It’s strange sometimes the little things that will bring back a flood of memories. Such was the case Friday when an AP Member Exchange story moved that was slugged “Milk Crate Basketball.” I gave it a quick read-through to make sure someone hadn’t stolen a childhood memory and capitalized on it monetarily (he says tongue-in-cheek).

Milk crate basketball was one of the made-up games my brother and I played when we were kids. This one took place in the winter when we either couldn’t get outside or it was later in the day and dark outside. It also took place before the area was completely turned into a family room with furniture and a fireplace right out of the 1970s – round, metal and bright red.

The game was simple enough, we played basketball with a tennis ball and a milk crate set up at the far end of the room, which was somewhere between 15 and 20 feet long. There was a shot line about 6-7 feet or so away from the milk crate, which sat on the floor, and we couldn’t shoot from inside that line – though you could jump toward the crate and shoot as long as you didn’t touch the floor.

The ball had to stay in the crate in order to count as a basket and if it came out, you couldn’t just get the rebound and put it in, you had to get behind the shot line. If you were on defense, you had to take it back to the end of the room before going on offense. We played four timed quarters – we had a cassette with five songs on it and that constituted a quarter.

The games could get physical and the longer into the game, the more intense they could get. Those game helped to stoke our competitive fires quite a bit.

We really had a testosterone fueled neighborhood with lots of boys our age to play games with year round. And yes, they could sometimes get pretty competitive and more intense as the games would wear on. Baseball, basketball, football, made-up games, it didn’t matter, we competed and had fun all day long, especially in the summer.

Cary is three years younger than me, but was a much more gifted athlete so our competition was pretty balanced. The other boys in the neighborhood all fit in between us in age, so finding cohorts wasn’t difficult. There was a church a block away with a big vacant lot (several lots actually) next to it where we were able to play everything and not be far from home.

Cary and I, along with the Schepperlys – Tom and Mark – made up a game that never resulted in a winner. Tom was my age and Mark was a year older than Cary so competition was pretty fair there.

The game didn’t have a name, but it probably didn’t matter because a sport that could be played for a couple of hours and not have a winner likely wasn’t going to catch on. The object was simple, the team that could get the basketball all the way around the block (it was a half-mile around) was the winner. Simple basketball rules – no traveling, double dribble, fouls, etc. – and you couldn’t go out of bounds, which was the edge of the pavement.

Like I said, no one ever won and I think that’s why we only played it a few times. But looking back, it was a great way to hone non-shooting basketball skills. It really didn’t matter, though, in the long run if there was a winner, the big thing is we were outside having fun and staying active.

As I grew older and the “neighborhood” expanded we still stayed pretty competitive. The games were a bit closer to the formal rules of the real game, but we still played them a lot.

I think back to that expanded neighborhood and see so many guys who I wound up playing organized sports with and see the success we had. I think that all those real and created games helped us to be successful.

Small town sports teams can live and die on the talent of a single class, but we were fortunate to have several classes in a row with lots of talent, guys who got along and competed hard against each other as well as other schools. I feel blessed to have had that kind of experience.

More importantly I also feel lucky to have had a brother to have that kind of experience with, milk crate basketball and all.

Steve Murch can be reached via email at smurch@thealpenanews.com or by phone at 358-5686. Follow Steve on Twitter @sm_alpenanews. Read his blog, Pardon, Me But … at www.thealpenanews.com.