Written By John Caverhill
The south side of Bear Creek’s schoolyard ended with a moderately steep slope about twenty-five feet from top to bottom. A fence ran along the bottom and divided the schoolyard from the concession road and its accompanying ditch. Midway along the slope, what appeared to be a shallow ditch ran straight from top to bottom—this was The Slide, a hard-packed channel worn smooth by many years of schoolchildren rocketing down its length.
The earth, frozen hard and covered with even a light dusting of snow, provided one of the most thrilling rides I have ever enjoyed! Starting at the top with a short run, you took off and landed at the top of the slide at full speed. The favourite position for maximum speed was with one leg doubled under, so you rode on one foot. The other leg extended straight out in front and the arms were used for balancing. Midway down, a projecting tree root, also worn smooth, provided a launching ramp that sent you briefly airborne to give a delicious moment of that dropping-elevator sensation. At the bottom the woven wire fence provided a recoil-spring to absorb the impact of our projective-like descent.
While we kids suffered no ill effects from the countless collisions, the same could not be said for the fence. By winter’s end it was stretched and bent, with the staples in the posts on each side either loose or missing altogether. Each spring, with mutterings about what those danged kids were doing to the danged fence, Dad and a couple of the other trustees would straighten the wire and staple it back into place, only to repeat the process the following spring. At last came the spring when they decided to fix ‘that danged fence’ permanently. This solution was simple. By placing another post close to one side of the slide, this would strengthen the fence without us kids colliding with the post and telescoping our feet into our caps.
We were young, but we weren’t stupid, and we knew it would hurt if we hit that now-unyielding fence. Late in the fall we piled leaves at the bottom of the slide. The leaf cushion worked as planned but it was disappointing because it lacked the exhilarating recoil effect of before. We had all been told the reason for the extra post, and for some reason it was thought necessary to warn we older boys that the staples in that new post were not to be pulled out. Dad said he would ‘paddle’ me if the staples were removed.
What to do? Then—a flash of inspiration! Some tools for emergency repairs sat on a shelf in the school woodshed. Using a hammer and a screwdriver (all screwdrivers were the slot type in those days), we carefully loosened the staples in the bottom half of the offending post. We left enough leaves to partly cushion the shock and resumed our sliding. Halfway through noon hour the next day the staples had popped out and the fence regained its previous elasticity.
Then, another flash of inspiration! Wedging a length of tree limb against the base of the fence post, we propped up the bottom of the fence. While it removed the recoil effect, it considerably lengthened the slide because we now shot right under the fence, down to the bottom of the ditch. We all enthusiastically agreed that the extra length made the slide even better than before. At the last recess each day, we removed the prop and let the fence drop back to its normal position.
Our activities hadn’t gone unnoticed. We were sternly asked to explain the missing staples. We looked the picture of injured innocence while averring we had not pulled those staples out. Our fathers were more understanding than we realized. They didn’t want to spoil our fun, and the fence was lo longer getting battered by repeated collisions, so a deal was made. We would let the fence down at the end of each day and at winter’s end, two staples in the new post would help secure the fence for the rest of the year.
All’s well that ends well.
