Halloween mischief in a small town

I have been very fortunate to have met a vast array of people who connect with the stories I write. It seems somehow, someone will connect the dots in something I have written and there is a degree of relation directly to the topic. I enjoy being able to tell stories people can relate to and have some kinship to.

Jane Botts Bradley recently reached out to me, sharing some stories passed along by her father, Nelson Fants Botts.

Nelson was born Sept. 28, 1919, and grew up in Sharpsburg. He recalled a story of a Halloween prank during a time of modernizing the little town. This is the story of the Halloween Road Grader Prank.

A Transcript of

Nelson Fant Botts

Of Sharpsburg, KY

Sept 28, 1919-Aug. 1, 2009

Way back years ago, I lived in a little town called Sharpsburg. And Sharpsburg had a dirt road running through the middle of it and all the little businesses – about three or four – in the entire little town, were on each side of this dirt path. So, along comes the need for a fancy road and they just happened to run through Sharpsburg, so Sharpsburg got a brand new, black topped, beautiful highway running right down through the middle of the street.

In order to do that, they had to have old fashioned tools to smear it out and to tear things up, and to move the dirt and that called that a road grader. A road grader was operated by mule and it was a big, wide thing, had a blade on a wide… like a knife or like a razor. And it was about 10 or 12 feet wide and thick, about 6 inches – all steel, all metal but it was pulled by a bunch of mules or horses.

So, one Halloween night, they had graded that road right through the main part of town. Every young boy, in high school and grade school and out in the country, had accumulated in town for Halloween night so they could turn over outhouses and do dirty tricks and things. And, of course, I didn’t get in on any of that myself, personally.

But, they took this road grader – there were about 50 young men on it – I don’t know what it weighed, and got it up on the sidewalk instead of on the road. Now, the sidewalk was three feet above the level of the road. And here was this massive road grader up on top of it, not a soul in sight to tell them how in the world it got there.

So, that really caused a lot of trouble. They figured that practically every kid that did it was in school. They decided to charge the parents of these children, every one of them, whether they were there or not. They charged the parents to pay somebody to take that thing back off the sidewalk. But they couldn’t find anybody that could handle it with the equipment that they had because it was too big, too thick and too heavy and too ugly. So, they ended up making a deal with the high school kids to accumulate them all back over there and they would not put them in jail, or not punish them or anything, if they would just come and take that thing back off the sidewalk, drop it down that three feet and put it back where it belonged. And this happened.

I was about 12 years old, which would have made it 1931.

This story is glimpse into a simpler time in life, when there wasn’t as much hustle and bustle. A time when a sleepy town and dusty road made for some good, relaxing moments; and when the mischief of the day was, for the most part, harmless fun.

Thanks to Jane Botts Bradley for sharing your father’s memories and allowing me to share them with everyone.