HALLOWEEN PRANKS & MORE AS A KID IN LAUREL!

      I've got to say that I did my share of pranks and a little mischief as a teenage boy. Nothing ever really destructive but, like all pranks, there was always the possibility of someone getting injured! And, there usually were consequences. Well, at least some of the time!

      Like with kids at Halloween it usually included pumpkins somehow. One year while in high school, a group of us invaded a local farmer's pumpkin patch, stole a few and took them back to Laurel. And, for reasons unknown we smashed them on Main Street! Brilliant! It always seems like a good idea at the time. We got caught by the local cop-Emery Wunn and spent the next morning cleaning our mess up! It's hard to believe that Laurel, pop. 200 or 300, had its own cop! Another story some day!

      One little trick that was fun to pull any time of the year was to "pull" was to get someone on the other side of the street and pretend to pull this pretend rope across the street just as a car was approaching. Of course, they would usually slow down or stop. That prank was pure genius!

      Or.... how about getting a ladder and hauling vegetables, fruit, eggs, etc, and heaving them off at night at cars at night off the old hardware building on Main Street! That one, looking back, was bad! Or.... throwing snowballs at cars in the winter and running and hiding then in the enclosed bathroom behind the old Skelly Station on Main Street. If anyone stopped to look for us they never would have found us. Maybe! Or.... on the 4th of July night, my friend Rick and I would circle the town through the corn fields and set off a barrage of fireworks. Ahh! Those were the days!