The Boys of Summer

From its earliest days, Montgomery has always been about the river. 

The most famous landmark was the mill, with the covered bridge running a close second. For anyone who grew up here, the river played a leading role in childhood memories.  

Seventy years ago, there were no electronic games—in fact, there were more than few homes without electricity. A home built in the early 1900s might have had a single electric outlet in each room. Electronic devices developed slowly.

Fifty years later television was still a novelty. Children seldom spent daylight hours indoors. Instead of video games, the river was their playground of choice.

The riverbed of the Fox was once covered with clams. Searching for clams and uncovering an occasional pearl was just another childhood activity. Once in a while a large valuable pearl would be discovered. Soon the button makers learned of the large supply of clam shells and another industry was built.

In the winter, boys and girls alike would ice skate on the river, or cross the tracks and skate on a nearby small lake. Along the riverbank, young boys would fish, trap, catch turtles, build rafts, and wade out to one of the tree-covered islands to explore.

There they would climb the trees and crawl on a limb over the water. The more daring of them would tie a rope to the branch and swing out over the water and jump. Who needed summer camp with such a riches of unsupervised activities right in their own back yard? 

Childhood friendships were formed early and continued over a lifetime. The simple pastimes of these children during the carefree days of summer had a greater influence on them than most people would expect.

The boys who grew up on South River Street in Montgomery were an especially bright and mischievous bunch. They literally “played with dynamite,” managing to set off a shattering explosion at the Oswego dump. Apparently they were able to escape punishment because there was no harm done but that was probably due more to luck than skill.

Tales are told of rigging up a front doorbell so that a person ringing the bell while standing on the doormat would receive a shock. They set somebody up to ring the doorbell, only to watch him jump back and holler when he touched it.

Maybe this is where the custom of calling out your friend’s name instead of going to the door started? In those days children didn’t go to the front door. Instead, they went around to the side door, or the back, and called.

A member of this same gang took great delight in rerouting a convoy of motorcycles passing through town.

Bill Schade recalled: “Motorcycle clubs would route their road rallies through Montgomery. The advance man would tack cardboard arrows to telephone poles to indicate the direction of the route. As a boy, I would follow him and reroute the rally south on River Street, to a dirt road that led east into the river—yes, some of them tried to cross the river–and I never got caught.”

I was told that one of these boys moved from home and left behind the cache of dynamite he had stored in the basement. It sat there undiscovered until his elderly parents were selling the house. They had to call someone to remove it.

Nobody would admit to being responsible for this carelessness, so I could never verify the story.

Traditional pranks like tipping over outhouses were an every-Halloween occurrence. Sometimes the breadbox that sat on the porch at Beyer’s store would appear on the roof the next morning.

The mail wagon that sat outside the post office would be pulled into the river, and something strange, such as a toilet seat, would appear on the flagpole at Montgomery School.

I don’t know who invented “Cabbage Night,” but it came to be a Montgomery tradition. It was the week before Halloween, if my memory is correct. It was the night to run wild and strip the gardens of any rotting produce. 

Most homeowners knew it was coming and would clean out the gardens ahead of time but woe unto those who did not get the job finished in time. The sidewalks and streets would be a slippery mess in the morning.

If there was more to the story of Cabbage Night, I don’t remember it. I remember being cautioned not to get carried away and damage anything. I just experienced it once and it was exciting being with the ‘big kids’ and getting geared up for Halloween.

One patron of the Mill Tavern, who was known for being over-served now and then, came out of the tavern one night and found his car missing. Thinking he had forgotten where he parked it, he wandered around until he found it; where some of the older boys had pushed it around the corner and into the weeds. They hid among the nearby trees and watched the confused man retrieve his car.

All of this mischief was good training for Jim Phillips, a.k.a. "The Fox," known for waging a battle against those he saw as damaging the Fox River.

He was one of the "dynamite" boys. He said that at one time it was possible to buy dynamite from an ad in the back of a magazine. It seems plausible in the days when the Sears catalog carried supplies that farmer’s would need to blow up stumps and so forth. 

After he outgrew his "prank" stage, he was well prepared to carry out his crusade against the polluting factories without getting caught. His crusade closely resembled these childhood pranks. He owed much of his success to "the boys of summer," their love of the river, and their collective creativity.

Richard Gove, who grew up in the Clinton Street Cottage, wrote this about his summers: 

“Summertime in that little house was special—special because from that little house a world of adventure awaited.  The river was a stone’s throw away, the railroad tracks (a parent’s absolute "no-no") a mere two blocks away, the ball field at Montgomery School four blocks away, two blocks from Michael's Store (the undisputed mother lode for candy), and a gazillion other exciting possibilities well within pedaling distance.

"All one needed was a little imagination, a little mischievousness, a little bravery and a Monarch fat-tire bicycle. 

"Adventure was no problem. The river provided fishing, or hunting for the reputed caves on the shoreline (none of which I ever found), entering the old deserted mill from the riverside, or looking for treasures behind the old bottling company that sat on the ‘crick’ (not creek) leading to the river.

"I have a 4-inch scar on the bottom of my right foot received when jumping from a rock into the Fox River (another forbidden activity) and landing on a broken beer bottle. You would think that taught us to beware. Don’t bet on it – we were persistent; Tommy Nichols did the very same thing at the very same spot the next summer – probably on the very same bottle.”  

You can read the rest of Richard Gove’s story on the village of Montgomery website. He paints a wonderful picture of smalltown life.