School House Battle: Taking great measures to thwart detection
Who would think an entire column could be written about the virtue of spit wads? I do—so here I go.
In mid-March of 1974, a group of us nine-year-old boys at the Inlet School made spit wad shooters so we could engage in silent spit wad battles.
Eddie Owhieler was credited with getting the wars in full swing. He had quite the knack for introducing us all to counter-productive activities.
All it took was for one well-aimed bit of wet paper to set the rest of us off in the name of defense.
Keeping the battles a secret from our teacher, Mrs. deCamp, was of the utmost importance.
Surely if we were caught it would mean detention and the loss of recess, so we took great measures to hide any evidence of our war games from her view.For example, the segment of a straw I used as my weapon of choice was taped securely under my desk top.
I cut it to just the right length to be hidden in my cupped hand.
My ammunition was torn from some scrap notebook paper, chewed, and at the ready when needed.
The paper tasted pretty bad, but it couldn’t compare to the horrible taste of the paper of those ditto sheets that our quiz and homework assignments were printed on.
The smell of the blue ink alone was enough to make me gag. And on top of it, I could not make a spit wad from it if I tried.
One day during lunch we all made a pact that we would engage in a continual spit wad battle.
The winner would be the student who thwarted detention despite the blatant nature of the fight.
Our silent war went on for a few days before Mrs. deCamp outlawed straws in the classroom due to their potential use as spit wad shooters.
With our pact still in force, we began upgrading our technology. Instead of paper, I started using balled up bits of masking tape as projectiles.
As I discovered, they increased the pain factor when a well-placed shot hit the back of the neck of an unsuspecting victim.
I also found it more convenient to use the barrel of a Bic pen as a shooter when the tiny balls of tape kept getting stuck on the sides of a flimsy straw.
I can only imagine what Mrs. deCamp must have thought when she turned from the blackboard to see my beet-red cheeks after using all my breath to dislodge a tape ball.
When it was time for recess we slipped our weapons and ammo in our pockets and moved our war games outdoors.
I won’t give the names of those who got caught and punished with detention, or who had to clean up the spent rounds spattered on the wall near our SRA reading area.
But I will say that our spit wad shooting pact ranks pretty high on my list of elementary school escapades, growing up Adirondack.
Mitch Lee, Adirondack native & storyteller, lives at Big Moose Lake.ltmitch3rdny@aol.com
