I recently celebrated my 74th birthday. Looking back over seven decades of life, a handful of experiences stand out ... none more-so than the day that Flemming Thomsen put a rubber ball in the Elementary School furnace, the hard way.

In 1960 I was seven years old, in Grade 2 at the Lonsdale Elementary School Annex in North Vancouver (now demolished and replaced with condos). Mrs. Symchuck was our teacher. I'm a bit vague on the names of fellow students, but Susan Peacock, Tommy Richardson, Michael Brelsford and Kit Ryan ring a bell?

Part way through the school year a boy named Flemming Thomsen arrived from Denmark. He was a year older than the rest of us, and a foot taller! (he'd been placed below his grade level due to unfamiliarity with the English language). He was a lovely fellow, always smiling. Everyone took an instant liking to Flemming.

At morning recess, play-time would generally consist of the girls congregating on the hop-scotch pad while the boys gathered in the north-east corner of the school-yard where a steep slope rose ten or twelve feet, with a level area at the top. The boys would take turns, carrying a small inflated rubber ball, about the size of a cantelope, to the top of the hill, then kicking it as hard and as high as possible. The boys below would jockey for position, each of them yelling, "Got it, got it!". Whoever caught the ball got to climb to the top of the hill and take his turn kicking it ... and so it went until the bell rang and we returned to class.

Being bigger and stronger, Flemming usually sent the ball higher and further than anyone else.

On this particular day Flemming strode to the top of the hill, surveyed the group of boys below, and with a mighty wind-up his leg shot straight out and the ball took flight.

We all watched as the ball rose impossibly high, tracing a slow, gentle arc in the direction of the school building. Having reached its maximum height the ball descended straight down and disappeared perfectly into the chimney on the school roof-top!

Twenty boys just stood there, silent, dumbfounded, arms slack by our sides, mouths agape, staring at the chimney, hardly believing what we'd just witnessed. As we gazed in disbelief a single puff of black smoke issued forth from the chimney-top. Poof! The rubber ball had been immolated in the furnace below!

The schoolyard erupted in cheers.

It was unbelievable, a miracle, a feat of super-human skill.

One thing was certain. Only Flemming Thomsen could have pulled this off.