By Rick Houser-

I am certain I have mentioned in the past that when I was growing up there was little to no recreational activities available out on Fruit Ridge. Outside of going to church on Sunday or to the grocery store, I saw very little interaction with the outside world. Life was boring for a little boy with no playmates or neighbors really close enough to visit. In the winter months a person could become lonely and bored. But in 1954 I think I learned there was something to do and it was fun to watch.
In 1954 my sister Peg became a cheerleader for the Moscow High Schools basketball team. Since I was nearing five years old, I didn’t grasp what Peg was so excited about after being chosen to be a cheerleader. That was until the family loaded up in the old Ford on a Friday evening and headed to Moscow and the school. Once there Peg took off with some other girls her age and my brother Ben went to the locker room with the boys his age and Mom and Dad and I paid to get into the schools gym. From the parking lot to the gym I had seen more people to talk to than I think I had ever seen in one place in my life.
In the gym the adults sat on one side of the gym and the kids sat up on the stage on bleachers and were having a pretty good time from the looks of things. In my opinion there was only one way to find out. After I saw my sister in a uniform and cheering with those other girls and what they called the reserve basketball team and there in uniform was Ben I knew without a doubt in my mind that this basketball event was something I really didn’t want to miss coming to. It wasn’t long before I began wandering the seats and out into the hallway and over and up to the bleachers. Since Moscow was a very small school and both my brother and sister were well known, I was recognized immediately and spoiled so there was no way I ever wanted to miss another game.
Later my sister and brother explained to me that the basketball games were the place to go and the thing to see during those long winter months. Mom and Dad followed the team and we traveled to all of the games, whether home or away. With each new season I learned more about the game but still spent more time just running around the school and the seats. In the 1957-58 season my brother was a senior and he and the guys from his class had a very good team and they played so well that they just barely missed winning the county championship and finished second. Ben even made the county all-star team. That season I watched the game more and decided I would be happier if I got to play, so through junior high, one year at Moscow and one at Felicity, and a couple years into high school, I put on a uniform and could hardly wait for game night.
The thing was that I wasn’t as dedicated or talented as my brother but when I wasn’t on the team I still never missed a basketball game in high school whether they were at home or away. Actually following the home team continued through my early adulthood. I would take my date, who is now my wife, to the games and then we would maybe go to Frisch’s’ in New Richmond for a bite to eat. We started a family and even though the winter nights hadn’t changed in their boredom I now had children to help me fill in some of that time. My daughter liked to go to games and school events but really didn’t care to play the game. My son, however, loved the sport and just about any sport he could play his way into. Unlike me he practiced. Needless to say once I saw my son had a natural ability to play the game and a desire to be a winner, he was luckily grouped with a bunch of boys who formed a very good team.
As the father I was very proud and was also enjoying my second childhood. I say with great pride that from his first year of playing which was the fourth grade and until he graduated high school I never missed a game. Here again was the event that filled the long winter nights and sometimes the days. I carried a pen and a little pocket notebook and kept his stats and those of the other boys and I always sat on the top row of the bleachers. I did this so I could see the game without interference and I always thought that if I sat up there and kept the seats I wouldn’t decide to point out to a referee how wrong he was on a call. I was afraid I might get ejected from the gym and that of course would be when my son would have the greatest night in his career and there was no way I was going to do that.
In rural communities basketball is taken with a different reverence. It always has seemed to me that on a game night the towns were almost empty bcause everyone had gone to the game. I think it was more of a social gathering most of that time. You can learn an awful lot of news, or maybe it is only gossip, but I went home having heard pretty much everything that was going on.
Things have changed over time but game night is still game night and the gyms fill up with spectators all over the country where basketball is played. Why you can even show off your new clothes you got for Christmas, a new girlfriend, or both! These days my attention has gone to basketball games that are played for the most part in the middle of the day and I sit closer to the gymsfloor as my eyesight just isn’t what it used to be. You see my son is now coaching his oldest son’s basketball team.
The exciting thing to me is that my wife and I not only get to see our grandson play (by the way he is a good player in my opinion), but I also get to see my son work with the next generation and so far he has not tried to correct a referee on his poor judgement and even though I know he is wanting to play in the game, he doesn’t show it. Not too much. He has two more sons and this is adding one more page to my memoirs in my using basketball to help move winter along, so look for the schools’ game schedules and maybe take in a game. I think you will be entertained.