Throughout the summer of 1968, the two main members of the Route 322 gang Ray and me, Martin, (there were four total) devoted themselves to picking up all the littered soda and beer cans along the surrounding roads where they lived. They stashed them in the big barn there at Martins home in Richwood, NJ. with an intention of doing "something" on "Mischief Night." This was the traditional Halloween Eve when kids soaped windows, flung toilet paper over trees and did other dumb, senseless things that youngsters were keen to do. We ornery little devils figured we would stand the cans up in the road in front of the Richwood house and let cars run over them. Just like the cars and trucks did to all the racoons, possums, squirells, cats and dogs that stupidly wandered onto Richwood Aura Road or Route 322 and got flattened dead. One day towards the end of the summer my buddy Ray and I were going over the hundred or so cans stashed in the dark corner of the barn when from the sunny barn door opening the softly spoken words "what are you planning on doing with all those cans?" snapped us into reality. There was Gin, my mother, standing with her hands on her hips and the green eyes sparkling and beaming like lasers right into our dumfounded souls. "Uh we're uh, we're uh"... Grimly, a voice shot from behind the lasers: "Don't you LIE to me." General George Patton had nothing on Gin when the fire in her eyes came to life. It was like truth serum and hypnotism combined. ZING, it zoomed, straight into my brain! In a trance I muttered "We were gonna stand them up and let cars run over them on Mischief Night." My full blooded Italian Mother's lucid mind parked behind those piercing eyes processed this information in a split second and dangerously blazed with Roman Gladiator fire. The hands shot into the air, waved around and settled, palms open, aimed straight at us. "You've have absolutely got to be kidding! Are you nuts? Have you been doing this? Don't you know you could cause an accident! How could you even think about doing something so dumb?" It was easy. We WERE dumb! We cowered, embarrassed by the truth and speechless in our idiocy. The green eyes flickered and orbited about themselves seeing our embarrassment, distress and realization of our dashed ambitions. I saw a thought flash across her mind. The hands lowered. They went to her hips again. "I've got a better idea" she said. Instantly, Ray and I perked up to this about face from the potential retribution at hand. Gin's facial features softened into a comedic impishness. "You can take 3 or 4 cans and hang them on cars at the stop sign and they'll clatter on down the road like a fire alarm!" Ray and I looked at each other and were completely smitten with the scope of this idea. "How do we do it Mom?" Suddenly my Mother was transported back to her youth in the 1930s where it was a given she and her 3 frisky brothers had hatched and executed just such an action. Into the house she flew and returned with the huge ball of kite string we used to put our kites hundreds of feet in the air. She cut off 4 feet or so with the also brought ancient (but effective) "extra" scissors even us kids were allowed to use. She closed the scissors and punched a hole in the side near the top of 4 cans. Then she strung the line through them and tied a knot loose enough for the cans to travel a couple of inches and not bind up. At the other end she showed us how to tie a slip knot. She walked out to the old 63 Ford Falcon beat to death 4 door and said "You wait until they stop and then run up and slip the noose over the end of the bumper and pull it tight like this" as she deftly slid the loop over the bumper and ran the slipknot up tight. We could never have dreamed up anything even remotely so cool. We all laughed and were just enthralled about the whole concept. Ray and I were ecstatic. This is fantastic!
But could we really do it? Did we really have the balls to sneak up, unobserved, to a running car at the stop sign at our intersection and pull this off? We were 12 years old. We had 8 weeks to D-DAY, Mischief Night. Plenty of time to think about it...
So for weeks RD and I fabricated the can harnesses there in the barn. Gin would come out and check on the work now and then and give the stamp of approval to our "can loops." Eventually, I think it went to the back of her mind and it was up to us. We wound up with 3 or 4 dozen of them. All hanging on old nail hooks on the barn walls. Luckily, Dad never got wind of this whole escapade or that would have been the end of it. "What the hells going on here?" would have been that epitaph. But Gin kept it secret. She had to as she too was a kid again! She also suggested doing the deed across the 322 intersection at the old schoolhouse called "The Richwood Academy." "You can set up and hide in the bushes by the flagpole and the stop sign is right there." Well "right there" was an open grass scurry of about 20 feet or so depending on how big the car was and how close they pulled up to the stop sign. We saw and we thought...And kept thinking.
