That hoary old memory was just one of many we shared, of our childhood.  It was one that my husband on the rare occasion brought up in reference to working experiences, not the most fond of memories since both of us were dispatched at a very young age by parents whose own experience was that of going out to work when most young people in the West still were happily mired in childhood.  We had both experienced factory work from the age of 13 upward.

But this memory of my husband's, as a young boy who had spent winter months playing ice hockey on the streets of inner-city Toronto, was a different one, in a sense.  He had applied during the summer holidays, for temporary work at the Canadian National Exhibition grounds, for a well-known smoked meat entrepreneur who had a few busy stands there during exhibition time. 

And he was starry-eyed with exuberant disbelief to be working under the management of one of his youthful heroes, a player with the Toronto Maple Leafs.  And then reality struck; long hours, a busy work schedule, little relief from nose to the grindstone and the appealing opportunities to sneak a slice of meat or a pickle, anything to satisfy the cravings of a growing young body viewing others making off with smoked-meat-stuffed sandwiches while he felt he was starving to death.

All the young boys were adequately forewarned - no freebies allowed - and they all took care to ensure that no one saw them appropriate a slice here or there.  Perhaps he was incapable of really surreptitiously helping himself.  He can recall momentarily slipping beneath the booth counters to stuff a pickle in his mouth, and feeling a heavy hand smack his back, move to his shoulder and drag him out from under the counter.

His supervisor, who had somehow transmogrified from a heroic celebrity to a hard taskmaster, eyed him grimly, warning him yet again that this would be the last time; next time he dared sneak so much as a piece of pickle, a slice of smoked meat - would be his absolute last. 

And, then, over 60 years later while waiting for his car to be winterized at a local shop, he picked up a copy of a tabloid newspaper and read an article, lauding the background of the oldest living Toronto Maple Leaf player, still holding his own at age 92. 

Looking back at him was the photograph of an aged man within whose wasted grey countenance he could make out the features of the robust young man who had once terrified him.