The Gurganus Dome

When I was a boy, like I said in my first blog entry, we always went to Maple Hill to celebrate Christmas on my dad's side of the family.

Grandma's house would be full. Mom and Dad would get a bedroom for the night, as would my Uncle Ken and his wife, Aunt Faye.

The cousins, though- my brother Adam and myself, Michael and Donna, Brian and Karen would go over to our cousin Duane Gurganus's house to spend the night. I had two other cousins, Maurice and Priscilla Brown, who lived close enough to Maple Hill that they could go to their own home.

Going over to Duane's house- it was actually Uncle Bobby and Aunt Frances's house, was a great time. We stayed up as late as the adults would allow, playing games.

Duane's house was out in the country, too, with plenty of field space all around.

Just down the road, some family from Uncle Bobby's side stored farm equipment in a big metal shed with a curved, ridged roof- like half a grain silo laying on the ground the long way. The below picture is the closest likeness I could find on the internet. Inside the shed was a basketball goal.

One Christmas, us boys got permission to go play basketball there. I believe it was my cousin Brian who came up with the name of the Gurganus Dome for the metal shed (based on the Dean Dome, the nickname of where the University of North Carolina plays its basketball games, called that after coach Dean Smith).

The basketball game that we played late into that night is one of my favorite Christmas memories. Just about everyone on the court was a better athlete than me, but I held my own because I was bigger and taller than Brian and Adam at the time, and I had no problem being physical with them.

My Dad and Uncle Ken played, too. As brothers, they were very competitive growing up. They played sports in high school, including basketball.

The game got a little heated between the two of them, and I remember Uncle Ken guarding Dad in some sort of way that got Dad irritated. Dad stopped the game at one point and said, "Now Ken, that's the game you and I walked away from years ago."

Uncle Ken made a face that I've seen a few times before, a sort of amused tightening of the lips and an expression like he wanted to say something but decided against it.

With the score particularly close, I missed a jump shot and got angry with myself and the rim. Dad tried to tell me not to lose my cool like that. It's a lesson that I still have never really mastered.

I remember, too, that we had to be a little careful not to run into some of the farm equipment at the end of the building, but the owners of "The Gurganus Dome" had cleared out a nice space for us to play.

The exercise, the late night, the fun of being with my cousins under the fluorescent lights in that metal dome, playing basketball, is a memory I wanted to put down here. I used to be able to remember a lot more about that night and that game.

In later years at Christmas, we could not go to "The Gurganus Dome" to play because the farm equipment was in the way and it was too much trouble to ask them to move it. But that particular night was a special time.

-Nathan Marshburn