No invasion of another nation's sandy beach compared with the keyed up daily anticipation stuck in our heads. October 30th 1968. D-day. Schoolwork suffered. Secrecy was absolute. We told nobody. Of course, early on Ray's older brother Gray got wind of the game and was welcomed in. Gray was a year or so older than us but he was 322's Alpha man. Gray had skills and never blanched from anything. He was the tough cookie. He led from the front and we confidently followed with no questions asked. When my little brother Chic wanted in I said no. But Gray, Chic's loyal protector from me, said yes. Overruled, I acquiesced. Chic was in.
October 30th, D-Day, came and we spent the afternoon after school surreptitiously stashing the can loops in the bushes at The Academy. We took care to hang them on broomsticks in the big Yew bushes so they wouldn't get tangled up yet kept them hidden from roadside view. Some we just laid out right at the edge of the bushes. Our balls were getting big but our brains were still getting the best of our fears. Were we really gonna do this? Will it really work? Will we get caught red handed? Will we get our asses beat by the south Jersey farm boy rednecks, scary hispanic knife toting farm workers, grizzled hard as nails WWII vets and all the other potential beast adults who would fly out of their cars and run us down like squawking chickens?
The clock ticked on. It was a Wednesday night. Mischief Night...
It started getting dark around 630. At 700 it was plenty dark enough for us all to meet at the stashed can loops. It was clear and somewhat cold too so windows would be up in the cars. Good for stealth support. We stared at each other, all dressed commando style in dark clothes and dark stretch caps. We laughed nervously and produced some aimless chatter. Shortly (and suddenly) "who's first?" questioned Gray. Sweaty palms. Cold necks. Butterflies flying. It was my Mother's idea and I had ramrodded it all pretty much and with ice in my gut I spoke up and said I would go first. Everybody nodded. Damn, no argument!
I watched the first car come up. I had one hand on the can group tight so they wouldn't rattle the other on the limp loop hanging between my thumb and index finger. I started to go and halfway there the car took off in a rush before I even got close. I ran back into the bushes thinking they saw me and that was why they shot away so fast. Damn, this isn't going to work! Gray said "You gotta start out before they get to the sign!" Right. Timing is everything in life. Next car was just idling up to the sign and I slipped out of the bushes just as the driver got past me and easily got to it just as it stopped.
Now anybody who knows this Richwood intersection knows that the last place you worry about looking is behind your car when you pull up to it. In 1968 there was no traffic light. Death is traveling this road waiting for you to pull out in front of it. The tractor trailer big rigs of the day used 322 as a major travel road. We called them the "Cannonballs" because of how they blasted down this road next to our house. Anything hit by them was losing that battle! Animals hit by them were frightful sites of guts, brains and popped out eyeballs. Needless to say, drivers never took their eyes off Route 322 as they pulled up to it and entered it.
So as I yanked my slipknot tight and faded back into the bushes the car just sat there. What? We sat, mesmerized by the inaction. He was waiting on a passing truck. Suddenly, the driver shot out into 322 to head towards Glassboro and the clanging, clacking, kabinging racket it left behind was like a 4th of July fireworks finale to us. We went nuts laughing like lunatics and listened intensely to the sound fading into the distance. Nobody laughed harder than I did because it really had come true! The butterflies disappeared and I was Gung Ho Ready To Go! "I'm next" announced Gray and the next car was hung in textbook fashion. Then Ray did one like he had done it all his life. We laughed harder! Chic wasn't looking ready but he was drinking it all in. Being 10 at the time he was the runt of us. Nobody pushed him.
So on it went for a good hour or so. Cars, hanging, clanging, laughing! We got so cocky we were walking up to the car and watching the driver's head. We ducked down at the last minute to hang the can loop on the bumper and then just skulked back to the bushes. We just couldn't believe it! Nobody ever stopped to check what was making all that racket out back of their car! Around an hour or so after we started a Glassboro Taxi (the 4th or 5th car we had hung came roaring down 322 towards Mullica Hill with the cans still tied to it! 15 minutes later it clanged past again (with only 2 cans) left heading for Glassboro! Crazy!
If we weren't having the time of our lives I don't know when we did! A 13, two 12s and a 10 year old were re-creating the Clancy kid's 1930s mischief all over again over 30 years later. Gins eldest brother Uncle Bud (killed in a Navy PBM crash in 1950) must surely have been smiling down from Eternity on us. I'm quite sure he was the original ramrod of the entire concept that Gin so thoroughly remembered. All Gin's stories of him defined Hell On Wheels. He could have been President. And a great one.
But there was another card about to get played.
We are getting down to the last of the cans when Chic pipes up and says "Can I do the next one?" "No, It's too dangerous" I suggested. "Yeah, you're next" said Gray, stepping into the leader shoes. Overruled again. Chic got his can loop ready for the next car...
