Halloween Pranks

Ah, Halloween. My memory flies back to small town Monroe where I grew up. The local yokels (me included) loved to go about town tipping over outhouses, moving farm machinery to the town square, tee-peeing teachers' houses, soaping windows, and generally causing harmless mayhem. Any fireworks left over from the Fourth of July would be hauled out and put to good use.

When I graduated from high school I had a second floor apartment above a business downtown. From the apartment window I could watch any goings on and join in or not as my mood saw fit. It was my first time away from home and I was enjoying my new found freedom. Shoot, I could stay out all night if I wanted, and did.

One of my apartment windows overlooked the flat roofs of downtown businesses. I could scoot out the window and run the roof tops for an entire block. It was great sport to lob fire crackers at buddy's cars, and even the town cop, Bert. He would do a U-turn in the middle of the street, and look for the guilty party, never thinking to look up.

Bert would even let us ride around with him, the fool. There would be one or two of us in the back seat and one in the front. I'd like to take credit for this, but it would be a lie. I was in the back seat with a buddy. We all smoked cigarettes then, thinking it was cool. I saw my buddy tear the filter off a lighted cigarette, stick the cigarette onto the fuse of an M-80, and drop the M-80 out the back window. A half-a-block away, the cigarette burned down to the fuse, and kerrblewy! The explosion echoed off the downtown buildings and rattled windows. It just so happened that another one of our buddies happened to be driving by in the vicinity of the explosion. “There they are, Bert, go get'm!” we hollered. And Bert did a U-turn and pulled our friends over, while we sat in the squad car splitting a gut.

It just so happened our buddies were drinking beer. Boom, they were busted. But the only thing that happened was they got their beer taken away. (Things were different back then.) But they were upset that they lost their beer and even more upset at whoever dropped that M-80 out the window of the cop car.

But now we were out of fireworks. One of the guys suggested we make a run for Missouri for more fireworks. It was late October and Halloween, but we figured there would be one or two fireworks stands open just over the Missouri Line.

Off we went at 2:00 in the morning. It was about a two-hour drive to the Missouri State Line. Sure enough, there were a couple of places open and we loaded up with cherry bombs, M-80s, and a few rockets.

The route back (as well as going) led through Knoxville. One of my braver buddies wanted to terrorize Knoxville. I didn't think it was a good idea, but I wasn't driving. We went around the town square in Knoxville lobbing out cherry bombs and M-80s. Sure enough we raised the ire of some Knoxville toughs. What they were doing up that late, I have no idea, but they started chasing us. It was their town. Looking at the size of them compared to the size of us, we didn't feel it was a good idea to make a stand. Off we hightailed it for Monroe, with the Knoxville toughs right behind us. When we got to the Red Rock Lake Bridge, one of my buddies managed to light off a rocket and lob it out the window. The cacophony of colors and high-pitched screams it made, evidently was enough to persuade our pursuers to give up the chase. They turned around and headed back to Knoxville.

We limped into Monroe with tail tucked. Bert was waiting for us. He pulled us over and shown his flashlight into our car. “Hey, guys,” he said. “I have this fake skeleton, and I know where there's an old tractor. The mayor needs a yard ornament, I'm think'n.”

Have a good story? Call or text Curt Swarm in Mt. Pleasant at 319-217-0526 or email him at curtswarm@yahoo.com. Curt is available for public speaking.

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