The Innocence of Childhood

Short Story Submission

I am so happy to report, that I received my first short story from a friend this week. I have encouraged friends and family to send in their stories, so we can have a bit of fun with our memories. I hope you will consider sending me a story!

Sitting together on my back porch, we have shared lot of stories about our childhood and teen years in the 60’s and 70’s.This first submission is written by Kevin Huckell. Thank you so much Kevin for your story.

The Golf Club

It’s amazing I can still remember a time when I was only three years old. Certain events stand out vividly in my mind; like my first golf club. It was a beautiful 3-wood, handcrafted by my Grandfather. I still have it until this day. I may have to look for it, but I know I still have it. I remember spending countless hours in our backyard, hitting air balls around with that club, sometimes hitting balls over the fence into the neighbours yard never to see them again. Sometimes, at the end of the season, my neighbour would round up all the balls and put them over the fence for me. 1961 was a good year!

The day my Grandmother died is a memory I will never forget. I never really got to know her, but I remember spending time with her, and I remember how upset I was. I can still see my mother walking down the hall to give me the bad news. I can still picture our house, the first house my parents owned. I remember the address 803 Modin Road in Pickering. We used to go to the Teepee Drive Inn. We would get there early so I could play on the swings. If I was lucky, Dad would be on the other end of the teeter totter to bounce me up and down.

My parents would have these parties where the neighbours would come by to drink and smoke cigarettes in our basement recroom. Ashtrays would be over flowing with cigarette butts, in our basement. And I could never forget that smell of stale booze and cigarettes. My mom was a bit of a smoker back then, Rothmans King Size. She would later quit when all us kids in our teens convinced her to quit smoking, only to start ourselves.

Our neighbours had a “retarded son” (that was what people were described as back in the 70’s), Ed Flaherty. I used to hang out with his brother Paul, and my best friend Andrew Baines. It was funny to hear Andrew’s mother call him with her deep Scottish accent….I can still hear it to this day…”Andrewwwww!”. She always stretched it out. Anyways back to Eddie. He was aimlessly playing at the end of their driveway when his father backed the car up and broke his leg. The screaming and bawling was eerie as it floated through the neighbourhood. Eddie wore a cast for about two months. I would see him hobbling around, it was kind of comical.

Paul Flaherty was having a birthday party one day, but since I was invited to another party before I got Paul’s invitation: I can’t remember her name, but she was an annoying little thing who had a crush on me, even back then, I was big with the ladies. The party was all girls except for me. They all surrounded me and shoved me in a closet, and she tried to kiss me. I guess the statute of limitations is up on that one.

My folks bought a used car off of Paul’s Dad for my mom. It was really cool, a 1962 Buick Lesabre. It had big cones on the front of it over the bumpers that gave it that cool kind of menacing look. Later when we moved to our house in Markham, my Mom would keep hitting the back wall of the garage, leaving these big dents in the drywall. One day she hit the wall so hard it pushed me and my Dad into the middle of the living room.

It’s amazing I can remember so much detail over 63 years ago, and now off to write story #2.

Written By:

Kevin Huckell