[August]

We went from stick guns and GI Joes to crab apple fights.

Campaign season for crab apple warfare was in the late summer and fall when ammunition was plentiful. Our historical enemy was the kids who lived at the other end of Biscayne St. Every year solemn delegations from the two ends would meet at "Dead Mans Hill", a steep dip halfway up the street which was the accepted neighborhood border, and like ancient armies of old arrange a date and location of the great battle.

Ammo caches would be deployed and complicated tactical plans would be worked out but it always seemed to turn out to two lines of kids on the opposite edges of someones back yard pelting each other with crab apples (rocks were banned by mutual agreement) non stop until one side or the other ran out of ammo or got called in for supper.

Interestingly these annual battles did create an arms race of sorts. Garbage can lid shields were the first major improvement and soon everyone had them, the now cover-less garbage cans a boon for the local raccoon population. Forts were tried but found to be nothing more than traps for the defenders who were soon forced to make a running break though a hail of apple fire. Slingshots and wrist rockets were eventually introduced and became the standard.

Secret weapons were also developed like the bicycle lance made from a sharpened broom or mop handle. Six kids riding down the street in line abreast with those things tucked under their arms made an awesome sight. That one however the adults put a stop to pretty quick when one of the neighbors car radiators got speared during a practice run. Then there was the Bee Bomb. A mayonnaise jar full of captured bees and hornets that would be hurled at the feet of the enemy. Didn't work so well in the fields and woods we normally battled in.

It reached it's peak however with the BB gun. Suddenly things got real. Jimmy Burns had to go to the doctors to get a BB dug out of his butt and there was talk about repealing the rock treaty. If things kept up someone was gonna loose an eye for sure!

Lasting peace was finally declared upon our discovery of girls and alcohol and crab apple fights became "kids stuff".