Sport Report

by Phil Johnson

Motto: The real game is the game you’re in.

Text: “Bodily exercise profiteth little.” — Paul of Tarsus

The Game at Ewald’s Barn

“The Sabbath day is a day of rest,” Mother insisted. That was final. I knew it was hopeless to turn to my dad. He was a preacher who said the same thing. He was out on his circuit on Sunday — not about to engage in active interpretation of the meaning of the proposition; and what’s more, he would not be the least interested in tangling with Mother about a matter like this, should he have a different point of view, which he did not.

“Woe are we!” Reuben and I would say to one another. His parents held an identical position on the matter. Fortunately, we could ride our bikes, so we could get together or ride off somewhere.

There were certain things our less-Christian friends were doing on Sundays that struck forbidden chords of envy in our souls. A partial list will give you the idea: swimming, the Knothole Gang at Falls Mando baseball games, playing baseball or softball.

My desire was frequently more powerful than the prohibition, and I would break the law. I snuck away with Bob Laurion to Mando baseball games when I got the chance. On Sundays, Fritz Vonderhar would take the mound. We all knew that he had pitched at one time for the Red Sox. He would regularly mow down the opposition batters while Mando hitters, led by the likes of Tubby Raymond, Jack MacDonald, and the rest, would hammer away at the visitors’ pitching. I do not remember just how I covered this illicit activity, but I do remember that occasionally I got caught.

Well, way led unto way. I aged from 4th and 5th grades to 7th and 8th. Oh, to play basketball on any afternoon! Especially an available Sunday afternoon! In addition to the problem of prohibition, there was the problem of a court to play on. The schools were locked tighter than a drum. For a time, we had been able to enter by sending one kid down the coal chute, who would then open the doors for the rest of us. Unfortunately, even this ingenious entrance had been cut off.

But wait! There was, believe it or not, a court in the hayloft of Ewald’s Barn out past the airport. I don’t remember who told us about it; it was too good to be true. One Sunday, Art McGregor, Reuben Olson, and I biked out past the airport and the Poor Farm to check it out. Sure enough. At both ends of the hayloft were backboards and baskets — standard, high-quality baskets. The one minor problem, a couple of missing boards along the right edge of where the free-throw lane would be (the lanes were six-feet wide in those days), was no big deal. We could play around that.

We played and played until dusk shut us down. Then came the long bike-ride home. We were beat. Beat, but well satisfied. My only worry was that Mother might find out. Art didn’t have to worry. Though he went to our church where these rules were common, he did so on his own. There were no adults in his life who insisted that he obey such rules.

After our first Sunday, many more followed. We played there every chance we got, and it did not matter to us how cold it got. Other kids would come to play. Seldom was anyone able to counter the dominance of A.J. McGregor’s one-handed set-shot or his jumper. We spent hours upon hours running and shooting. I know the meaning of terms like being “completely present” or being “into it” in relation to those moments of total absorption. The best I can remember is that I was never caught. How come, I now wonder? Was my mother intentionally unalert? Wouldn’t she have been aware of her boy dragging himself home at the end of a Sunday afternoon, and wouldn’t she wonder what had happened to his Sabbath rest? It’s too late to ask her now. I do know this, though. As mightily as I, weary in body, would wish, and in that wish would plead with Mother, there was no excuse sufficient to get out of going to the Sunday evening church service.

The game at Ewald’s Barn eventually came to an end. But before it did, it wreaked a little havoc with the Falls Broncos — the high school basketball team. One Sunday, Frank Youso, star starting forward for the Broncos, joined us. He was not as accustomed as were the rest of us to the missing boards along the free-throw lane. He stepped in a gap as he was making one of his patented pivot shots, twisted an ankle, and missed a Bronco game.

The game at Ewald’s Barn was finally and tragically called by fire. I was not there when it happened. As I heard it, while taking a break in a pile of hay alongside the barn, a couple of ball players indulged themselves in smoking a cigarette or two. A fire started, and the game at Ewald’s Barn went up in smoke. — PJ