Mike Rainone
Hammertime
Over the many years that I have been lucky enough to be involved in the newspaper business and still in freelance writing I have always really enjoyed hearing and sharing people’s favourite and funniest stories and experiences.
I am sure that along the way, all of us, no matter what age we may be have some wild and woolly tales to tell, some that may have involved some of our biggest ‘goofs’ and a few really cool pranks, as well as others that may have just been among our greatest thrills and achievements.
For many of us, especially seniors like yours truly, we may have stored these classic old tales and true confessions in our memory banks and then waited for the opportune time to share these ‘I Remember When’ fables with our children, our grandchildren, our buddies, and the rest of the world. At the age of 75 years here are just a few of my favourite memories and oopsy-daisies that I can now safely share, and I hope that you also might have some tantalizing tales that you will share with me for future publication, just for fun of course. You are welcome to drop off your favourite story or unique experience to the Ponoka News or send to my email at jrainone@telus.net.
• Do you remember way back in our great early Ponoka School days when we dunked the girl’s braids in the ink well, shot rubber bands around the room, passed notes to our friends, and when someone even put a frog in the teacher’s desk? That was us for sure, but we always managed to blame it on the ‘class bully.’
• As some-what of a ‘terrible teen’ and living at staff cottage number 53B on the grounds of the Provincial Mental Hospital my parents left me at ‘home alone’ with my brother Peter while they went on a holiday to Victoria. I thought that I would do a good deed by washing all my dirty clothes before they got home, so I stuffed them all into the washer in the basement, tossed in a half a box of soap, and headed back upstairs to watch T.V. When I went down to check it all out an hour later the floor was covered by two feet of soap-suds, which took me half the afternoon to scoop up and flush down the toilet.
• I will never forget being out on a weekend camping trip with a bunch of buddies at Gull Lake. We all stayed in one great big tent, went swimming and searching for girls during the day, and then sat around a big fire in the evening telling jokes and even dared to try and smoke a cigar. Our only food was wieners and beans along with quite a few beers, and when we finally ‘crashed’ together on that first night we soon realized that we would have to quickly ‘evacuate’ and air-out that tent and would end up sleeping in the car or outside in the cool fresh air for the rest of the night.
• When I went to work at the Ponoka Complex in the 1980s one of my first tasks was to learn how to put the ice in for the forthcoming winter season. Our grand but ‘motley crew’ flooded and then painted in all the lines by hand then, and it was up to me to measure and snap the chalk-line as to where they would go. After it was all done and we all stood in the bleachers admiring our work, we realized that the blue line was in the wrong place, so we had to scrape it all off and do it all over again, and yours truly wasn’t very popular that week.
• I have no doubt that one of my biggest ‘adult goofs’ came after spying a really big critter with a white stripe wandering around in the back yard of our Riverside home and my son Kevin and I would bravely decide to become skunk hunters. After picking up the ominous trap and strict instructions from the local Fish and Wildlife officer we snuck quietly into the yard, baited the trap with some really smelly fish, set the door in the up-position, and then retreated into the house for the night. Sure enough, the next morning the trap had been sprung, but there was no way that we were going to open the little side window and look inside to see what we had captured. We then very carefully packed the trap into the van and headed across the bridge and down under the old black CPR train trestle to ‘let ’em loose.’ After pondering the situation and hoping that no one was watching, we decided that we were not going to just dash up front and open the door and risk getting sprayed, but instead got a long stick and stood far behind and lifted up the latch. To our total horror out came the neighbour’s frazzled cat, which headed across the parking lot at break neck speed and tail between its legs. Quicker than we could say ‘don’t tell a soul what just happened’ we dashed off in the opposite direction towards town to drop off the trap, but made very little comment to the game warden. When I sheepishly apologized to the neighbour he became hysterical with laughter and finally uttered, ‘That’s okay, I didn’t like the dam thing anyway.’
Whatever the case how great it is to relax and share some really good laughs and memories with family and friends, and then just go ahead and have a great week, all of you.