Barn Basketball

Neither Tim nor I were ever very good at sports. Accept for the rare times we did try out for the team in High School, we never lasted very long. During my freshman year in High School, due to pressure from our Uncle Ned, I did join the basketball team but after the first few practices; I wasn’t on the team any longer. When Uncle Ned heard about it, he got into an argument with my mother. He kept repeating to her in a loud determined voice, “He quit”! My mother argued right back with the same loud determined voice and said, “He was cut!” This intense exchange went on for quite awhile, (Possibly fueled by alcohol on both parts). I stood by silently and didn’t say a word, nor did I ever talk about it. NOW IT CAN BE TOLD! Uncle Ned was right! I QUIT!

Although we rarely tried out for High School sports, nevertheless, Tim and I were active in basketball. We had our own “team”, (Consisting of just Tim and I) and played basketball in the barn. We had some rather unorthodox rules. One was that when we stopped dribbling anywhere on the “court”, we could toss the ball against one of the barn support posts or the edge of the straw mow and have it bounce back and catch it. Then we could dribble again without either “referee” (Tim or myself, depending on who didn’t have the ball just then) calling a “Double Dribble”. During the game, if the ball would get lodged behind the backboard, the game took a time out while one of us would climb up the barn support posts and dislodge the ball. It was an unwritten rule that the one who threw the ball and caused it to be lodged there, was the one who had to go up and retrieve it. When the ball was thrown back down to the “court”, no play could start until the other “team” was down from the support. Since we always played on Friday nights, the game was always “called off” when both 77 Sunset Strip followed by The Twilight Zone started on TV. Another reason the game was “called off” was that while dribbling the ball during the game, if the ball would hit an exposed nail head on the barn floor resulting in the ball “getting a flat”, the game was also called off. When this happened, which was quite often it seemed, we would go to Heckleman’s Sohio Station and fill it with air from the big air compressor they had. We would put the air hose nozzle against the air hole and tried not to overfill the ball due to the high pressure of the air compressor tank, which was around 200 lbs. PSI if I recall correctly. We could only push the air nozzle lever for a split second to avoid over filling the ball. More often than not, we overfilled it and it was rock hard. Since we didn’t have the correct nozzle stem to fit in the ball air hole to let out the extra air, when we took it home and tried to dribble it, it would go almost to the underside of the barn roof! Most, if not all the time we would hit the ball on the floor of the “court” as hard as we could and see if one of us could hit the top of the inside of the barn roof. This was analogous to hitting the bottom lever with a big wooden sledgehammer and trying to ring the bell on the “Strong Man” contraption they have at Carnivals. In that case, we would also delay the game until enough air leaked out of it to resume the game. Sometimes this would take a week or so. In those cases, the game was postponed until the following Friday night.

When we weren’t playing a basketball “game”, we would usually play a game of “Pig” or “Horse”. This is played by one of us making a weird shot. If the other, after only one chance can’t make the same shot, they would get a letter of either the word “Pig” or “Horse”, depending on how long we wanted to play. When the word was fully spelled, that person lost the game. If one of us were in danger of losing a game of “Pig”, we would change the name of the game to “Piglets”.

The old basketball hoop and plywood backboard Uncle Ned and Art Moon constructed for us is still hung in the barn 45+ years later. It had a tape down the middle of the plywood backboard that’s still there. I never could figure out why it was there in the first place. A few years ago Tim moved it down from over the rear barn door to between the next 2 barn support posts. It now sits quietly along the wall and has hay stacked around it during baling season. It reappears after using the hay stacked around it. Hmmm, Tim’s getting ready to bale hay in the next few days. Before it gets new hay stacked all around it again, I think maybe I’ll try to dig up a basketball and go play a little “One on One” with myself until the new hay gets stacked around it again. If it’s raining, maybe I can get Tim to play a “Friday Night” game with me! It’s been 41 years since the last game, so I think we’re about due!

