My Encounter with Mr. William (?) Skinner

When I was a lad of 10 or so, neighborhood hockey dominated my thoughts during the winter months. None of my friends were in to skiing. Mt. Tom Ski Tow had not yet been built. Tobogganing and sledding were popular, but the conditions had to be just right. So hockey was "it" for winter sports.

There were a number of places where we could play hockey in my neighborhood. Bray Lake in the Holyoke Reservation was great except there were a lot of pleasure and figure skaters about, and they often complained of our exuberant play. The playing fields at the White School where my sister went to school were flooded during the winter to provide skating. Sometimes we could play hockey there, but again our play often conflicted with neighborhood pleasure skaters from the George Street area.

The very best place for our hockey, then, was the ornamental pond on the estate of Mr. William Skinner. The Skinner estate was on Northampton Street, just south of my street, Montgomery Avenue. From Northampton Street, all one could see was a winding driveway which turned out of sight behind a grove of tall trees and bushes. I think there was a simple sign at the beginning that announced SKINNER, but little else. If you walked up the driveway, however, just past that row of trees and bushes, there was, off to the left, a small pond, probably filled with goldfish during the summer. The pond was just perfect for hockey. It was in a kind of bowled out area, so the puck never went very far if it shot off the ice. The size was perfect for "sand-lot" hockey. And best of all, we boys were apparently the only ones who either knew about it or had the brass to use it, because there were never any pleasure or figure skaters there. Just we boys. It was great!

Beyond the row of trees and bushes, the property opened up into a huge terraced lawn and garden that rose up a substantial hill. There were frequent clipped and manicured rows of hedges, with occasional marble seats. At the top of the hill, quite a ways away from the pond rose a huge mansion. One could only see the general proportions of the house, which were huge.
Now, the plain truth is that we never much gave the occupant of that mansion much thought. Our strategy was a simple one and perfectly logical for boys our age. Start using the place, and if nobody came and chucked us off, then it must be OK for us to stay there. Indeed, I can remember thinking when we first started using the pond that someone would surely come down and throw us off, or even call the police, which had happened before when we tried to play baseball in a vacant lot. But nobody ever came down, and so the pond became ours.

Over time, we actually fabricated goals. We set iron pipes into the ice at either end of the pond and then spread sections of old fencing between the pipes. If someone scored a goal, there was a loud "whack" as the puck hit the section of fence. That made playing a lot more fun than shooting between two stones, which was our prior arrangement. It also made playing hockey a lot more dangerous. I can remember my friend Larka Twing racing toward the goal, falling on his behind with his legs apart, and sliding full speed into one of the pipes. Larka has gone on to father several children, so I guess his injuries were not that bad, though at the time, we were all concerned for him.

Jerry Web taught us all the "slap shot". When he first did it, we were all convinced that it must be illegal. After watching hockey on TV, however, we all realized that it was OK to try to loft the puck above the ice by slapping with a golf like swing. It amazes me that we never lost any eyes or teeth, because our skates and sticks were the only equipment we used.

Time was always our enemy during the weekdays. The rules in my house were such that I was expected to do my homework and chores before I could go out and play hockey. Since it got dark around 4:00pm during the winter, that meant I got very little hockey in during the week. It was like that for all of us. Arguments with our parents just didn't seem to work. I can remember explaining to my parents that if I could play hockey when I got out of school (around 2:30), I could play hockey for almost two hours. Then I would have all evening to do my homework. Nuts! Homework and chores first, then hockey if there is any time left. Parents!

It was in response to this quandary that inevitably led to my encounter with Mr. Skinner. At the time, there were a series of street lights that lined the winding driveway all the way up to the mansion. During the Christmas season, there were Christmas lights strung around these street lights. One day, one of my friends (I simply can't remember who) brought a fixture where we could simply take out one of the Christmas light bulbs and screw in this fixture. We could then plug an extension cord into the fixture and run it to the pond where we set up spot lights. Voila. Hours of more hockey per night. Now, I could race through my homework and chores, get 45 minuets of hockey in, race back home, wolf down my dinner, itch to be excused from the table, and race back to Skinner pond to play until I had to be home (9:00 pm). It was heaven. It also made us believe even more strongly that the pond was ours to play hockey on. Surely our lights could be seen up at the mansion, so no cops must mean approval.

