Afton Star Enterprise . . . I remember Afton

I remember Afton

"The slab" played an important role in my youth. We skated on it as children. Linda, Mary and I and maybe the Hoffman girls might walk uptown and roller skate in circles on the slab until we got dizzy or bored. Then we‘d skate the double-wide sidewalks uptown and eventually make our way to the Mark Spencer home. There a new, smooth sidewalk with a nice slope down the side called our names. It was a full-half block long without obstacle or crack to trip us and was the best roller-skating sidewalk in town.

As we grew older, we’d be on the slab each weekend to play in the band concert. The East Union High School Band had outgrown the small bandstand so we sat chairs up on The Slab, plunked down a music stand and played away. I don’t know how well we played but it seems like there was usually a good crowd in the park to listen to us and we might have gotten a little reward for showing up.

The best times on The Slab, though, were the impromptu basketball games. Someone would show up with a basketball and we’d choose up teams, boys and girls. The games were physical and aggressive and we played our hearts out. We were out to win and to have fun. To get to shoot a free throw, the foul would have been really flagrant as there was so much pushing and fouling we couldn’t shoot all the free throws but I don‘t ever remember any of us quitting, mad or upset. We quit because we literally ran out of energy or it was time to go home and do chores.

I remember as a ’big-time’ high school basketball player (ha ha!), teaching sister Mary, Phyllis Cole and Debby Clark the drills I was learning in high school basketball -- skills they would be learning in the next year or two from Coach Manship. No wonder they were such a good team later on!

What great fun I had playing basketball on The Slab with Ron and Stan Manship. Ron and Rick Berdine. Roger Tisue. Dave Crandall. (Forgive me if you were there and I didn’t mention you. My memory isn’t very good; some of my siblings got my share.) Steve Eckels and Ralph Lundquist might roll into town to check out Mary and ‘the girls". If Linda was at The Slab, Denny Larimer would show up. He could jump the chain-link fence around the Slab with one hand on the top rail. I was impressed and besides, he’d go get the ball when it got knocked over the fence. Good memories. I remember Afton and I remember good times on The Slab.