealth common. If you were weak kneed, fragile, timid, shy, look out.  This was one game where anyone’s, everyone’s disposition or nature, weak or strong, somehow manifested itself in very short order. If you were scared you might as well be wearing a sign that said: “I am scared shitless.”  Okay, let’s go after him. He’ll be the last one standing. It was an unwritten rule. This game was so profound. It provoked the leaders from the followers, the bullies from the bullied, the weak from the strong and the popular from the dispossessed. Too bad! That’s the way it was and was the life of a male elementary student at a Catholic School.  Meanwhile the girls were playing May-pole. Or Hop Scotch! Sounds like fun to me!

How did this game go?

Get as many guys as you could muster in the centre of the schoolyard by yelling out British Bulldog.  Volunteer immediately to be one of the Bulls, that is, one of the guys in the middle of the schoolyard facing about one thousand of your closest friends who are lining up against a fence at one end of the yard. The aim here was that once the alarm was sounded by the Bull one had to run across the open yard enmass to the other side of the field without being caught by one of the Bulls waiting in the centre of the field of play, of course. Caught? No tackled was more like it. Today I believe they might call this “Capture the Flag” but for us it was a tad more brutal and Neanderthal than waving some shitty piece of pink or blue ribbon. Tackled, yes, but in those days the schoolyard at that time of the year, again late winter or early spring, was covered with course green-brown grass sprinkled here and there with rock hard but soon to be well textured mushy, smelly dog turds.  That was the whole point of the game though: to scare the beejeezus out of some of the so called geeks of the school.  Once you were tackled you joined your tackle-er and became one of the Bulldogs in the centre of the field.  The last one standing was the so called winner of the game.  In reality, and by our rules, the last one standing was the biggest loser.

This was definitely the preferred game for bullies in that it was an unwritten rule that the geekiest or so called weakest looking nerdy guy in the school would be the very last one up against the fence. His poor, pathetic perspective of his seemingly small nerdy world would be facing down 1,000 of his closest bully Bulldogs standing in the centre of the field waiting unabashedly to rein down pure unadulterated, pre-adolescent terror on the poor lad. Fun? You bet! A tad mean and ruthless? Perhaps! Definitely. But it was a sure fire way to grow up.

Why would some seventy pound weakling agree to participate in such madness? Simple.  At the beginning of the game there was strength in numbers so one geek would feel somewhat safe and have a somewhat secure but false sense of belonging standing there against the fence at the beginning of this melee, with 1,000 of his so called geek buddies.  Unbeknownst to him though it was the unwritten but agreed upon rule by all of the bully Bulldogs that the designated target would be allowed to run free and easy, again and again, bypassing the awaiting but increasingly growing horde of bullies who would manifest themselves into becoming this vast conflagration of idiots bent upon the realization that this was going to be the very worst day in the poor lad’s short life.

Interestingly, while some of the remnants, or targets, realizing what was about to occur in very short order, might turn and run toward one of the school’s doors. Those that did stick it out found out, somewhat ironically, and to their astonished astonishment and amazing amazement, that they earned the respect of some of the biggest bullies, louts in the school. They unwittingly demonstrated that they had the courage, the backbone, the stupidity to stick it out, get a little bruised perhaps, and wear that badge of honourable dog shit that every British Bulldogger wears on their sleeves. Interestingly, soon after, they relished the thought of becoming a Bulldog themselves: one of the guys, louts, idiots, Bulldogs, in eying down some other poor sod that had the misfortune of becoming a target. There must be some psychological determinant to explain away this form of activity, group think, mob behaviour, or stupidity with security in numbers. How else can one explain how a horde of 600 Bulldogs ran across this field of death with idiots to the right of them, idiots to the left of them, and so ran the 600 idiots (apology to Tennyson)…

Angelic Rocket

…Then there was Jim Reynolds: a tall athletic young man who was very fond of Our Lady of Peace. I say this as he repeatedly repeated the higher grades of the Catholic elementary system, grades six through eight, a plethora of times.  In grade seven, when I first ran into him, I do believe he was sixteen.  He must have been for he smoked and drove a 56 Ford to school. That was cool: to park his beater with the grownups, the teachers, in the school parking lot.  We knew he was a smoker for he always rolled his cigarettes up tight in his short sleeved white tee during the warmer spring weather. Buckingham’s, non filters, seem to come to mind as the cigarette of choice for all young punks at the time. Of course no one seemed to care or to matter in those unregulated second hand smoke days at our school.

A smallish baseball diamond was situated in one of the back corners of our school yard. During the late winter, early spring months, when the last vestiges of snow had all but disappeared and the ground was suddenly covered with trash and rock hard dog shit, we would pull out our bats and balls and set up a game. Teams were not a problem for we played “an up or out” rotational system of play. Somewhat like the Navy’s promotional and downsizing scheme, but I digress. One could remain at bat so long as one did not strike, fly or be thrown out.  You had to be a good hitter to remain at bat. Once you were thrown out or struck out you were in the field and would remain out there until another batter suffered the same fate. Then rotate positions. The only exception to all of this was that if someone caught the ball in the air they would immediately go to bat and the batter would take their place.  

