Reflections "Growing up in the 50s"- Chapter 9- The Battle of the Bulge

Nostalgia Tidbit: As a kid I could always find at least one other person and play some “one on one” basketball. We probably played basketball more than anything else because of how easy it was to step outside our door and play in the vacant lot next to our house. Back then no one I knew had aspirations of growing up to be a basketball player, never a thought of making a lot of money doing so. Of course the pros back then probably had to have a second job to make it. We played for fun!

                                                                           Chapter 9

The Battle of the Bulge

We had a vacant lot next to our house. The lot wasn’t  

very big but it was big enough to serve the

purpose of whatever sports season came around. We

had some great times there as we played tackle

football, had our own high jump pit with the sawdust

landing area, a boxing ring, and a basketball court. My

favorite was the basketball court, which consisted of

the goal being attached to a tall pine tree with a

home made backboard. 

We never had a net, so the greatest challenge was

chasing the ball down as it would often bounce off the

tree trunk or more often off a protruding root.

Basketballs were hard to come by in those days.

We might have been lucky to get a new one once every

couple of years. That’s not very often when you

consider just one bounce off the tree roots could give

you a ball with a bulge! Sounds bad, doesn’t it? The

seam of the ball would split a few inches so the rubber

tubing would balloon out. I think of all the times we

played with that weird looking ball with a big bulge,

just hoping and praying it would not “pop” that day.

 The battles on that basketball court will always be a

treasure of my memories, especially when we had to

battle with the bulge!