UP THERE WITH OTHER SPORTING FEUDS like Giants versus Dodgers, Red Sox versus Yankees, and Ali versus Frazier, was the annual Ridgway versus Johnsonburg varsity football game when I was in Pennsylvania high school, a far different place and time.

The Ridgway-’Burg Game was historically the final game of the season, and the competitive loyal townies on both sides were at the peak of fan frenzy as the season came to an end. Johnsonburg was a smaller town, less advantaged, but they would stomp us on the playfield.

We couldn’t wait for the game to start up the rivalry. We liked to goad each other for weeks leading up to the game. Johnsonburg Ram fans would decorate a pickup in blue and gold school colors, fill the bed with pretty girls and tough guys, and then drive the eight miles south to Ridgway and cruise Main Street waving pennants and honking the horn. “Rams rule!” We’d don our maroon and white and join the fight. “On to Johnsonburg!”

In the final week, the annual egg wars began. Hundreds of chickens laid down their eggs for the cause. After sundown guys in both towns would pack into waxed cars wearing protective jackets and hats, their seats covered in old blankets, carrying a case of eggs in the back seat and drive to the neighboring town to engage the enemy. Cars would stop. Flingers would jump out and pelt the daylights out of any group of kids they found on the street, most of whom had eggs with them and fought back. It was like paintball meets food fight. The local police were always present, often on foot, but no arrests were ever made. Cops were fans, too, and acted more like referees.

My senior year momentum leading to the game was intense. The Elkers were undefeated. We had only Johnsonburg to conquer to close a perfect graduating season. Chuck Zameroski, a fellow senior, and I began planning our egg war strategies a month in advance. We did so while scoping our new vantage point. My mother had moved closer to downtown and now my second-story bedroom window led out to the expansive roof of a Main Street car dealership facing the road to Johnsonburg. “This is going to be perfect,” I said hiding behind a convenient 3-foot front façade. “We can throw down, but they can’t throw up unless they get out. Then we really nail them.”

What else was cool about my new home, besides being above a bowling alley and I owned my own ball, and above a teenage dance hall with live music called The Daisy and I was a teenager, is that our second-story apartment was also directly across from the carnival and circus lot and I worked for both seasonally, controlling the kiddie rides and raising the big top with elephants. Directly across the street was also our town’s only car wash.

“If ’Burg guys stop here to wash their cars,” said Chuck, “we could hit them again when they pull out.”

“Really, Chuck? A ’Burg guy is going to wash his car in Ridgway?”

Next we drove out to Mr. Johnson’s chicken farm and bought five flats of rejected eggs. We carried four flats into Chuck’s backyard to sit in the sun for a week and ripen. Eager to fling eggs right away, we dressed in padded jackets and carried the last flat to an abandoned tannery factory along the river with seven connected buildings. We split the eggs, went to opposite ends of the largest building, and took turns throwing them at each other. The trick was the eggs had to hit us. We had to dive in front of them. We were conditioning ourselves to the impact.

My grandmother used to get Surplus Food from the government dropoff every month. She had giant tins of mustard. Chuck and I got a great idea: mustard balloons. “Oh, yeah. They’ll think they were hit with fifty eggs.”

“You think we should?” asked Chuck. “It’s supposed to be eggs.”

“You were in Bimbo’s car last year. A kid hit us with a watermelon, and someone threw a Coke bottle. The mark is still in the door.” So we made mustard and ketchup balloons. We checked on our rank eggs and they were.

Our master plan required a hero. We all picked Ward Miller. Ward is big, will act on a dare, and everyone knows him. Instead of standing in a pack flying school colors to draw in a carload of Rams fans, we had an improved strategy. Ward would stand alone at the corner next to the Quaker State gas station dressed bravely in maroon and white, visibly clutching an egg in each hand and looking for trouble. I would hide a few feet away crouched inside a Winston sandwich board. Two guys were behind the pumps, and one guy was across the street behind the bank shrubbery. Three other guys were two blocks away toward Johnsonburg sitting on the car dealer’s roof. We would first ambush a carload of ’Burg fans, then in their getaway they’d be hit again from above.

Around 9 p.m. on Friday a car load of Johnsonburg kids tried to sneak into town via the road from St. Marys and we spotted them turning at St. Leo’s Church. They drove up to the red light and stopped, windows up. Ward went into his taunt. He brandished his eggs and said, “Come on, suckers. You want to take me on? I’m ready for you.”

Oh, gee, I’m out of time. I’ll finish it next week.

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

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