I Played Round the Oval Before the Globe Went Pear Shaped
It was the summer of 1960 something. Maybe 1964 and then every summer after that till the term 'summer job' and how I should have one became my parents mantra. In the haze of those summer days here in Richmond I discovered frog filled ditches and pastures with field mice and pheasant nests. I played catch with wooden net floats that washed up at hide tide on the river. I teamed up for hide and go seek and built forts in dried grasses taller than me . I wandered, wondered, explored and played till the summer day grew long on shadows. I only suffered from never having enough time for all the spontaneous nothing to happen. At a place where sunsets came too quickly on our planned activities. It was 1960 something, down at the Oval
The Oval I refer to is well know to people round here, but to taxpayers further out it refers to the speed skating center constructed for the 2010 Olympics here in Richmond. After all the athletes and most of the metals went home the Oval stayed, and became,.....? Well,... It's trying to become everything to all. The space is there. But all that's another posting.
And in the summer of 1960 something, it (the Oval) wasn't there but the summer activities were.
I mention the summer activities because I just received a flyer in the paper about all the activities offered to kids this summer at the Oval. From fencing, baseball, soccer, paddling and rowing to camp combos. All things I did as a kid on that very spot.
My early fencing experiences were rusty horizontal barb wire at the future Oval site. And old man Kruger made sure he let us kids, Wayne, Shorty and myself, know what side to be on. Old man Kruger occupied a house and barn at the north end of No. 2 Rd. and River Rd. He patrolled east of there to the Gilbert Rd. ditch (Gilbert Rd. use to end at Westminster Hwy. but it's ditch came through to the pump house that's still there by the Oval) and then south to Westminster Hwy. with his fierce, but old dog Getemboy.
And at every opportunity old man Kruger would chase us on foot or by tractor. Him and his dog, heck bent on telling us the fenced in area we were crossing had something to do with him.
And it wasn't like we were crossing precious freshly planted fields. They were hay and grass fields for his milk cows. But they were dangerous fields. Scary fields. Shoe filling wet cow pie fields that terrifyingly sprouted fleeing pheasants. Stupid birds that waited till you almost stepped on them, till they explode out of the grass. And then with a sound like nails on a chalkboard they cry out as thunderous wings beat against their broad chest and stop the hearts of young 9 yr. old boys. They were tall, dark, scary, grass and pheasant filled fields. Future Oval footprint fields of soccer ball eating grasses.
The fields scared us! But, at the same time offered excitement and imaginary situations for soldiers, big game hunters and pirates like us. They were the open rice fields of Vietnam connected to the steaming jungles of the Congo on a deserted island. With a tribe of 6ft tall Amazon female warriors living somewhere in its depths (we hoped). And, the fields were also the straightest line between two points. My house and the river.
The river was our destination every day after school, and every day all summer long. It was a cool fun filled and unpopulated (all before jogging was invented on the dyke. Which I guess Wayne,Shorty and I invented running from old man Kruger) activity center for us. We'd paddle it's poisoned waters, that smelt like oil, (back when we poured everything in the river) on logs latched together with braided grass and willow branches. Making sure we never went a bean pole depth (6ft) from its shores.
This was something we only did one and a half times. As it resulted in near death the first time and constant arguments how to latch it together, so it wouldn't fall apart, the almost second time. Wayne and I could swim. Shorty was just brave. But we were all stupid.
Now because we played there every day and the fact that water is wet, our feet were always wet too. So it was out of the need to dry our feet that we learned camping skills. We collected dry grasses and twigs to burn under the train trestle that crossed the Gilbert Rd. ditch. A skill that almost cost us our freedom as old man Kruger got the jump on us one time. We had got complacent as we had lit many fires without incident. We thought we were hidden under the trestle not realizing smoke rises. He didn't have his dog Getemboy that day and we didn't have our shoes on, so it was a fair race. We were just lucky the grass in the fields were short along with his stamina.
In all our years of building trails through his fields he never caught my friends and me. We joked about not having to outrun old man Kruger but to outrunning each other. But in fact if one of us had been captured by old man Kruger, the mobs code of silence (as well as ours) I'm sure, would not of been followed. We would have given up the others quicker than a Parking Bylaw Officer in Steveston.
All this took place after the spring of 1964 when my family moved here from Vancouver. I would turn nine that year and the wilds of Richmond were the best things a kid my age could hope for. Mistakes cuts and bruises were mine to make, and mine alone.
Now all activities at my old childhood stomping grounds are monitored. Adults are now directing, teaching, and constantly counting children to make sure they're there. Not because of old man Kruger, his tractor and his dog Getemboy. They're long gone. Now it's a loner in a white van we have to be afraid of. Oh he's not scary like old man Kruger was. This guy is friendly, wouldn't stick out in a crowd. He perhaps looks like a teacher. Maybe is a teacher! Maybe a family friend. But somewhere down deep he's wrong and very scary.
My heart ached a bit when I read the flyer of all the planned and supervised activities at the Oval. The place where I played and grew up free (except for the attempts of old man Kruger) from adult supervision. It hurt for the kids today who can't have a simple self monitored childhood outdoors. One of self exploration with unknown time limits where nobody picks you up after a set period. For kids knowing a time where you yourself are to blame. You are at fault if you get cut or banged up, not the person who's suppose to be watching you, or the faulty equipment company you can sue.
Mistakes that are yours to make. Mistakes and tumbles that are now almost impossible in helmets, pads and safety vests under trained adult supervision.
But we have to watch them. You can't kick them outside anymore to master a long boring summer day alone. My grand kids are growing up in the same country, province, and city as my wife and I did. But their world is so different. All because of that guy with a van, a car, a secret place. All because of the six o'clock news story of a distant, but not distant, city with grieving family over a young child. Again!
We were so lucky back then with our three channels on our black and white TVs. Me and my two amigos with little, to no, to wrong knowledge about girls. Where all of life's answers had to be discovered and not answered with a click of a mouse.
But questions all about things like that were years away then. We had trails to build, fires to start, big game to hunt and six ft. tall Amazon women in leopard skin bikinis to capture. Maybe some questions were not so far away,....in 1960 something.
Bob Niles
