The Battle Of 3rd Street

Fort: A fortified building or strategic position

Snow Fort: An open-topped temporary structure made of snow walls that is usually used for recreational purposes. Snow forts are usually built by children as a playground game or winter pastime and are used as defensive structures in snowball fights.

A Typical Snow Fort

In the early spring of 1976, we moved from the Farley Place to a house on the south side of 3rd Street in West Plains. During that summer, Dad sold that house and bought the house across the street. So... we just picked up everything and carried it across the street to our new home!

We passed on into autumn and then winter. The winter of 76-77 will be long remembered by all of the school kids in Howell County. We came back to school from Christmas break and "The Blizzard Of 77" hit the Ozarks!

The snow accumulated to about twelve to sixteen inches and then it started snowing-sleeting-raining which piled another three to four inches on top of the snow! And then... It got cold. Not your average "cold for a day or two then warm up" kind of cold. It was bitter, blue cold that lingered for weeks. As a matter of fact, we broke the cold record with a sixteen degrees below zero reading!

During this time off school, my brother Ralph, the neighbor boy, Bobby and myself, helped Dad in his "Moving and Storage" business. When we weren't working, we shoveled driveways and sidewalks for "walking around money", went sledding on the various streets and alleys on the west side of town... and built snow forts.

There is just something about snow that brings out the artist and architect in all of us. Whether it's a snowman or a snow fort, we have a wonderful image in our mind of how the finished creation will look. It usually falls way south of the picture in our mind.

Our snow fort was in the front yard, as close to the street as we could get it. 3rd Street, at this time, had no curb or guttering and our yard was separated from the street by a ditch. The yard was a little lower than street level so the "enemy" in the street had somewhat of an advantage of being on high ground to fire into our fort.

There were a few skirmishes with neighbor kids from 2nd Street but they usually turned tail and ran. I will admit that a few "armored" vehicles that wandered down our dead-end street were fired upon from "Fort Riggs"... However, no permanent damage was done except we learned a few new cuss words!

One day, it was as if the "gods of war" dropped the perfect situation right into our laps.

The snowplow never came down our street. It was a residential, Dead-End" street and was not on anyone's high priority list. They did, however, occasionally spread gravel and salt on the packed snow. Even then, we didn't rate a truck with a mechanical "spreader" on the back. Nope... we had "Frank and Ernest" in the back of a little dump truck, with shovels, spreading the gravel and salt mix by hand.

Of course, the dump truck had to move very slowly to allow Frank & Ernest (F&E) to shovel and not lose their balance. A sloooow moving target... Just what we needed!

We plastered them! We were scooping up snow, making snowballs and throwing them like a machine gun. Well... maybe not that fast but F&E were taking a lot of incoming fire! They were dodging and ducking and trying to shovel all at the same time. We left the snow fort and ran down the yard, firing until they were out of range.

We pulled back to the fort and counted coup on the enemy... While "Coup Counting", we suddenly realized that the "Battle Of 3rd Street" was not over...

As I said, 3rd Street was a dead-end street. The dump truck with F&E in the back went down the street to the west... They would have to turn around and come BACK the way they went... Right past our snow fort!

We immediately went into a snowball making frenzy! We piled up mounds of snowballs behind our snow fort! We worked on resupply of munitions until we heard the dump truck coming back. And then we hunkered down behind the bulwarks of our snow fort and waited....

We were peeking over the top of our fort wall when the dump truck topped the hill by the Camden's house. It came slowly down the little grade past the Charles' house... And then it was almost in front of our house!

We jumped up with snowballs in hand, ready to massacre F&E!.... But F&E were not in the back of the dump truck. We quickly checked out the cab... They weren't there either. We just stood there, behind our snow fort, dumbfounded. Our battle plan had gone awry...

Did I just say F&E were not in the back of the dump truck? I need to rephrase that. We THOUGHT they weren't in the back of the dump truck!

When the dump truck was directly in front of our snow fort, it came to a sudden (and ominous) stop. Then Frank and Ernest stood up in the back of the truck... with snowballs in hand... We had wondered why it took them so long to turn around at the end of the street...

OH GLORY BE! They let us have it! They CLOBBERED us! Frank and Ernest were throwing snowballs so hard and fast that we didn't have a chance. F&E were men... Tough, laboring men with working men's muscles... Not really a match for some young teenagers!

So... we did what any sensible person would do in this situation. We abandoned the fort and performed an orderly retreat, firing as we withdrew... Actually, we turned and ran like scared squirrels!

To their credit, F&E didn't get out of the back of the truck and pursue us. It would have been a massacre if they had. They drove off, standing proud in the bed of an old dump truck, Victors of "The Battle Of 3rd Street!"