Collection of River Memories: May 19, 1955
My brothers Dick and Bob and I lived on Sterrett Avenue, in Covington, Kentucky, one large block west of where the Reverend Coers, a local minister, and his family lived in the small, white, clapboard rectory on Eastern Avenue. Mike Coers was around our age, and my brothers, our cousin Ray Cooper, and I played in the area adjacent to Holmes practice field locally known as "The Swamp", but in reality was the lower back yards of the rectory and their adjoining neighbors' property.
Our favorite game was playing "Army", and our usual willing rival was Mike and an equal number of his buddies. Mike had dug a deep foxhole on the hillside behind his house, and our "gang" had to make frontal assaults on this heavily-fortified position. Our weapons were mud balls, and as rocks were strongly forbidden, no one was seriously hurt. Mike’s father, the Reverend Dr. Coers, thoroughly disapproved of our war games and would sometimes come down the steep hill, round us all together, and try to get us to pursue a more genteel pastime. After his lectures, he would dig deep into his pant pocket and pull out a handful of assorted coins and scatter them over the ground. My brothers and cousin would scramble for the coins, but as the "leader of the gang", I wouldn't, but I was always in on the pop and candy later bought with the reverend's bribe-money for peace in the swamp. By the time our trip to "Charlie’s" at Wallace and Madison, and all the candy was eaten and the soda drunk, we’d ease back down to the swamp to see if Mike’s dad was gone and if his son was ready for another battle.
On one fine day in May, 1955, our gang assembled on the plains of the swamp for a challenge given for combat by the younger Coers. Mike was wearing an official U. S. Army helmet liner to protect him from the barrage of clay missiles that would surely rain down upon his entrenchment, and he had a couple of his regular friends in the trench with him. It was a great day for war and both sides were eager for battle. We were delighted that Mike and his boys were especially ready for combat in spite of the fact that our assaults, of late, had driven the Coer’s gang out of their fortification and into the basement of the Rectory where they had safe-haven and where we never pursued, but stayed outside to beg them to come back out and fight another round.
At a given signal, we began plummeting Mike's deep entrenchment so that more that one "thud" was heard as a round clod of clay find the army helmet of the rival leader. Then with a fury we charged up the hill toward the enemy position as mud balls filled the air. We expected an immediate surrender of the Coer’s Gang, but as we were half-way up the hill, Mike and his boys broke and ran toward the open basement door as a few final clay rounds found their marks before the fleeing enemy disappeared within the safety of the forbidden territory.
The sweetness of victory suddenly turned sour as out of the cellar door poured, not Mike and his defeated boys, but a real gang of tough kids from a rough part of town that Coers had secreted within the basement awaiting our charge up the hill. His retreat had suckered us into a perfectly executed killing zone. As the mean boys poured out of the basement like angry hornets, my gang and I beat a fast rout, not in the direction from which we came, but toward the rectory front yard and across Eastern Avenue toward the flood wall that protected the town from the occasional anger of the Licking River- a place we were especially forbidden to venture.
There was no let-up from our pursuers, they were not restrained from any gentlemanly rules of war. They were after blood—our blood ! On we ran over the flood wall as our hunters continued the chase. The illicit Licking River lay ahead, and we had to turn upstream and parallel its course, running for our lives. For about half a mile the chase continued, but luckily for us, the dense foliage on either side of the narrow trail restricted our pursuers’ view. Realizing that we were nearing the end of our endurance and we would either have to stand and face an enemy with no mercy or somehow hide from them, I told my guys to jump down and hide along the small embankment that was immediately to our left and declined down a long slope toward the river.
Our pursuers were tiring too, and had lagged an increasing distance behind us. This worked to our advantage as we dropped below the path and pressed ourselves close to the face of the three-foot cliffs as our assassins thundered by and disappeared down the blind trail. That was the last that we heard of them. We waited anxiously for at least twenty minutes, or maybe half an hour, before we arose from the safety of our refuge. And as we came up from where we had been sheltered, we found that we were in a forbidden paradise! We had found our own Eden. Before us stretched the most beautiful playground kids, like us, could ever imagine, for we had discovered the pleasures of the Licking River.
A week later we returned with another neighborhood friend and explored this new and exotic land, and we claimed it as "Our Camp". For the remainder of our youth, we secretly swam and played upon the banks of the Licking River and had the most joyful time. To this day, my brothers and I celebrate the anniversary of the day we came back and claimed the land along the Licking as our own. No matter where Dick, Bob, or I may be, we always exchange greetings on "Camp Day", May 19th, as the day we cherish for heralding the beginning of another summer season of fun along the "Ole Licking River".
The Swamp lost its appeal and seldom did we play there again, and we kept the secret of our adventures along the Licking River from our parents until we were well into our adulthood, for we feared their wrath more than we did the possibility of drowning beneath the brown tide of the ancient stream.
