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HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Wingham Advance-Times, 1983-01-12, Page 18Page 6—Crossroads—Jan. 12, 1983 Si H. GORDON GREEN It was back in 1962 that the hockey book "Behind -the Cheering" came off the press, and if you happen to have a copy of it gathering dust somewhere, you have a collector's item now. It was a fascinating account of the early days of the game as re- membered by Frank Selke Sr., then the manager of the Montreal Forum and Les Canadiens and the man we Quebecers always regarded as "Mr. Hockey". It was by far the most popular hockey book ever written up until that time, and 1 suspect that many of the hockey books written since that time have borrowed freely from it. But those of you who re- member that book may also remember that my name appeared along with that of Mr. Selke, and you may have wondered why the ghost writing of this should have been given over to a farmer instead of to some famous sports writer. Well it was Mr. Selke's own idea and it all began with a hen. What brought us together, you see, was the fact that we both happened to be chicken fanciers. Now to you city slickers I must tell you that there is a great and splendid difference between a poultryman and a chicken - fancier. It is the same kind of difference, I think, as that which exists between a man who paints buildings and an artist. The poultryman is inter- ested only in making money from chickens. And just how lucrative the modern com- mercial business must be is indicated by the fact just to be permitted to get into the business will cost a beginner at least half a million. (Figure it out for yourself — he'1l need at least 20,000 layers if he wishes to sell eggs and even before he' buys the birds and erects the buildings he will have to buy "quota" before the market- ing board will allow him into the fraternity, and in my province at least this quota will cost him up to $20 per laying hen ! ) The maximum number of hens anindividual may keep without quota restrictions is 250, but for the chicken fancier this is quota enough. Indeed few of us fanciers could afford to keep more. The fancier, you see, has longago given up any hope he had of making money out of his birds, and instead of choosing one of the egg -a - day varieties which cram our hen penitentaries, he breeds chickens which he thinks are beautiful. True, the kind he keeps may lay a few eggs too, but the real reason he raises them is just to see them struct their colors in the sun. Now of all the ornamental varieties of fowl there is surely none more beautiful than the Golden Pencilled Hamburg. And when I came out of the Army in '45 and bought my first farm north of Montreal, I was deter- mined to try my hand at this rare and exquisitely pat- terned bird. But the only breeder I could find listed in the "Feather Fancier" was Frank Selke, who gave his address simply as "The Forum, Montreal". And to that address I sent my letter, re Asiinsimigo asking if it might please be possible for me to secure a setting of Golden Pencilled Hamburg eggs. Two days_ later my phone rang. "I got your letter," Mr. Selke said. "If you'll drop around to the Forum tomor- row morning, I'll have a setting for you. They'll cost you $5." The whole conversation was as short as a telegram, and I didn't see Mr. Selke next morning but the eggs were waiting for me outside the door of his beautifully appointed office. A month later, Mr. Selke called again. "What luck with those eggs?" he asked, and I was proud to tell him I had eight good chicks. "Don't count on raising eight," he warned me. "Of all the breeds I've ever owned, I think they're the most delicate." And that was all there was to that call. I was astounded when he called me again a few weeks later and asked me to have lunch with him. Lunch at the Mount Stephen Club, no less, and he wouldn't hear of me begging off. "I'm a farmer too," he said. "I'll see you there at twelve." It was not long before I felt quite at ease at that lunch, because there was nothing aristocraabout the man. He askedme how many acres there were in my farm, what animals IJ had, and how much my wife objected to my feeding chickens that didn't earn their keep. And then suddenly, "How would you like 58 of the best Part- ridge Wyandottes in Canada to add to your stock?" And gradually the story came out. Mr. Selke's famous Golden Pencilled Hamburgs were kept by his maintenance foreman north of the city, but at his home in Westmount that past winter, Mr. Selke had hatched a bunch of Wyandotte chicks without knowing exactly what he was going to do with them. He finally decided that his three -car • garage was ample enough for him to build a false back to it; and that between this false back and the actual rear of the building there would be room enough to raise his birds in comparative comfort, and still leave lots of room for the cars. Equally important, the false back would provide a blind for his venture. It was of cours0,,,quite illegal to keep chickens in Westmount. It worked. The illegal chickens thrived wonder- fully all winter, and not a soul but the immediate fam- ily knew that they were there, deep in the heart of Westmount. But now, the secret was suddenly in peril. "Last week," Mr. .Selke told me solemnly, "the roosters thought they should try to crow and yesterday the police were looking in everyone's backyard to see who was raising bootleg chickens." He began to laugh with me. "My wife doesn't exactly relish em- barrassment like this," he said. "And now you see why I want to give those Wyan- dottes away. How about it?" So that afternoon we loaded the blue ribbon Part- ridge Wyandottes into the trunk of the Selke's Chrysler Imperial and took them out to my little farm near Rose - mere. And that was the BENCHWAIZMEIZ 5POTS��VI The .Pirates° Ralph Kiner is one of only two men to hit forty or more home runs for five consecutive years, name the other slugger? beginning of a partnership that ,was to last for many years for almost immediate- ly Mr. Selke began to bring other breeds to the farm, and to house each new addition he would build a suitable pen. The material he used was nearly always scrap from the Forum: discarded sideboarding, for instance. (The hens didn't mind the skate marks.) One of our pens was made from panels left behind by the Metropolitan Opera; still another unit began with no- thing more than a giant wooden box left behind by a circus. 1t had come to Mon- treal filled with peanuts. But the most spectacular of all our pens, I think, was one that was finished inside with a panel of lithographed card- board bearing a photo of the late King George VI. The late Dick Irvin, then coach of the Canadiens and father of the sportscaster of the same name, was also an avid fancier and he too was soon sending birds out to the farm. Before we ended . this lovely nonsense we had 46 breeds. We had chickens with Easter hats, chickens born with boots on, chickens with fur instead of feathers. Some were small enough to put in your jacket pocket; others were so big it took two cages to bench them when we took them to a show. And Selke and Irvin both loved to take their birds to the big shows. The Toronto Royal was their favorite, and \if you were to check the NHL schedules of the late 40s and early 50s you would note that Montreal always played To- ronto the week of the Royal — generally on a Thursday. Selke and Irvin managed to have it that way so they could see how their chickens had fared in the judging. Mr. Selke, who will be 90 this spring, no longer has Golden Pencilled Hamburgs or Partridge Wyandottes or any other kind of fowl. But many of the birds which make a hallelujah chorus of my barnyard today are the descendants of stock he once bred to perfection. Not too long ago a strange car drove up our lane and the young man at the wheel was quite apologetic about the reason for his visit. "Just came to have a look at your chickens," he said quietly. "Brought my wife and my little girl with me. Elope you don't mind?" 1 didn't mind the father and the little girl at all. They could have stayed the after- noon so far as 1 was con- cerned. The girl was seven or eight, quiet like her dad, and lovely. But the lesssaid about the mother, the better. She kept holding her nose to filter the smell, and she wondered loudly how anyone could think a chicken — any chicken — was pretty. Her husband just kept leaning on the fence and looking. "If I had only two acres and a"dozen birds like these, I'd think I was in heaven," he told me. His little girl meanwhile had been furtively picking up feathers and with every new find she would look at the feather as she might have looked at a flower. Finally, when she had a whole bouquet of feathers she, came over to show tlhem to her mother. Her mother, who couldn't have noticed what her daughter had been collec- ting, gave a,J(`ttle shriek and sent the feathers flying. ' Ugg�h�`" she said. "How could' ou? Now go wash you hands!" 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