We boys had a simple rule. First one there would turn on the lights (by unscrewing the bulb and screwing in our fixture) and the last one to leave would reverse the process and turn the lights off. On that fateful night, I was the one who got there first. I had not done this operation before, but I had watched others so I knew what had to be done. I was nervous, but I couldn't let the other boys show up to a dark pond and me saying I was afraid. So I un-screwed the Christmas bulb and screwed in the fixture, but I must have touched the fixture to the Street light pole somehow. Suddenly, there was a loud bang, a shower of sparks, a brilliant white light that illuminated every detail of the landscape, and just as suddenly the entire place was in complete darkness. The details of the scene remained in my eyes as a kind of weird, fading photographic negative. As this afterglow slowly disappeared from my eyes, I realized that all of the street lights, all the way up to the mansion were out. It was pitch black. Jesus! Home! And I simply tore off for my house.

Running back home, a thousand thoughts flowed over me. I was convinced that I had shorted out the entire house, and not just the driveway lights. I figured the police were already on the way. Could I just amble in to my house like nothing had happened? Nobody had seen me. Nobody could prove it was me. My parents didn't even know about the lights. It's not like I had to deny anything.

"I did it" I shouted, as soon as the front door was opened. In retrospect, I can see why I was never drawn to a life of crime. "Did what?" asked my alarmed parents. Out came the whole sordid story; pond, lights, rule of first one there, bang, sparks, darkness, home.
It always amazed me how calm my parents could be in a crises. "What do you think you should do about it?" asked my father. "What can I do about it? I can't make it un-happen. I've blown out the whole place, " I cried. "Well, for starters, you can go back and apologize and offer to pay for any damage." Said my father. "Give him my name and tell him that he can call me and tell me how much damage has been done."

I can distinctly remember trying to get my father to come with me. My mother supported that idea, but my father insisted that I clean up my own mess. "That's how one develops character." So off I went into the darkness, alone, to apologize, to offer to pay for the damage and to thereby improve my character. But apologize to whom?

Up the blackened drive way I trod. I had never been above the pond, so this was all unexplored territory. The mansion was at the very top of the hill, now in almost complete darkness. Nobody was about. The place was dismal, and silent, and cold. I walked up to the huge door under a kind of portico and knocked. Nobody. I thought about running. I wanted to run so bad. A boy of ten just loves to run sometimes. But then I would have to tell my father that I had not apologized and offered to pay, so I would simply have to come back and do it again. I knocked again, this time quite hard. I heard something. What? I knocked again. This time, the door opened, just a crack at first. Then a bit wider. Standing on the other side of this massive door, just barely visible in the gloomy light was a tiny, shriveled up old man. He was completely bald on the top of his head, but he had long straggly gray hair which hung down to his shoulders growing from the sides of his head. He was wrapped in some kind of shawl, and he was bent over with a pronounced hunch-back. I think he was propped up with cane.

I was absolutely frozen with fright. He said something. What was it? He said it again. "What do you want?" I took a huge gulp of the frosty night air and shouted at him, all in one breath. "My name is Bobby Fowler and I live on Montgomery Avenue and I blew out your lights and I didn't mean to do it and we only like to play hockey on your pond and I'm very sorry and I hope you let us keep playing there and my father says he'll pay for any damage and I'm sorry" And with that, my boyhood urges took over, and I ran as fast as I could all the way home.
"Did you apologize and offer to pay for any damage?" my father asked. "Yes" I answered. "What did he say?" asked my Mother. "He said 'OK' I think". The Christmas lights were out for weeks, and when they finally came back on, nobody had the courage to plug in our fixture. We continued to play there on weekends, though.

I have often wondered whom I confronted that frightening night. Perhaps it was an ancient servant who had grown old with his employer. It seems more likely to me, however, that it was Mr. Skinner himself.