Hockey Summer

In the absence of computers and video games in the 50's we played outside from sun up to sun down. We always had some type of activity going on in the neighborhood. The only organized sport we had in our small town was baseball, but in the neighborhood we would pick sides and play football, basketball, softball, roll-for-the-bat, marbles or hockey. Hockey! No kidding, well it was our version of hockey. We used roller skates and played on the tennis court at the National Guard Armory (which is where the rec. center is now). We would take down the tennis net and set an apple crate at each end of the court as our goals. Nothing was store bought except of course the skates. Our sticks were made of 1 x 2 wood for the handle and a piece of plywood cut to the shape of a blade with a rat tail saw. We tried using a tennis ball for a puck but we could not skate fast enough to keep up with the ball so I cut a 2x4 in the shape of a square and used that as a puck. Now these skates that we used were not the fancy shoe skates you might see at todays skating rinks. No sir, they were metal platforms with four metal wheels. You would strap the back of the skate to your ankle and at the front of the skate there were these vice like clips that you tightened with a skate key until it was snug at the toe of your shoe. However, the clips did not work well on high top tennis shoes so we would make heavy duty rubber bands from an old bicycle tube and put them around the toe to hold the skate in place. We knew nothing about hockey but we sure learned how to roller skate that summer. Paul was the fastest on wheels but fastest didn't necessarily count in our hockey games. If you could get the blade of your stick in front of someone's wheels fast didn't matter. As soon as your wheels locked up you were thinking of how you were going to land on that concrete without getting a brush burn. Yea, me, Paul, Terry and Terrell had those skates rolling every day that summer. We didn't know anything about blue lining, face off and off sides, our objective was to go down the court without falling and get the 2x4 puck in the apple crate. We were joined that summer by two boys who had recently moved into the neighborhood from Ville Platte. None of us knew where Ville Platte was located but we knew it could not have been close to Franklin because they had a funny accent. Raymond and Glen Taylor were brothers who lived in Fourniers brick yard near the bayou. Raymond was short and stocky like a cannon ball and his younger brother Glen was tall and lanky. Somwhere along the way Raymond became known as Catman. He was a ferocious football player but he couldn't skate worth a dime. Watching Catman skate was like watching a dizzy man walk a tight rope. So Catman played hockey with one skate on his right foot and a brown crushed velvet sofa cushion tied to his behind with a rope. Sometimes on Saturday night we would ride our bikes down town to the skating rink which was located on Willow Street next to the railroad tracks. A large tent was set up with a wood floor and they rented skates with wood wheels. We skated around that rink to the blaring music like we knew what we were doing. I don't know who owned the skating rink, but every summer they would set up in the same place and they always had a guy running the place who could skate fast and backwards. Impressing the girls. Show off.