Michigan is getting hammered by snow today and the weather reports reminded me of the snowball throwing in my youth. When you’re kid, and there’s snow, you’re making snowballs. You have to.
The kids in the neighborhood had snowball fights all of the time. We made snow forts in our backyards and went to “war”. When the neighbors tossed aside their Christmas trees we used them to reinforce our snow structures. We chose up sides like we were getting ready for a baseball game and had a blast.
When households started installing clothes dryers in basements, we held our snow balls in the dryer vent exhaust to make “stink bombs” . The bombs didn’t really “stink” but the dryer vents provided just enough heat to make great packing snow. A stale “stink bomb” easily became an “ice ball”. “Ice balls” hurt like he##.
While throwing snowballs was generally intended to be “just fun” there was one winter afternoon that throwing them landed me and a couple of friends in jail. I don’t remember who, I just remember what. (My best guess is Bill and Mitch, but that’s just a guess.)
My family lived on North Edgeworth, two blocks off of 11 Mile Road. 11 Mile ran east and west and was the main run into downtown Royal Oak. One boring winter’s day, a couple of friends and I decided to throw snowballs at buses as they made their runs up and down 11 Mile. We didn’t throw at cars as we knew others did, because cars could “turn around”. We didn’t want to get run down by an irate driver, so we threw at buses instead. Buses had runs. Runs required a schedule. Schedules required timing. It was the perfect storm. Buses couldn’t stop because they had to be somewhere “on schedule”. (Besides they were too big to turn around even if they wanted to.)
Throwing a snowball at a bus and hitting a bus were two different things. We threw often, but seldom hit our target. We were eleven or twelve and just having fun.
We threw only at the buses that were running east, away from town. That required a toss across the street to the far side of 11 Mile. Our plan was perfect except for one thing. Buses ran west too – towards Royal Oak.
As we stood on the north side of 11 Mile, throwing at buses running east, a west bound bus stopped right in front of us, opened it’s door, and the driver yelled, “Get in”. And we did. In hind sight, we could have run. We probably should have run. But we didn’t because we were too scared. We got on the bus and rode into town.
Back in the late 50’s the bus depot and the police station were a block or two away from each other. That’s where we ended up. In the police station. It’s not my proudest moment, but it happened. The police officer that spoke to us didn’t book us, or finger print us, but he made sure that we knew that what we had done was serious business. He spoke of the potential for causing a traffic accident with our snowball throwing. We were “endangering the public”. We hadn’t considered that. We were just bored and trying to have a good time.
After our talk, he put us on an east bound bus and we were returned to the corner of Edgeworth and 11 Mile. I don’t know if the policeman called our parents or not. I expect not, because I’m alive to tell the tale. I never threw another snowball at another bus. A few minutes in the slammer will cure you of that desire. (Even if you’re bored.)
reminds me of the time we put a 6 pack of beer in a mailbox just to get rid of it..that didn’t work out too well either
You three were living on the edge! That was some story with a lasting impression (at least for one of the three). I would blame Bill for the idea. But, on the other hand, you were able to go into Royal Oak and home on a bus for free. Once on the way to Catechism, we were all throwing snowballs and Fr. O’Sullivan took me aside to tell me it wasn’t ‘lady-like’ to throw snowballs. How was I supposed to fend off a barrage of snowballs? One other memory I have is at Lincoln School the boys would use the long scarves the girls wore, to tie us to the monkey bars or swings, the throw snowballs at a stationery target.