Basketball Court

I mentioned about the basketball court at Taida last time. It was a place of great significance in my life. I started to play there when I was about twelve, right after I started my junior high school at Banqiao. At the beginning, it was only on the weekends during school time. But in the summer time, it was every day!! Sometimes, it was twelve hours a day! Of course, my best friend, Taotze, was with me most of the time. Sometimes, we went there to play early in the morning, then we walked to Reservoir Place to swim in the afternoon, and came back for more basketball! If you are wondering if we drank something when we were there all day long, the answer is “yes”! Although we did not have coca cola or other soft drinks, there were venders who carried iced tea on the backs of their bicycles. For a few pennies, we could drink until we were happy again. When we returned in the summer of 1975, people were using the basketball for some other type of exercise, no one was playing basketball. Life had certainly changed!