"Personally, I am going to miss these boys. My boys. I’ll miss seeing them on the couch chilling with our kids or having a Nerf gun battle. I’ll miss watching them play ridiculous games like trying to throw chocolate-covered almonds into each other’s mouths at the same time. I’ll miss hearing Cavin sing every song off the radio and I’ll miss watching Kolten shaking his head while Cavin sings. I’ll miss chatting with them after their games while we make a plate of nachos. I know they’ll miss my famous smoothies in the morning. Most of all, I’ll miss watching these fantastic hockey players hit the ice to play a sport they love. I’m so glad we chose to billet and I feel fortunate to have played a role in Kolten and Cavin’s lives. They are and always will be part of my family by choice." -- Recently spoken by a hockey "billet Mom".
I posted an item on my Facebook timeline about a wonderful woman from Humboldt, Saskatchewan, who was the "billet mom" for three of the Humboldt Broncos junior hockey players who died in a horrendous bus crash last weekend. "Goodbye my sweet sons!" she said in the caption accompanying a heart-wrenching photo showing the three smiling young hockey players sitting around her kitchen table.
Not only did that image tug at my heart strings, but it reminded me of my youth when five dear women opened their doors to me in a period between 1955 and 1960. Two were baseball billet moms and three were more in keeping with traditional room-and-board land ladies. Four of the five were definitely second mothers to me.
The fifth, I don't know...She was very regimental and had a strange way of showing her motherly love, chastising me for taking too much time in the bathroom, being late for breakfast and making too much noise chewing my food once I got there. Oddly enough, however, I was her favorite go-to-guy for household chores and driving her to weekend visits with relatives. Maybe she felt she could pick on me because I was the youngest of her four boarders. As I say, I don't know...
What I remember most about my billet moms and landladies in Florida, St. Thomas and Toronto is that they all took a personal interest in me, like they would do with their own sons. Their homes were my home. At no time did I feel confined to my bedroom. They were all excellent cooks, providing breakfasts and nourishing evening meals along with brown bags lunches. Laundry was always part of the package arrangement, $15.00-$17.00 a week inclusive.
I was even included in special family functions, including holiday weekend activities. Hot chocolate and other snacks were often delivered unannounced by Rita Tunstead for me and a roommate in her East Toronto home. I kept in touch with Rita and her husband Ernie for years.
Mrs. Gladys Reid of St. Thomas still holds a special place in my heart. We sat in evenings sharing personal stories, frequently laughing and sometimes crying. She rejoiced in my achievements and consoled me when I did not do well in baseball or broke up with a particular girlfriend of the day. I can't remember what we had discussed one evening, but not too long after retiring she slipped into my bedroom and gave me a kiss on the cheek. (It should be explained that Mrs.Reid was at least 70 years of age. She had facial paralysis and I still feel that quick hen peck with misshapened lips sweeping past my cheek.) She exited as swiftly as she had entered. No words were spoken. A boy never forgets something like that.
The remarkable thing about Mrs. Reid was that she regularly accommodated three and four young men at a time in her small two-bedroom bungalow -- two beds were in her enclosed front porch. For years she slept on a pull-out couch in her living room. I am convinced that she did not do it for the few dollars that would be left over from her grocery bill each week. She did it because she wanted to.
I was a pall bearer at Mrs. Reid's funeral not too long after that.
Another land lady, Mrs. Velma Neil, was also so special that she was an invited guest at my wedding in 1960, sitting along with my mother and other family members.
I conclude by thanking all those remarkable women everywhere, then and now, who give impressionable young men a home away from home as they find their way in the world, sports or otherwise. God bless their souls!
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