Sports / Recreation 101

some on skates and others in boots with a battered tin can serving as puck. On these occasions competition was keen and the spirit lively. One of this group, Henry O’Shea, later became a very agile goalkeeper with the S.D.U. and Navy teams of the city hockey league and associate goalie with the St. F.X. hockey team. -

For indoor recreation we had checkers with a sturdy home- made board carefully painted in its alternating squares The checkers were also home made, of generous size and neatly crafted. Then there was always a pack of cards much used and often the “worst for the wear”. Games generally played in addition to 45s, auction and cribbage were two kinds of whist, casino, rummie 500, snap and drive the neighbor out of the town. Crazy eights appeared later on the scene and Aunt Mary from Maine tried hard to introduce canasta to our home culture, but the attempt was a booming failure. As well, at least four kinds of solitaire were popular at our house. An old gramophone also provided us with many hours of enjoyment. It was a tall and beautiful piece of furniture with large hinged top and several variously sized doors with shelves inside. A number of records of fiddle music and songs were stored within. The sound quality was not that bad with the power provided by a spring which had to be regularly wound up tight by an inviting handle on the side.

Our indoor recreation was considerably revolutionized in the summer of 1939 with the arrival of our first radio, a two- button Philco in polished wood and scarcely twelve inches in length. Behind it or on a shelf below sat a heavy battery pack that gave it power. Every few months the pack had to be replaced as volume began to fade. Alex Martin, merchant from Grand- view, was the seller and installer of this new machine which also included an aerial extending from the radio to the roof of a nearby building. Naturally CFCY was the most used station for many years with programs such as The Outports, Don Messer and The Merrymakers being great favorites. Also listened to religiously were the news and deaths at noon sponsored by Moore and McLeod Ltd. and again at 7.30 pm. sponsored by the Enterprise Foundry Co. Ltd. of Sackville, N.B. Following the latter each evening there was always the announcement of the arrival time in the city of that night’s Borden train carrying People and supplies from “away”. For a long time Stuart Dixon read the news and deaths and we enjoyed tremendously his accent and frequently mispronounced words. Stations at Fredericton and Halifax were also tuned into and we had a great