THE
LIGHTED
BALLFIELD

When I was a youngster I went to school at Rothesay Collegiate and there was a fellow there by the name of George Nickson from Grandby,Quebec. He was a cocky little bugger you know and kids at school like to brag about what they have at home. One of the things he liked to talk about was the fact that in his home town they could play baseball at night. They had a lighted ball field! Nobody would believe him. This was in the thirty's mind you. A lighted ball field was just a dream. Years later, during the war, I was posted outside Montreal flying training missions for navigators. One day an order came down that they needed four Tiger Moths in Winsor Mills, an airfield just south of Montreal. We took the train to Toronto to pick them up On the first leg of our flight back we stopped off at our home base. We got there about five o'clock in the afternoon. After supper we left on our own to fly the rest of the way. It was only a short distance from Montreal to Winsor Mills. When I felt I should be nearing my destination I started looking around to see where I was. It was getting late and I would have a devil of a time finding an airstrip after dark .After a bit I noticed a town down below but I couldn't find it on my map. We were told if we became lost to fly down and read the name of towns from the signs on the railway stations. So, I went down but I couldn't make out the name on the station. I couldn't get close enough to read it. After I flew over the place two or three times I noticed some lights on the edge of a field and thinking it was an air strip I went over to check it out. I saw people
running around. They were playing ball at night!Right away I knew where I was!