“COME ON, SUCKERS. I’ll take you all on,” said Ward Miller, Ridgway High senior, class of 1971, dressed in Elker maroon and white, standing at the intersection of Main and Broad Street next to Quaker State Gas, an egg clutched in each hand with more in his coat pockets.

The Johnsonburg kids just stared and blinked at him from their 1962 Impala with their windows up while they waited at the red light, about to embark on a massacre down Main Street flinging eggs at any Ridgway teenager they saw.

They didn’t know what to make of Ward. They couldn’t hear him. Music was likely playing inside the car. They just stared blankly at him, windows up. So Ward flung an egg at the driver’s side window. It splatted and spread out like a yellow jellyfish.

That did it. Their windows came down on the driver side, and on the other side, guys jumped out of the car and they all pelted Ward. I could hear the wap, wap, wap of smashing eggs from behind the Winston cigarette sandwich board sign ten feet away. Ward was covering his head with his back to them. I jumped out as did Chuck Zameroski and someone else from behind the pumps. We had the specially aged eggs that Chuck had set out in the sun for two weeks. They carried extra stink. We made sure as many as possible burst forth inside the vehicle. We got quite a few in there.

One of our guys was hiding behind a juniper across the street in front of the bank. He stepped out and we had the Ram fans in a crossfire. Oh, lordy, those eggs were rank.

The traffic light turned green. They jumped back in and cranked up their windows. Instead of going down Main, they took a right turn toward the safety of Johnsonburg, just as we had planned.

We had two guys sitting on Bobby Dahlquist’s car dealership roof two blocks away. They got to the roof by climbing out of my second-story bedroom window that was positioned right in the middle of a giant advertisement painted on the side of my building that read S.K. Tate Furs & Fashion Land.

They emerged between Furs and Fashion and simply stepped out to the best vantage point in town for chucking eggs at Johnsonburg kids, except they didn’t just have eggs. They had ketchup and mustard balloons that we filled by stuffing a garden hose with condiments and blowing into it.

They had to be quick and precise. We talked earlier about leading their aim to hit a speeding vehicle. However, they didn’t have to lead.

Not having walkie talkies, we had to yell from the street corner, “Here they come! Here they come!” as we ran down North Broad toward Clarence and Myrtle’s Mobile Gas Station waving our arms. The car was easy to spot. It was blue under splotches of yellow.

Then the best thing possible happened. Our plan worked better than expected. The egg stink was so bad inside their car that the boys serpentined down the street afraid to roll down their windows. Finally, they couldn’t take the stench any longer and pulled over at the wide lot in front of the car wash. It so happened, the car wash was directly across the street from me and Bobby D. Our guys stood atop the three-foot façade and rained down havoc. They splattered several mustard and ketchup bombs on the car roof, and because the Ram fans were standing outside the car, they got splattered chests and backs.

Behind them came the rising stampede of our feet. We were gaining on them and hurling Hail Marys. They dove back into their car and disappeared down the road. Victory was ours.

They next morning we excitedly ran to Bimbo’s house to tell him the great news, that after a whole year, we finally got revenge for his car being bashed with a Johnsonburg watermelon and a Coke bottle. Our excitement was quelled, however, by Bimbo’s almost indifference. He was a year out of high school, working in a factory. He’d put all those childish high school pranks behind him. He was a working man with other interests. He thanked us, but he didn’t jump up and down.

That night Ridgway Elker football players were victorious against the Rams and I graduated with an undefeated football team. By the way, there was no townie hanky panky at the game. School grounds were sacred. Everyone wanted a fair and focused game.

I go back to my hometown frequently. Times have surely changed. Because of the shrinking of small-town America and pilfered public funds for education, an ironic and justly fitting arrangement has been made. Johnsonburg today doesn’t have enough students to support a football team and they negotiated a deal in 2013 with Ridgway to merge the two rival teams. Elkers and Rams became one. These fierce ’Burg players were a welcome addition to the home team, and now we win together. The yolk is on everybody.

Steve Gibbs teaches at Benicia High School and has written a column for The Herald since 1985.

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