The Rotten Apple Bicycle Gang

Autumn and the season of falling leaves is for many one of the favorite times of the year. When living in the tropics, the leaves of tropical plants fall daily - and sometimes more with hurricanes - but the magic of fall can reach all the way down the Florida peninsula when childhood nostalgia rises like a harvest moon.

After September claims the calendar on the rocky top of the Cumberland Plateau in east Tennessee, frost on the pumpkins is not far away, but before the leaves really start to change and the beauty of autumn truly begins, a particular Marco Beach Boy cannot ever forget the nostalgia of the Tennessee Indian summers and The Rotten Apple Bicycle Gang.

This was the season when all the kids of the neighborhood were reluctant to give up the crazy and probably dangerous days of summer. Today, the very idea of the following story will seem to some as outrageous, but this is a story of children playing outdoors when creative mischief might have been more fun than cell phones and the Internet.

Most stories begin with characters and opportunities, and this one is no exception. The characters of the day were the youngsters of a Tennessee mountain community. The children all lived along a road that twisted through rugged hills and the foothills of the Smoky Mountains. Behind an overhang of big trees and the twisting roadway, many of the children’s homes were perched above a rocky ravine where the crossing of a fast-moving creek was possible by either fallen log bridges or sandstone boulders that were the stepping-stones over the stream. The winding ravine and the rocky creek were a perpetual playground for all the kids, the neighborhood dogs, and the livestock near the barns that also ran along the road that was well above the creek bed.

The opportunities of the day were on either side of the community of houses. Stationed along the road away from the nearest city limits was Otto Ledford’s Fireworks. Otto’s stand was beside the road with enough of a gravel patch that about five cars could pull off the road at the same time and buy fireworks. Whenever a car or a group of kids on bicycles would pull up, Otto would come out of his house and open up the ancient trailer that was his side hustle apart from the sprawling dairy farm behind his house. Beneath the rusting “Ledford’s Fireworks” sign, Otto sold every type of exploding ordinance to everyone. It did not matter if you were a bicycle gang of kids wearing army surplus uniforms with rolled up sleeves and cut off pant legs, or a backwoods serial killer nutcase with cheap whiskey on his breath, Otto was ready to sell to anyone with cash. Fortunately, for the bicycle gang, cash was not a problem because most of the bicycle soldiers were clever with their allowances and the Coke bottles found on the roadside that were redeemable for five cents cash.

The other opportunity for The Rotten Apple Bicycle Gang of miniature soldiers was of almost equal distance to “Ledford’s Fireworks,” but in the opposite direction. Along this section of road and much closer to town was the Army-Navy Surplus store. Compared to “Ledford’s Fireworks,” this place was huge. Beneath the entrance that was always boasting “Clearance Sale” were the leftover relics of war that would always stagger the imagination of any member of the gang. This was where more of the allowance and bottle deposit money would go to buy the almost worn-out fatigues that were the uniform of the day and the old army ammunition belts that would hold as many Black Cat firecrackers as could be stuffed inside. Other popular items were the water canteens that fit on the ammo belts and the World War II gas masks that came in handy, and were very exciting, when someone might happen to slingshot one of Otto’s smoke bombs onto one side of the creek bed or the other.

This was the time in Tennessee when only three television channels were on the air, and every afternoon two of them were showing war movies. With all the input from TV, it is now easy to imagine how a group of neighborhood kids would ride to Otto’s for huge belts of firecrackers, and then down the road in the other direction to procure all the outfitting necessary to play war on opposing sides of the creek bed.

The parents of The Rotten Apple Bicycle Gang were not ignorant of the military maneuvers that were almost a daily occurrence during summer vacation. This became obvious when the father of one of the gang brought home a box of clear goggles from the local Ford Garage and explained that if he caught anyone playing with fireworks without wearing safety goggles, there would certainly be more to worry about than exploding firecrackers.

The very best time for war along the creek bed was on the Saturdays after school started. This was because it was rotten apple season. Behind most of the homes above the creek were apple trees or even an apple orchard. After apple cider and apple butter seasons were over, the remaining apples in the trees fell to the ground and began to rot. These rotten apples, however, were never wasted. During mid-September, all the rotten apples became cannon fodder for the most fun battle of the year.

For a firecracker to explode inside a rotten apple - and shower an enemy force with the dreaded stinky innards of rotten apple - the firecracker must have a covering of aluminum foil, otherwise, the rotten apple juice will stop any chance of an exploding rotten apple.

The battles of The Rotten Apple Bicycle Gang that ensued on the Saturdays after Labor Day were always epic. Coordinated efforts would send sizzling missiles of rotten apple–loaded fireworks in almost every direction until all the members of the rotten apple bicycle gang were exhausted and the parents began to ring the five o’clock bells on the back of the houses that was the signal to come home and get cleaned up for supper.