Related story link:

SPORTS “SHORTS”



	“BARN BASKETBALL” Neither Tim nor I were ever very good at sports. Accept for the rare times we did try out for the team in High School, we never lasted very long. During my freshman year in High School, due to pressure from our Uncle Ned, I did join the basketball team but after the first few practices; I wasn’t on the team any longer. When Uncle Ned heard about it, he got into an argument with my mother. He kept repeating to her in a loud determined voice, “He quit”! My mother argued right back with the same loud determined voice and said, “He was cut!” This intense exchange went on for quite awhile, (Possibly fueled by alcohol on both parts). I stood by silently and didn’t say a word, nor did I ever talk about it. NOW IT CAN BE TOLD! Uncle Ned was right! I QUIT! Although we rarely tried out for High School sports, nevertheless, Tim and I were active in basketball. We had our own “team”, (Consisting of just Tim and I) and played basketball in the barn. We had some rather unorthodox rules. One was that when we stopped dribbling anywhere on the “court”, we could toss the ball against one of the barn support posts or the edge of the straw mow and have it bounce back and catch it. Then we could dribble again without either “referee” (Tim or myself, depending on who didn’t have the ball just then) calling a “Double Dribble”. During the game, if the ball would get lodged behind the backboard, the game took a time out while one of us would climb up the barn support posts and dislodge the ball. It was an unwritten rule that the one who threw the ball and caused it to be lodged there, was the one who had to go up and retrieve it. When the ball was thrown back down to the “court”, no play could start until the other “team” was down from the support. Since we always played on Friday nights, the game was always “called off” when both 77 Sunset Strip followed by The Twilight Zone started on TV. Another reason the game was “called off” was that while dribbling the ball during the game, if the ball would hit an exposed nail head on the barn floor resulting in the ball “getting a flat”, the game was also called off. When this happened, which was quite often it seemed, we would go to Heckleman’s Sohio Station and fill it with air from the big air compressor they had. We would put the air hose nozzle against the air hole and tried not to overfill the ball due to the high pressure of the air compressor tank, which was around 200 lbs. PSI if I recall correctly. We could only push the air nozzle lever for a split second to avoid over filling the ball. More often than not, we overfilled it and it was rock hard. Since we didn’t have the correct nozzle stem to fit in the ball air hole to let out the extra air, when we took it home and tried to dribble it, it would go almost to the underside of the barn roof! Most, if not all the time we would hit the ball on the floor of the “court” as hard as we could and see if one of us could hit the top of the inside of the barn roof. This was analogous to hitting the bottom lever with a big wooden sledgehammer and trying to ring the bell on the “Strong Man” contraption they have at Carnivals. In that case, we would also delay the game until enough air leaked out of it to resume the game. Sometimes this would take a week or so. In those cases, the game was postponed until the following Friday night. When we weren’t playing a basketball “game”, we would usually play a game of “Pig” or “Horse”. This is played by one of us making a weird shot. If the other, after only one chance can’t make the same shot, they would get a letter of either the word “Pig” or “Horse”, depending on how long we wanted to play. When the word was fully spelled, that person lost the game. If one of us were in danger of losing a game of “Pig”, we would change the name of the game to “Piglets”. The old basketball hoop and plywood backboard Uncle Ned and Art Moon constructed for us is still hung in the barn 45+ years later. It had a tape down the middle of the plywood backboard that’s still there. I never could figure out why it was there in the first place. A few years ago Tim moved it down from over the rear barn door to between the next 2 barn support posts. It now sits quietly along the wall and has hay stacked around it during baling season. It reappears after using the hay stacked around it. Hmmm, Tim’s getting ready to bale hay in the next few days. Before it gets new hay stacked all around it again, I think maybe I’ll try to dig up a basketball and go play a little “One on One” with myself until the new hay gets stacked around it again. If it’s raining, maybe I can get Tim to play a “Friday Night” game with me! It’s been 41 years since the last game, so I think we’re about due! Related story link: SPORTS “SHORTS”