The next car up is a late model Mustang Fastback with dual exhausts and the huge rear window. A young, long haired girl is sitting in the passenger seat turned a bit sideways focused on the cocky, young driver. I watch the car rumble up to the sign and stop. BC darts out and somehow bungles the first attempt to hang the loop as it's tangled. I watch him get the tangle out and start to hang it again just as the girls head darts around to catch the movement she has seen out of the corner of her eye. She snaps back, head bobbing and lips snapping as she informs the driver somebody is lurking at the rear of the car. Chic has yet to complete his task. But does so just before the next startling event...
Like a bomb going off the Mustang is floored and blue smoke immediately pours off the tires as the skilled driver whips the Mustang 180 degrees around in the middle of the 322 intersection. With the engine screaming like Stuka dive bomber Horns of Jehrico sirens the Devil roars back down Lambs Road with the cans clamoring along with the bellowing engine. The beast is now heading for the gravel parking lot around the old Academy.
We have to realize that at the first instant of the tire burning discovery all thoughts of and any loyalty to Chic and his future existence on this planet have vanished. All the feelings in us of exultation, conquest and celebration have vanished as well. They have been replaced with animal, adrenaline soaked FEAR. Fear at light speed is now coming into the Academy parking lot as Gray, Ray and I run for our lives. It is Every Man For Himself! At this moment I don't even know my own name let alone the condition of my 10 year old brother who's body parts for all I know are glued to the grinding rear tires of the Mustang. As we round the corner of the Academy the Mustang enters the lot and his lights flash on us as we run for the farmers fields. We are HAD. The only way out and escape into the orchards is through the electric fence that keeps the neighbor's horses on their property. Now we boys are old hands at dealing with electric fences as the expert trespassers that we are. The trick is to very carefully put one foot and leg between the bottom and the second of the three wires, then that same side arm with palm down and gracefully track the rest of your body through the opening. Easy. We rarely get a shock but even a little touch will make you yell quite loud. And dance in a warlike, unusual manner.
Animal fear has overcome any thoughts of fleeting pain as we all three pile through the 3 strands of fence like cattle stampeding and get juiced liberally with startling voltage by the thick, taut wires. UUHHHGGRAAGG!! GAADDDEENNNITT!! AAAHHARRRRGGG! and numerous other sounds explode from our lips. Charged up like fresh batteries now, we spring off the ground past the wires and our shoes throw dirt as we resume our Race From the Devil. The Mustang has seen our escape and, maybe thinking there are more of these little bastard, sons of bitches continues his power slide on the circular lot around the Academy. The sound of the cans is still faintly heard. We are well into the peach orchards when he completes the lap, gets out and screams out our birth details and Mother's prerogative nature and words I haven't heard before and what he will do to us when he gets hold of us. These new words have impact! I also learn powerful, wicked methods of their enunciation in these short seconds. He sounds like the devil incarnate. Luckily for us, he does not pursue us through the electric fence. Most sane people won't go through one. He is sane. We are not.
We run so far that we keep going until we get near Barnsboro Road. We have no idea the screaming devil is not hot on our heels. We think he is. Finally, we realize he is not. We stay in the orchards for a long time near the road to make sure he doesn't come looking for us there. We work our way slowly towards 322 in the orchard. I am drenched in sweat and exhausted. We wait a little while and then chance going up to the Barnsboro/322 intersection to make our way home. Nobody laughs. Nobody thinks of the fun. We are Titanic survivors. We are alive when surely we were about to die. We look at each other like "wow we made it!" We sure as hell won't do anything like that again! Or will we? Yeah, we will.
Oh God! I suddenly remember I have a 10 year old brother somewhere in New Jersey. I start running towards home and the 322 gang disbands for the evening. I get to the Academy and am relieved to see no ambulance, cops or human remains resembling the 322 road kill. Unknown to me, Chic ran right into the bushes after the bomb went off and when the Mustang roared past him down Lambs Road he wisely bolted for home. He is home, safe and already in bed.
I remember it is a school night. It is well after 10. I arrive home and sheepishly open the door to the sight of Gin painting at the easel. She does this almost every night into the wee hours. Before I can say anything she says "my, you're a mess! Sounds like you guys had a terrific time! And nobody got hurt. Wasn't that fun? Chic is in bed. What took you so long getting home?" I am unbelievably relieved. And somewhat speechless. "We hung around the Academy talking for a while" is about all I can say. Gin is caught up in the painting mode and as she daubs says "You need to get to bed. School tomorrow. Wash up before and brush your teeth. Tell me about it tomorrow."
I sure will.