Desperately Seeking the Neutral Zone

Desperately Seeking the Neutral Zone



Walking to school in the Niagara Peninsula was like living in the garden of Eden without the serpents and all the related drama. Life was relatively care free.  In the 1950’s our family home on 501 North Vine St was still in the suburbs. On my walk to school my friends and I walked passed a variety of orchards and vine yards literally ripe for the picking.

Depending on the season we had a selection or Bartlett pears, peaches, plums, cherries, apples and an abundance of grapes. On our daily trek to Prince Phillip Public School, less than half a km away from the balmy shores of Lake Ontario, my colleagues and I sampled all of the seasonal fruits, especially those closest to the sidewalk.  As the selection grew sparser and times were leaner we were forced to seek nourishment further inland, like modern day hunter gatherers seeking sustenance on the African savannah we wondered at will well within the boundaries of the farmers’ properties, plucking and eating nature's bounty.

The farmers’ who owned these same fields, orchards and vineyards did not share our childhood views on communal bounty and tended more towards the tide of private ownership.  Therefore, we would arrive at school often sweaty and out of breath after yet another high action chase scene having been pursued by this disgruntled farmer or that who had different ethical views on land ownership and its bounty than did we.

Our teachers however, seeing our child-like energy were pleased we were out enjoying the outdoors and exercising while our parents were constantly dumbfounded as to our lack of appetites.  None, the less we were happy kids and proud that we could out run most any farmer.  The trick of course to a speedy escape through a vineyard is pure technique of drop and roll.

If you have every been to a Jackson-Triggs concert, or toured any vineyard, as an adult, you realize that the vines grow in long parallel rows bound to wires on poles like miniature hydro lines. Today, as an adult standing in a vineyard I wonder how I ever made good my numerous escapes, but as a wiry kid of diminutive stature I was able to, at a run, leap through a row of vines, finding the gaps in an instant, as if by instinct, land in a roll, maintain most of my momentum, get up, only to leap through the next row, and so on until reaching a sidewalk or neutral zone. Where one could easily assimilate into the madding crowd of students going to or from school and voila the deed was done.

Other than a little dirt on the knees, minor tears to clothing, the odd superficial cut, a few bruises and minor surface injuries and abrasions no worthy triage nurse would even take note.  Certainly none of our teachers or parents ever found out.

I only mention our escape prowess because sadly our behaviour eventually and inevitably escalated.  We went from sharing the farmers‘ fruit bounty to making lethal alley guns from pipes and shooting marbles at passing cars.  I know, you say a natural progression from fruit to projectiles and “boys will be boys”, but I still feel a certain level of accountability and pure guilt as a I recount these stories as a grandfather.  In my defence I can only add we were typically stupid kids.

The art of making a proper marble gun is getting the right diameter of pipe, such that it holds the marble, but not too tightly.  Using a hammer one must flatten one end of the pipe leaving a gap wide enough to allow the wick of a standard sized fire cracker to fit through.  Loading is like loading a traditional musket without the wadding.  Place the fire cracker in the tube, (a longer tube makes for a more accurate shot), such that the wick sticks through then gently place a marble into the pipe so it is snug against the fire cracker. All that is left is to light the wick, aim and shoot.

Fun fact. Did you know a glass marble of this calibre can leave a walnut sized dent in the side of a typical family automobile door. Remarkably the crater created upon impact with the car door is approximately 5 times larger than the marble itself.

We expressed our discoveries with this formula: E= M C where E = the energy of the fire cracker, M= the mass of the marble and C is the diameter of the crater on the car door.  We often wondered what would happen to the car, and possibly the driver, if we could take C and square its value.  The possibilities, we postulated, were endless, but we weren’t scientists.

Back to the main plot line.

A group of us, including Kurt, Walter and my brother each armed with an alley gun would hide in the grape vines parallel to Vine Street (Street named changed) ready to track our potential targets.  We discovered it was important depending, on our distance from the car, wind conditions, coriolis effect and barometric pressure, it was valuable to have a spotter, like most self respecting professional snipers.  Typically, Kurt would count out the distances, do the necessary calculations and announce the type of vehicle, so we could adjust the angle of fire and gauge the necessary lead time to impact.

Kurt also had the lighter. He would go down the row, where we lay like soldiers in a trench, and light all ally guns at almost the same time.  In this way there would be, depending on the length of the wicks, three explosions and shots in sequence with the calculated odds that at least one marble would hit the car.

Often we missed.  I’m sure drivers literally never knew what hit them and were totally puzzled upon finding hail stone sized craters on the side of their car.

My adrenaline has never run so fast and furious as when an irate driver of a dirty white Ford Falcon slammed on his breaks and ran for the vineyards.  My God the chase was on.  We carried our guns, not wanting to leave evidence, holding them close to our chest as we did the sequential drop and roll through the vineyard.  Hoping against hope that we would make the sidewalk on the other side before this mad man reached us first.

What was his problem.  He was fast. He was dedicated and he was gaining.

I dropped my ally gun.  I was scared.  I could see, or at least sense the sidewalk approaching, but it was still too far.  I could almost feel the hot angry breath of my pursuer.

The other shooters had spread at different speeds and we were all in different rows at different times.  This man was a maniac.  I was going to die.  On my next leap I hit a low slung wire and cut my neck.  I rose on wobbly legs and to my relief I was one row from the sidewalk, other people and the neutral residential zone.

As I reached the sidewalk I saw my brother head in one direction; so, as previous agreed, I took the other.  We knew to spread out and blend in, camouflage was the game plan.

I looked back just as the this crazy-man emerged from the last row of vine yards.  He was tall, dirty and angry.  He scanned the horizon, east and west, seeking his quarry, screaming "Where are you little bastard!"... to his disappointment he would have to hunt another day... and so did we.