Running Lights

Fire Station 40 Gets a Handball Court

By Stanley E. Halfhill

    Perseverance will win.  It says so in all the story books.  Dale Carnegie says it among other things.  It's one of the most worn out among overworked mottos.  You can see it framed and hung on walls, etched and painted, printed and written.  Also propped up on desks of big and little shots, and even those who work.  So what?

    So,  maybe the boys at 40's believe it too.  They should.  They have persevered for over a year and are still at it.  And from where we sit, without even a program, they are going to win.. We say it.  They say it.

    Say what?  Oh, yes!  They are going to have a handball court.  You see for years 40's has always had a few boys who would knock a handball around most any time, and did.  They had a court of sorts.  It had more hazards than an Atlantic crossing.  If the ball didn't go into the kitchen window it would carom off the incinerator and probably roll under the wood shed or the Jap house across the alley.  The court itself was made up of equal parts of dunnage and chicken wire and fish nets.  There wasn't a straight wall anywhere.  It had more bumps on it than a circulating nozzle.  Of course someone was always getting hurt.  We would hesitate to estimate the amount of time the injuries cost the city or the amount of money that they cost the Relief Association.  That incinerator was the hardest impediment that we ever ran up against.  To say nothing of the splinters garnered from the kitchen wall.

    Finally the boys from Tuna Street got tired of it and decided that they deserved better.  Did not the boy's at Boat 2 have the finest new court in the Department?  Too, Boat 1 had improved their court.  Everybody on the Island had a court but 40's.  But they had turned out a Class D champion;  Harrison West, with what they had.  Over the grapevine came the word that 40's wanted a new court.  After the usual amount of buckpassing among the boys, someone started the ball rolling.  The hat was passed in the battalion.  Requisitions were made anymore requisitions.  40's finally got some lumber but couldn't use.  They got some money and could use that.  They went to work --even the engineers.  But they made no headway.

    Then came a break.  Into the engine house one day walked a fellow who wanted a little information and a cup of coffee.  He got his information and his cup of java and  for an hour and a half he heard about 40's handball court aspirations.  In his kindly democratic manner he gave them some good advice and also promised to help them, if he could.  He could.  He was the Chief.

    Permission came to move the incinerator.  Lots of people said it couldn't be done, but they did it.  They built gallery seats atop the woodshed.  They smoothed up the kitchen wall and came straight back from there.

    Came the day the front wall was plastered.  A couple of Joes did the job.  A couple of weeks later it cracked up and fell off.  The 40's boys felt badly for a while.  Then they gathered in some more dough and hired a professional mudslinger.  They wanted it to stick this time.

    We believe that it will.  We believe they win.  Anyway they're way out in front now.  Maybe we ought to paste that motto in our own hats.

    "Perseverance will win."