We go into a large, open room that
covers the entire end of the building. I might be wrong,
but to the best of my knowledge, it was not used very
much in the 1950’s. If I remember correctly, it did have
some basketball goals but I don’t remember seeing anyone
playing basketball there and I never did. I think that
the gym was used much more in the 1920’s and 1930’s than
it was in the 1950’s. It always gave me the impression
that it and the little bit of equipment in it, like the
few “Indian Clubs” were from another time.
I don’t recall ever going into it but 2 or 3 times.
Usually, the doors to it were locked. For some reason,
we had a couple of Boy Scout meetings there in 1953 or
1954. I do remember one of these meetings very well. We
had gotten some real boxing gloves from somewhere and we
were going to have some real boxing matches. I was
boxing my good friend, Jesse Brindle. Jesse swung at me
with a serious roundhouse right. Very cleverly, I
thought, I ducked the swing. However, I did not count on
the fact that Jesse was going to make a full 360 degree
circle with his arm extended. I rose up from my clever
ducking maneuver just in time to have Jesse’s
outstretched arm, with boxing glove, hit me squarely on
the chin. I can indeed verify that you can be knocked
cross-eyed. I was still trying to recover from that blow
2 hours later. I think Jesse was as surprised by the
result as I was.
I believe that the photo shown below was taken in the
gym in 1919.
