The Cooks Corner: Halloween pranks

What ever happened to harmless Halloween pranks? In the ‘70s there were a lot of Halloween pranks that happened, almost none of them dangerous or harmful. Sure, there might be a lot of cleanup afterwards, but there was rarely any property damage or damage to public buildings of any kind.
Of course toilet paper was cheap, soap was easy to find, there were unused outhouses on almost every farm and young people were creative with what they had. Toilet papering a teacher’s house was considered a real prize winner. Soaping the windows at the school or local businesses was a great accomplishment. We all knew that if we were caught, we would be cleaning up the mess we made. In fact, school organizations used to have fundraisers based on the whole Halloween expectations. They were paid to “protect” the property, and if it got soaped or TP’d, then the protectors had to clean it up. Of course, the protectors all knew who the perpetrators were. They conveniently conscripted the perpetrators to help with the cleanup.
The best my circle of friends cooked up one Halloween was to wrap a teacher’s car in plastic wrap. No damage done, but it took her awhile to get it undone so she could come to school the next morning. The worst to clean up was the time that someone with a really good arm threw TP clear to the tops of some really big pine trees.
The coup de grace though was when someone managed to soap the window of a police car while the officer was sitting in it. That was special. I can’t imagine that he didn’t know what was being done, he just figured it was harmless and could be washed off easy enough. I have to say though, no soaping included vulgarity or degrading messages.
Was it right doing that and allowing kids to act that way? I really am not sure, but I am not sure it hurt anything either. Some of those youngsters grew up to be looked up to in this community. Bankers, soldiers, businessmen and even police officers. Allowing them to blow off some steam didn’t seem to affect the outcome of their lives.
The outhouse was more of a Greybull stunt. It became a tradition to burn one under the stoplight. When they changed to the big lights it changed it some, but the situation continued until in the absence of an old farm outhouse, one from the Forest Service was obtained and that was not a good thing.
At least no farmer has found his buggy on top of the barn for many, many years. I think my dad was involved in that one.

Quick Chocolate
Cherry Cake
(Betty Riley in the
Baptist Church cookbook)
1 chocolate cake mix
1 (21 ounce) can cherry pie filling
2 teaspoons almond extract
3 eggs
Place all ingredients in bowl. Mix well with mixer. Bake like directions on cake mix box. Ice with any icing or serve warm with ice cream.