Dad's Halloween Pranks

James snatched a pumpkin treat, barely cool enough to touch. “Father, what did you do on Halloween when you were little?”

Ian looked me in the eye as he brazenly took one off the rack. “Yeah, Dad. Did you do anything that got you in trouble?”

“Trouble? Me?” I tried to maintain an air of dignity. Of course, tricks are as important as treats on All Hallows Eve, but that night was actually pretty quiet in the neighborhoods of my childhood. “Do you mean like soaping windows? Or things like smashing jack-o-lanterns? No, I never did anything like that.”

I cleared my throat. “But, my stepfather, your Grandpa T, knew how to celebrate. He lived in the country, and one of the things they’d do is tip over outhouses.”

The boys gave me a blank look.

“Before there was plumbing, the bathrooms were in a separate, small building, away from the house, and they were pretty yucky. Anyway, Dad and his friends would push them over. All the owner had to do was to push them back up, but it was still a pain.”

“Is that all?” I blocked Ian’s sneaky hand as he reached for another pumpkin treat.

“No. The worst thing Dad and his friends did was to take apart an old car and, since vehicles were simpler and lighter then, they put it back together on the roof of the owner’s building. It stayed up there for a month because they couldn’t figure out a way to get it down.”

“I didn’t do anything like that when I was a kid. I just wanted the candy.” My face took on a pious look. “I was a model child.” The mask of piety slipped as my grade cards flashed through my mind. “Maybe, not always a working model.”

William R. Bartlett lives in Belton with his family.