It was the winter of 1972. The Livingston Hockey Club had chartered a bus for their grammar school aged boys to go from Livingston, New Jersey, to Ville Emard, Montreal where they were scheduled to play the Ville Emard Hurricanes; a team they had been competing against annually for years.
My sons, Joe twelve, and Andy eleven, were two of about forty youngsters traveling with a group of chaperons. They were to stay in the homes of their competitors — many of whom only spoke French. The language barrier, amazingly, was not a deterrent. The boys had stayed at each other’s homes for years and never had difficulty making themselves understood.
The trip was paid for in advance and parents had given additional money to the chaperons to hold, should their children need it.
The bus left Livingston very early on a Friday and my husband and I anticipated a phone call from our sons upon their arrival in Montreal, which was scheduled for early Saturday evening. But Saturday came and was about to end, and we hadn’t heard from them. We were becoming concerned when, at 11:45pm, we received a call from our twelve year old.
After only a few seconds of conversation I grabbed a pencil and a sheet of notebook paper that was lying on the phone table, and began writing everything Joe said. As a writer, I realized that although my stomach was in knots at that moment, what I was listening to would, hopefully, make me laugh some day.
I have written exactly what he said, without editing. Only my responses have been omitted:
Hi Mom. We’re having a great time! We didn’t get to Montreal Saturday morning like we were suppose to. The snow was coming down so hard the bus driver couldn’t see the road so he drove off the road and into a ditch.
After they towed us out we stayed at a neat motel in Canada, different than the one we were suppose to stay in, ‛cause we couldn’t get to that one. The snow was so deep we all took turns sliding off the motel roof. All of us kids liked doing that but Gary had a bad stomach ache so he cried the whole time.
The ice maker people, who make ice for the arena, are on strike so we can’t have games anywhere, anyhow.
The chaperon parents told us we were sleepy ’cause we had a big day and they made us go to bed. They said they were tired and thirsty. They were thirsty alright, ’cause we heard them drinking but they weren’t that tired cause we heard them dancing, too.
When we tried to go on to Montreal today we found the bus was frozen and would not work. Neither would any other busses. The snow plow people are on strike, too. We had to walk 100 yards back to the motel against the wind. The wind was so, so, strong that my face was in pain and I couldn’t breathe so I just stopped and dropped my suitcase and pillow in the snow and, man, you shoulda’ seen that pillow zoom away like a piece of paper.
Mom, I don’t have a non-allergic pillow any more…or my blue pajama bottoms that were tucked into the pillow case; and the inside of my lined boots are soaked and freezing.
We couldn’t play any of the scheduled hockey games Saturday and we missed our planned bowling Saturday night with the Montreal parents and kids, but the families were very nice to us anyway.
No, I don’t know where my brother is staying.
No, I don’t know the name of the family I’m staying with.
No, I don’t know how many more days we’ll have to be here.
Two good things, though. Today we were able to play an unscheduled hockey game at a different arena, and we won. Also, that $10.00 you gave me when we left Friday? I haven’t spent ANY of it!
* * *
It has been thirty four years since this happened. Recently, when I came upon this little essay, I sent a copy to my sons, each of whom have children of their own, now.
They got a kick out of the article, and they clearly remembered the incident. I asked them if they could possibly understand what their father and I had felt that evening, as we listened to Joe describe the harrowing events of their trip. I sensed that for one brief moment they were able to view us as someone other than just the lady and the man who feed, clothe, and nag them. For one instant they connected to the fact that as parents we had lived through the same fears and joys that they were now experiencing with their own youngsters.
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