The good old days

    Well Christmas is just around the corner and mother nature is doing her part with cold temperatures and even snow, the amount depends on what part of the country you live in.Last Saturday night my wife and I went to Slater Park in Pawtucket where I spent many hours growing up in the good old days. I can remember ice skating on cold winter nights, when the ice was safe on the duck pond. The city would open up the boat house and light a nice warm fire in the fire place and they would shine big spot lights out on the ice and play music. It was a magic time for kid playing hockey, couples skating around holding hand and whole families spending special time together and you know they must have put something special in the hot chocolate purchased at the boat house because it tasted extra special. 

    Other memories stand out too, like when it snowed my father would load my friends and I in his truck, sleds and all and take us to Country Side Golf Course, where they had a perfect hill for sledding. There would be hundreds of people,at least it felt like the was and everyone had a great time.

    Yea the good old days, when kids could actually play outside. We didn't need special equipment to play hockey, just a stick and a puck, if no one had a puck we'd use a rock or anything we could whack around. Any piece of ice would do. Up the street from where I lived there was some open land across from Narraganset Race Track were water would accumulate just right for playing hockey when it froze over. All the kids in the neighborhood would be there and no parents looking over us. You know what, everyone got along and had a great time. Today kids wouldn't believe you if you told them that when you were a kid you actually skated outside, yea, and there was bumps and cracks on the ice too. 

    I guess things were simpler back then but  my parents and grand parents probably said the same thing when I was growing up. They probably remembered horse drawn sleighs and central heat was space age technology. Technology makes things a lot easier for us today but what have we lost? Quality time with family and friends, kid playing outside with out parents standing guard over them and a chance to score that goal, skating down the ice with all eyes upon you, yea this is your chance to score the winning goal, only to have your skate hit that stick frozen in the ice and you fall on your face and you have no idea where the damn puck went. Oh well, maybe you didn't get to be the hero that day but you made a memory and a great story that you can tell to your grand kids and say, back in the good old day when I was a kid I came that close to scoring the winning goal. Damn, stick.        

   

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