William O'Boyle: Beyond the byline: Making memories with a Quaker Oats box

Feb. 21—Time to fire up the Way Back Machine and head back to 210 Reynolds St. in Plymouth and my kitchen.

Time to replay some of those great basketball games played right there between our coal-fired stove and the refrigerator.

The basket was a Quaker Oats box — if you remember, they were round. I would cut it in half and tape it to the wall above the doorway to our spare room.

This was my arena, my Pauley Pavilion, my Madison Square Garden.

But it served the purpose. I would take my red rubber ball and the game would begin.

I would fictionalize basketball games between high school, college and NBA teams. I preferred to stay local, using teams from the Wyoming Valley League, the North League, the Valley League and the Catholic League. I followed them all via The Times Leader Evening News and the Wilkes-Barre Record.

I checked all the box scores and I would remember all the names. And then I would play a game, simulating every pass, rebound and shot. I think my mom thought I was nuts.

But it was fun.

When mom relocated my court to inside the spare room, suddenly I realized I could play games against my neighborhood pals. We would bounce off the walls and compete like it was a championship game each time.

And because the Quaker Oats basket was a mere six feet above the ground, we could dunk. And we did. A lot.

These were great timers, for sure. That spare room would also become the home of our slotted race car track. We would race those cars for hours. It would also be the place where we played Strat-O-Matic and Electric Football during the winter months.

So after my stop in my kitchen/spare room, I re-programmed the Way Back Machine and headed to the mid-sixties and I visited all those great venues — band boxes where high school teams played.

In Plymouth, we had the Gaylord Armory — a comfortable building with bleachers on both sides of the court and a horseshoe-like balcony.

I decided to walk down to the locker-room. A place where legendary speeches were made by Coach John "Snoggy" Mergo and Joe Evan. It was a dank, dark place more suited for growing mushrooms than future basketball stars, but it was ours.

Each kid carried the necessities in a rolled up towel that contained Chuck Taylor Converse sneakers, a jock strap, shorts, a T-shirt and athletic socks. No gym bags here.

If I close my eyes, I can still get a whiff of the stench of that room. The only other smell I can mentally conjure up is flood mud from the 1972 Agnes disaster. Talk about stink.

Anyway, back in the days of rivalries like Nanticoke versus Plymouth — there were some exciting games back then. Nanticoke played in what can only affectionately be called the bandbox of all bandboxes. I mean, there were support columns in the corners of the playing floor that were, yes, in bounds. If the ball hit one of the columns, it was not out of bounds.

Wait, what?

And there were other similar gyms that gave the home team a decided advantage, like knowing where the weak floorboards were that would alter the bounce of a dribble. Just name the school and their gym had its particular traits, shall we say. Whether it be GAR, Kingston, Newport, Ashley, Wilkes-Barre Township, West Pittston, Forty Fort, Swoyersville — and all those Catholic League schools.

But it was always fun. When preparing to play a particular school, part of the preparation was a review of the venue — the gym. We had to know what to expect when we went on the road.

In Plymouth, we had two outstanding basketball programs — the Plymouth Shawnee Indians and the St. Vincent's Vinnies were always the talk of the town. And not without debate. You would often stumble upon a good-spirited, yet lively debate about who was better. The question could never be settled on the court because the two schools competed in different conferences — Plymouth in the Wyoming Valley League and St. Vincent's in the Catholic League.

I'm sure either school could defeat the other. The players often did compete on the courts of Plymouth's playgrounds or in Doc Savage's backyard. And the games were always competitive and both sides could claim victory, but I can't verify that.

I can tell you this, the Shawnee Indians and the Vinnies squared off often in my kitchen with the Quaker Oats basket.

And I can also assure you that the Shawnee Indians never lost one of those simulated games.

Glory days consist of many memories — most very real because the games and events and stars actually existed.

And there are memories made only in my kitchen or spare room. Games with results only I have a record of — but very special nonetheless.

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