Rites of Passage, Iowa to L.A. : When Did Teen-Age Pranks Turn to Killing?

The bright purple, hand-painted Model A Ford was nothing but a slowly moving dark shadow in the full moonlight. Lights out, transmission growling and four cylinders laboring, it jolted the five teen-age boys unmercifully as it crept from one solid clay rut to another over the sun-baked dirt road.

The four passengers giggled and cursed in whispers at the car and the driver until he turned into a field lane, backed up, headed the car in the other direction and stopped in the middle of the road. They all piled out, still giggling and cursing in good humor, and climbed up the embankment to the four strands of barbed wire that claimed the object of their quest: the property of a local farmer. They carefully crawled through the wire and, making certain they weren’t trampling the vines, thumped their way toward a ripe, delicious, illicit feast. They heard the distinctive whine of a bullet just before it ricocheted off the metal windmill silhouetted in the middle of the field. Two more bullets pinged as the five boys sped at a dead run for the barbed barrier and the prayed-for safety of the road beyond.

The engine complained to life and the transmission howled to the moonlit world as they departed with much less caution than they had employed on their arrival. In the back, the “town boys” shared handkerchiefs as they swabbed the blood oozing from cuts inflicted by the four strands of discouragement. The two “farm boys” in front needed no such nursing and soon began to giggle anew as the fear of a rifle-inflicted death faded in the distance behind them. Soon all five were laughing heartily as they headed for town where, over Cokes, they celebrated and embroidered the story of surviving their latest exploit.

It was Watermelon Night.

A test of courage. A test of skill. A rite of passage from summer and field work to fall and school work, and a rite of passage from boyhood to teenhood as well.

The leaders were usually sophomores and old hands at this event. The followers were freshmen, eager for initiation. The event had its long-established rules: The knights errant must respect the property, the value of the vines and the farmer’s livestock. The farmer must defend his property without endangering the boys’ lives.

And so it went, each late summer and early fall until the first killing frost sent the boys on to apples and cider.

But this night, the rules had been broken. Not by the boys. The vines were intact, no livestock had been bothered. Only seven perfectly ripe watermelons, separated from still-productive vines and left behind in the haste of retreat, were evidence of their raid. The farmer was the one in error. He had used a rifle, and in that land of guns and hunting, the lethal quality of a ricocheting bullet was well known and properly feared.

No need for the boys’ parents to broach the subject. This farmer’s neighbors casually dropped by the next day to inspect the evidence and examine the damage--if any. And, in a style similar in message, but individual in manner, they all expressed their dislike of a rifle as a weapon for defending watermelons.

While a rifle ricochet could seriously wound and easily kill, the shot from a shotgun won’t have that same effect, if fired from a respectful distance. Of course, buckshot will penetrate Levis and make long hours in classrooms pretty painful for a day or two--unless it’s pried out with the blade of a pocket knife. Should the shell contain rock salt and not shot, the nose will sting and the tears will rise, no matter how you try to hold it back. But that’s the down side of being a country boy cavalier, and it was all part of the rules.

One recent night, as the Santa Anas brought a sensory memory of summer into the yard, I wandered outside to ponder what I’d just read in the day’s paper, more reports of the teen-age gang wars in Los Angeles. The moon and stars were clear and lit small reflections in the pool, and something in the nose reminded me of that night and the relief I felt that I was the sophomore behind the wheel of the Model A and wouldn’t have to go through Watermelon Night again.

There were no gangs then. Our ritual was just a teen-age boy’s duty. Some peers made the mistake of stealing chickens or destroying outbuildings, and the consequences they suffered were in proportion, but done by the rules; there was no cause for retribution, tears or quarantine.

I couldn’t help but wonder what had gone awry in South-Central Los Angeles and other parts of this seemingly progressive and productive corner of God’s country. Of course, there’s a vast difference between the sparse population of the hilly clay farm country of southern Iowa in 1948 and this overcrowded urban sprawl of 1989. But, I suspect, the rising of teen-age sap is a stronger bond of similarity than the disparity of southern Iowa’s citizenry and the cultural mix that is Southern California.

Who broke the rules? Where did the rites of passage go amiss?

The one city marshal and the one justice of the peace managed to do their jobs and keep the rules and ritual in place. No fear, no vindictiveness, just, “That’s what you boys did, and here’s what you must do now.” They saw that we, too, observed the rules and respected the ritual.

The marshal, Rusty, didn’t carry a gun or wear a belt loaded with 10 pounds of law-enforcing accessories. He was especially tempting, fair game for a teen-ager’s quest for acceptable notoriety.

One night, while Rusty was having coffee or checking the back door of a local store, I relieved him of the fly rod on the back seat of his ’36 Ford. A couple of weeks later, after basking in the praise of my peers, I replaced the fly rod, unharmed and unused (who could use something everyone recognized?), back where I found it, when the opportunity presented itself.

The following morning, on the way to school, my Model A stopped for a breather. As I repaired it, Rusty stopped, helped me start it and, as I eased back onto the road, told me he was going out to the lake that day.

I wonder if the rules still hold in Iowa.

Here, they have Uzis.