The Celery Patch Wars

When I was a kid, everybody belonged to a neighborhood gang. There were seldom any meetings. In fact, the gang never formed unless there was an emergency. That occurred when neighborhoods clashed. In our case, war was declared annually.

Great preparations were made. We made arrows from celery stocks and puts nails in the end for weight. The nail was pushed into the end of the stock leaving a blunt end. Much research was done to turn the nail around into a more lethal weapon but no design was completely successful.

For spears, we used heavier stocks.

Tomahawks were made from the base of extra thick stocks by cutting them at about the 16 inch level and then pulling them out with the root clod intact. Sometimes rocks were collected to be used as hand grenades.

Sometimes the battles drifted into our neighborhood but they always ended up at the Celery Patch, a six acre patch which included dried up irrigation ditches perfect for trenches.

Special preparations were made before the battle. Huge tumbleweed forts were built and the weaponry was stored there.

Things happened early on the day of battle. Our gang was always in place early in the morning on the first day of battle and spies were sent out to find the Halford gang which always fought with the members of the Buck gang.

War started when the Halford / Buck gang finally got out of bed and assmbled. We were always outgunned and outnumbered but our valor made up for any battlefield shortages.

The war always ended the same way. We torched the forts and caused great panic to the neighbors. Out would come the garden hoses and wet gunny sacks to fight the fire.

By the time the fire department and the police arrived we would be throwing house bricks at each other. The firemen would put out the fire and the police would send us packing for home.

I wrote this poem some year back which describes the situation:

Celery Patch War by Taylor Jones

Friday, May 7, 1999

The celery patch was a remnant of the past,
A six acre plot of tumbleweeds and tall grass.
But the wild celery stems, as tall as a horse,
Made great spears and arrows for war.

In the tip of the arrow, we placed a nail
To give it the weight to make it sail.
We made spears with the thicker celery trunks,
And tomahawks too, that gave a good thunk.

Planning for the annual celery patch war,
Took a great deal of effort;
To make arrows, spears, and tomahawks,
Plus for each army, a tumbleweed fort.

There was our army, unnamed,
The other the Halford / Buck Gang, ill-famed.
The war might go on for several days;
We would all gain our fame or go down in flames.

The battle started early on a fine summer morn;
I spied for our team, the Halfords to find.
I crept though the yards that were adjacent the patch;
I looked for the enemy--they were all still in bed.

The war began with spears and flying arrows,
There was screaming and yelling from arrow-stung fellows.
I charged with my tomahawk, took a spear in the chest
From too big a boy sho knocked out my breath.

The tumbleweed forts were something to see;
They were as high as a house, much higher than me.
We shot flaming arrows high into the air,
The enemy fort was in flames, their soldiers did flee.

Our fort was no safer, they burned it to the ground;
Not one single tumbleweed could still be found.
Then the patch took fire from the dry irrigation ditch,
The people stormed from their houses with wet gunnysacks swished.

An old lady said, "You'll burn my house down!"
But we had switched to throwing bricks we found on the ground.
The fire trucks came along with the police,
That was the end of the day--ruined our war piece.

Most of those soldiers too soon left for real war
Leaving us smaller kids looking for more.
But that was the last of the big celery patch fights
Where we dug in and fought with all of our might.

The End

by John T. Jones, Ph.D.