One dark and ominous Halloween night back in 1968 was a memorable one for me. My little home town of Cowley (population less than 400) became the scary nightmare town for one night.... October 31st. Almost every teen that night got an arsenal of rotten and squishy tomatoes and headed up to main street for a citywide tomato fight. It usually involved climbing atop the roofs of the town businesses and running along launching tomatoes at the unsuspecting down below. When semi- trucks went by they usually got their windows splatted, and out of town kids knew they were in for trouble if they entered the city limits.
My cousin Ed Willis remembers it this way:
"I remember some Halloweens in the sixties so wild the local law enforcement gave up on Cowley and went home for the night. I remember the main drag in town being barricaded off by burning hay bales, and garbage cans on fire. It was a mild form of anarchy to be sure. The morning of November 1st was always a sight to see with the carnage on the main street area. There were volunteer tomatoes popping up in the church flower beds that next spring."
It just so happened that I was dating this cute out of town guy and he and his pals from Lovell came up to see what was going on. I happened to be with my buddies Cindi Peterson and I think Susan Nicholls at the time. We had our own arsenal, and although I can't remember from whose garden our ammo came, we were ready for the fight. Normally, I would have been sitting in my boyfriend's car with him but tonight he was the enemy. The guys had gotten got out of their cars and had found some ammo too. The war began and we started throwing rotten tomatoes at each other.
I was not near a barricade so one of my boyfriend's tomatoes happened to find it's target...my face. After only a couple of minutes I knew I was in trouble. I started to itch terribly and my face started to swell. I made it home in just a couple of minutes. Mom and Dad soon realized that I needed to get to the hospital ASAP. I was having an allergic reaction to the tomatoes or something on them and if I didn't get help soon, I would be in a world of trouble. After a few shots to keep my heart beating and an antihistamine and to calm down the hives that were starting to develop I was able to go home. My hives joined other hives until each one was about 6" across and I itched for days. The darn boyfriend didn't even know what had happened until the next day. I always say he tried to kill me that night, but then I went right ahead and married him. He has never hit me since.
