Thinking back to this time of year when I was a kid growing up in Twillingate, NL, two things immediately come to mind, hockey and ski-doo (by the way, everyone back home knows that ski-doo doesn’t refer to the brand, it refers to all snowmobiles). I have so many fond memories of those times. The more snow that fell, the better we liked it. There were years where we bite off a little more than we could chew with that statement. The great blizzard of the late ’80s comes to mind. School was shut down for 3 days as were most side roads.
Computers weren’t so much a thing back then, however we still had Atari and Tandy Co Co, colourcomputers. Many people also owned Nintendo and Activision game systems. That didn’t stop us from being outside in the winter though. We’d freeze our fingers and toes off to have a hockey game “on the pond”. No particular pond, just any pond we were able to get to and clean off. Of course back then the ponds would be frozen by November, so there were a good many days we’d get home from school and rush to the pond for a game of hockey before it got dark. What a rush that was!
As I got a little older I started taking out my grandfather’s Elan Ski-Doo for rides. It wasn’t a powerful machine but it could pull and you rarely got “bogged down” on it. One Christmas Eve one year, low and behold a truck pulled into our driveway. Mom and Dad had bought a Ski-Doo Citation. That was 21 or 22 HP of pure fun. That’s when I really started riding ski-doo more. Back then by January we could go almost anywhere around Twillingate, often being able to cross the saltwater ice to other areas beyond our reach in summer. It was a crazy amount of fun. We were unstoppable as teens. We didn’t have a driver’s license yet so we had no other means to get around. It was nonstop and I loved it.
Fast forward to today, my kids have no idea the fun we had growing up. For one, they were raised here in eastern Ontario where we’ve never owned a snowmobile. Actually I don’t think my kids have ever been on a snowmobile. People say kids these days never go outside. That being said, I often pass by the local outdoor rink and see a bunch of young people playing hockey.
There’s a reason people call those days, so many years ago, “the good old days”. It’s funny how back then we thought those days would last forever. I remember being told to enjoy ourselves while we’re young. We paid no attention to older people when they said such things. Sometimes I wonder if I had cherished those moments a little more, would it have made any difference. Truth is, it probably wouldn’t have changed a thing.
By ScorpioKnights72 
