First Time I Realized I Was Poor

It is early December 1969. I am 11 years-old. I am playing ball hockey at Van Horne parking lot in Cote des Neiges in the west end of Montreal. The lot is on the same block where I live. It is dark but the parking lot is illuminated by the street lights above. The lot is full of cars from the Van Horne movie theatre but we manage to carve out a narrow pathway where we can play. We don’t have the standard hockey nets using two boulders of snow to mark each goal post. It is the usual group of players from our street who are out to play including my brothers. It is a bitter cold night, no wind, but you can see your breath in the air. We are all bundled up to stay warm when I notice that Kevin Kenney is not wearing any gloves. Did he forget them at home?  He only lives a few apartments away. Did he lose them? Did he not borrow some from his brother? My mind shifts to the game and the goals I score. As I return home all exhausted and sweaty from the running around and wearing too many layers of clothes my thoughts return again to Kevin. I am obsessed why he was not wearing gloves on such a bitter cold night playing ball hockey. It dawns on me at that moment that his family had to make certain buying decisions because they couldn’t afford to get everything they wanted or needed. They were poor. My neighbour down the street was poor. The guy I played ball hockey was poor. I realize at that moment that I too am poor. It never occurred to me when I hung out with other friends from other streets who lived in homes. I realized on that cold winter night that not only living on the same street was a connection but being poor was as well.