The Tale of the Water Tower - As Told By the Guys Who Were There!

The Tale of the Tower

Chris Ferraro, Chris Bowe, Scott Gutting, Bob Haworth, Tom Nepola, Brian Tobin, Nick Lagos

Looking back at the Fair Lawn Water Tower painting affair, and the real hazards involved in the activities undertaken that Tuesday evening November 21, 1972; it is a little surprising that we got out of that situation without something really bad happening – but the group of us who went to the Fair Lawn Water Tower that night managed to get out that evening un-scathed. The only known related casualty actually occurred the following evening at the annual Ridgewood High bonfire event that was held at Steven’s field on the Wednesday night before the big Thanksgiving Day game.

Some Fair Lawn High hoodlums had come over to the bonfire event looking for trouble after arriving at their high school on Wednesday and seeing “RHS # 1” had been painted on their town’s water tower.  These hoodlums somehow found their way to Nibot (Brian Tobin) at the bonfire; now being the peace ambassador that Nibot always was, he tried to keep things calm for a while before things got out of hand – unfortunately, he ended up in an altercation with these guys who were unhappy about their painted tower and although he fought valiantly - let’s just say that Nibot was definitely bruised and a little sore when we picked him up to go to the Thanksgiving Day game on Thursday.  Ironically, Nibot had not been part of the Tower painting caper on Tuesday night, he could not get out of the house that night.

Where were the rest of us? . . . a group of us, including Nibot, had just been upstate to the infamous Steak & Brew ( . . . It’s the Pub For You . . .) in Spring Valley, NY, celebrating the successful tower painting event . . . but Chris Bowe could not go upstate with us . . . so when we got back to Ridgewood that Wednesday evening, we dropped Nibot off at the Bonfire at Steven’s Field and headed up to Chris’ house to pick him up . . . by the time we got back to Steven’s, we had missed all the fireworks.

When these Fair Lawn guys walkedup, Boots Campbell and Steve Florence were standing there with Brian . . . and the next second, Boots and Flo were gone and Nibot was alone to fend for himself . . . Brian got pounded.  Luckily, Mr. McCutchen saw what was going on and intervened and saved Brian.  Part of Nibot’s face remained numb for almost three months afterward . . . when Brian would see Mr. McCutchen in the hallway – Mr. McCutchen would say to him – “How’s it going, John L Sullivan!”

Inspiration for the tower caper came from former work of our own and former RHS Classes . . . The Fairlawn water tower had been previously painted by Chris Bowe’s older brother Andy, and one of his pals; they painted the words “IS DEAD” under the “FAIR LAWN” on the water tower prior to their Thanksgiving Day game . . . and, we had previously painted the roof next to the RHS football field with the number “73”.  Gut, myself, Bowe, Haworth, Steve Elgin, and Jack Istok had started the roof painting scene as sophomores when we first snuck up on the roof on the Friday night prior to the first home game in the fall of 1970.  There were some angry Class of 71 seniors when they saw a “73” on the roof that game day . . . the “71” was back up the next weekend  . . . and a week later, we put the “73” back up.  This went back and forth for several weeks (we were lucky that we did not run into the seniors on one of those nights on the roof) . . . Anyway, the Class of 71 seniors finally relented and the “73” remained up on that roof till after we graduated.

The plan for the tower was pretty simple and remained secret; a small group of us would climb the tower with brushes and paint cans and paint something on the tower.  Ridgewood was going to be the NNJIL football champs and we decided that we would paint “RHS # 1” on the Fair Lawn water tower. It was lucky that nothing bad happened and/or we did not get caught by the Police or into a fight with some Fair Lawn kids.  Perhaps the only smart thing that we did was to decide that they would likely be guarding the water tower on Wednesday (the night before the Thanksgiving Day game) . . . Consequently, we decided to make our move on Tuesday evening!

After dinner, and now that it was dark outside; Ferraro, Gut, Bowe, myself, Haworth, and Nip connected and drove over to the Fairlawn high school and parked pretty close to the water tower. It was pretty cold that November and windy that night.  The two Chrises, Gut and I were going to climb the tower and paint “RHS # 1”. I think Gut carried the paint can up using his belt to hold the can by the handle, and the rest of us carried brushes.  Ferraro went up first, then Gut, then Bowe, and me.  Climbing up was not too bad but it was windy and definitely colder and colder as we got higher up the ladder . . . and the tower was way up there . . . it was a long climb.  But going up definitely turned out to be the easy part. 

Once up on the platform, we looked around and realized how high up we were and that it was even more windy and much colder than on the ground.  Regardless,  we were up there now and we needed to complete the task at hand . . . so we proceeded to paint the tower and then . . . not thinking at all . . . we decide that we are going to put our initials next to our “RHS # 1” message?!  So we foolishly paint our initials up there . . . Thankfully, it was 1972 and not today . . . the Fair Lawn municipal officials must not have felt a need to pursue such trouble-makers.  These days . . . we would have probably been arrested.

So now the long trip back down the ladder . . . we left the paint can and the brushes up on the platform . . . Gut and then Ferraro went down first, and Chris and I were the last to climb back down.  Looking out towards NYC from the platform one last time and looking over at Chris . . . we thought . . . we got to get the heck out of here as quickly as possible . . . But, going down the ladder ended up being a lot slower and a lot more frightening than climbing up.  Somehow, we had managed to get paint on the bottom of our sneakers up there and after Ferraro and Gut had climbed down the ladder, wet paint was left on the cold-metal rungs – making the rungs really slippery.

Chris started down before me and after he got down a few rungs, he yells up to me that wet paint is on the rungs and his hands and feet are slipping . . . now what are we going to do?  So we ended up hooking our elbows around the rungs, one at a time, and really slowly, we climbed down; re-securing our elbow-hook style grip rung by rung until we were finally back down on the ground.  Nip and Haworth had been waiting with the two cars and when they saw us getting close to reaching the ground again . . . they quickly ran and got the cars and came over to the tower and we jumped in and we got the heck out of there.

The next day, Wednesday before Thanksgiving, a few of us drove over to Fair Lawn High School at lunch time in Haworth’s car to check out the scene in the daylight.  There were some Fair Lawn kids looking up at the tower in disgust which made us laugh . . . and much more importantly;  we could see that “RHS #1” was going to be easily viewable from the football field so everyone who went to the game on Thanksgiving would definitely get the message.

The rest is history . . . we beat Fair Lawn to top off the league championship . . . and, because Fair Lawn did not re-paint the water tower for many years . . . “RHS # 1” remained on that tower for a long time as a reminder of the RHS 1972 NNJIL football championship, and to the small group of us who were foolish enough to paint the tower . . . long after it was finally painted over, it has remained a reminder of great fun, and friendships we had during our time at Ridgewood High.