(about 20) gathered under a big basswood tree a block away.  From there we cruised off in games, football by moonlight in Lawyer Moore’s big pasture field, Hunko, run-sheep-run, throw the stick and other games.  If we were lazy we just sat and Dave Hooey, who seems to have heard all the Irish jokes of that day, regaled us with the latest jokes about Pat, Mike and the Englishman.  I remember many of them yet.

Regata Day Stoney Lake

Pat was assigned the job of staying at the wheel of the ship while the rest of the crew slept.  The captain told him just to keep the ship pointed towards a certain star.  Pat dosed off and when he came to, the star was out of sight.  He woke the captain up and said: “Captain please pick me out another star.  Faith and begorrah, I’ve passed that other one!”

The other sailors were making fun of Pat and so he thought he would show them that they didn’t know everything.  Taking a piece of rope he asked a sailor how many ends does a piece of rope have.  “Why two of course Pat. Anybody knows that, you blockhead.”  Pat said, “Here is one end and here is a second end, and” throwing the rope overboard he said, “now my wise fellows there is a third end of it, bejabbers.”

On extra hot days we went swimming both morning and afternoon at “The Quarry” in Jackson Park, two miles from home.  The route lay down the hill to the West, past the big tree where we stopped to munch “haws” (fruit of the hawthorn tree).  Jackson Park was capacious, big enough for a Sunday school picnic.  We entered it at the corner, paused to see if there were any beech nuts under the big trees, sauntered among tall pines on a well kept path, passed a pretty little artificial lake (too deep for small boys).  But I swam across it at night with Walter and Bill swimming on either side to keep up my courage.

The Quarry had evidently been just that, many years before, but in our time we undressed in the woods and jumped off the bridge that had a dam under it.  The water was only about six feet deep at most, an

ideal place for boys to cool off.  Then we had little fishing rods and would catch chub but never took them home as I can remember.

The C.P.R. tracks to Lindsay were a stone’s throw away.  A big freight train would occasionally come thundering by and we could count the cars.  A mile or two farther out the tracks was a second deep-water swimming hole.  Beside it was a very tall butternut tree, which took skill to climb.  We would pick them when still a little green and store them away until wintertime.  Then we would crack them before the grate in the sitting room while the snow raged outside and would watch the blue flames from the big chunks of coal in the fireplace.

In that cozy room was a black horsehair sofa.  Father worked hard and deserved his success.  He was the only merchant that was able to sell out at the age of about 45 and live a semi-retired life for the next 43 years.  He went to Heaven at 88.  He would come home from the store at noon, have his lunch, lie down on the couch and be asleep in two minutes; get up after 20 minutes of sound sleep and walk back to the store.

In that same room we had family prayers.  I learned to read by sitting on father’s knee and spelling out the big words in the Bible.  Teacher augmented my vocabulary with lesser words like cat, rat, hat.

The parlor was separated from the sitting room by a large arch with sliding doors.  There was a grand piano.  When I was five, mother let me have a big birthday party.  I invited every boy and girl I knew and there were scores of them.  What a happy memory.  One of the older girls that came to help mother picked me up and passed me around for the big girls to kiss. I squirmed like a restless panther in a cage to regain my freedom.  That party was the biggest that ever graced our happy hilltop.  I had another when I was seven, but, growing more cautious with advancing age, I did not invite so many ladies!

The kitchen was large.  Mother fed tramps there.  None was sent away hungry.  One wrote “Sweet Tommy” on our gatepost, a code notice to all other knights of the open road that our place was an extra hospitable abode.  In winter mother would pull out the big tub and give an unfortunate man a chance of a bath.  Some of father’s extra underwear would go away with him.  Mother surely lived up to the motto of Paul, “Given to hospitality.”