It is early Saturday morning and the 'bois' are beginning to gather for the usual early morning lime that was very typical for my generation. As a teen we all looked forward to the Saturday morning lime. When the crowd was big enough that meant we had enough players for wind ball cricket of small goal football in the street. During those early days we did not have much traffic using the roads so we played with ease and without the constant flow of traffic to stop the game too often.
We loved to ‘kick ball’ but most of the time we did not have any ball to use and that meant Mr. Albino’s shaddock (pink grapefruit) was used as the ball (yes they were small but just right for us). That was loads of fun my friends but at the same time not everyone had sneakers on but we all wanted to play. The asphalted road surface mixed with blue limestone chips was hard – really hard. So on with the game and it did not make a difference that we were using a grapefruit as the ball. We were able to give 'rolley polley and beats galore'. As a matter of fact this game was more fun because one needed to be more skillful because of the small size of the “ball” i.e. grapefruit.
We loved to ‘kick ball’ but most of the time we did not have any ball to use and that meant Mr. Albino’s shaddock (pink grapefruit) was used as the ball (yes they were small but just right for us). That was loads of fun my friends but at the same time not everyone had sneakers on but we all wanted to play. The asphalted road surface mixed with blue limestone chips was hard – really hard. So on with the game and it did not make a difference that we were using a grapefruit as the ball. We were able to give 'rolley polley and beats galore'. As a matter of fact this game was more fun because one needed to be more skillful because of the small size of the “ball” i.e. grapefruit.
We had stoppages but not for water but to replace a busted grapefruit. Talking about busted grapefruit… there was always one cause for concern especially for those of us not wearing sneakers – buss toe! The game was fun and with the adrenalin flowing no one thought about the grapefruit as anything other than it was “the ball”. A simple mistake and the skin from one’s big toe would be hanging and causing great pain – yes buss toe! What about you did you use grapefruit to play small goal in the road? Let us know about your childhood experiences. Until the next post, remember the good ole days eh.