Jim Reynolds may not have been too smart but he was tough. Street tough. And could he ever hit a softball. When Jim came to bat it was pure delight.  He could hit, man he could hit: towering, out of sight fly balls that seemed to go on forever.  No one could match his skill or catch his fly balls.  If you were on base ahead of Jim you were safe by default as a home run was coming in very short order.  I always tried to be on base just before he came up to bat.  

He was a sight to behold.  Standing there full of confidence, a smirk or smear on his face, his lips sometime adorned with a smoke out of the corner of his mouth.  Of course he had to do this by stealth such that he wasn’t noticed by any of the lay teachers. Not the black and whites mind you for they refused to come out during recess, lunch time, before or after school.  I think that this was the only time they could catch a few puffs of their own without being seen by the prying eyes of us turds – as they sometimes called us.  They were probably at prayer but I doubt it.

So here was Jim. His whole frame permeated confidence, self assuredness with an air of arrogance: shuffling his feet like a rabid dog marking his territory after a good piss. The pitcher, watching him suspiciously as he readied his throw, knowing full well what the outcome was going to be and everyone else for that matter.  Yet Jim, for all his size, and swagger and confidence was not a bully: a show-off perhaps but no bully. We all appreciated that.  For he could have easily kicked the living shit out of any one of us if he so pleased for he looked the part.  He was the “James Dean” of Our Lady of Peace. Slicked back brill ” a little dab will do ya” creamed hair, with a trace of growth above the upper lip, muscles bulging beneath his body shaped white tee.  Blue jeans of course, with the bottom cuffs turned up about 2 inches, showing his bright white socks, as was the style in those days.  He was cool, he knew it, and we all marvelled at that, but in a good way. All of us thought that above all else when we reached the age of sixteen that we would all look as cool as Jim but with hope upon hope to be in a higher grade perhaps.

The ball is ultimately pitched by the pitcher.  It comes his way, straight across the plate. As if on cue Jim swings the bat with somewhat of a floral motion, picture perfect, as if in animation, stepping into the ball with his arms outstretched, his elbows locked, with his eyes focused entirely on the seams of the ball as it comes into his sights. “Whack,” ball upon bat, in the sweet spot, Jim’s cheeks and belly wobble like hard jelly as if his whole body’s energy force is transmitted down that bat and into the ball itself.  The pregnant pause as Jim looks up to the heavens, arms outstretched as if giving lordly thanks and praise, dropping the bat to begin his cool saunter toward first base.  He doesn’t have to run hard for he knows, yes he knows, that that ball is gone.  Like God’s angelic rocket, or a holy ghost of a hit, it soars to the heavens above Our Lady of Peace’s schoolyard.  And we, with our innocence and heavenly gaze, are entirely awestruck and enthralled at the power and the sheer majesty of it all as the ball rises up and into the blue cloudless sky.  A pure white stitched canvass ball set against the backdrop of an apostolic blue, like Christ’s resurrection, rising then arcing its way across the heavens then down and out and through a second floor window of our school.

Ooops! 

It was like this all the time. The nuns tried their best to curtail Jim’s prowess. Perhaps that’s why they were praying during recess, but to no avail. They would have loved to expel him but his parents were church stalwarts and sat in the front pew at the 1015 high mass. They were quite rich, quite influential and quite demanding. I am told that his mother was the civilian equivalent to Sister Mary Bernice. I would have loved to have seen that.  It wasn’t long though before Jim did leave us. Trade school we were told. Trade school! That prison and so called parallel universe of Catholic elementary school life. Trade School! Failure in the eyes of the church. Trade School! We all shuddered at the thought. Trade School! Say your prayers every night. If you don’t you might just find yourself at Trade School.  Of course, the female equivalent was Secretarial School, or worse, in later years, Home Economics, code for getting yourself knocked up!  The rest of us, if we were good, worked hard, and said our prayers every night, would be blessed in more ways than one could possibly imagine at the time at the local Catholic private high school for boys. Generalists! Arts and Science! If we graduated from the local Catholic high school for boys we could aspire to be “Jacks of all Trades,” “Masters of Fuck-all” And for all of my efforts I became a real “Jack Tar”, although I wanted to be a proctologist.  Somewhat like a plumber.   Perhaps Trade School would have been a good fit for me after all.

I missed Jim after he left. When he was with us he sat in the back of our class. I can still see him sitting there in the tiny desk, his legs sprawled out, arms folded across his chest, with his Elvis like sneer snickering at no one in particular.  He always had a cig ready to go behind his left ear. He was so cool, and quite funny. Like a class clown.  Indeed he intimidated the teacher and swore like a trooper but he was very, very friendly to us.

Jim did leave a legacy of sorts. All the windows of our school that were facing the schoolyard were fitted out with metal screens. Even today, some fifty years later, those same screens adorn the windows at Our Lady of Peace School.  Someone, not completely in the know, might surmise that vandals, petty criminal activity perhaps, presented a causal relationship to those metal screens.  They would be wrong of course for  whenever I look at the school today with their relative protective screened window coverings – for I knew the truth – I would nostalgically think of Jim and his baseball prowess…