The parents of my generation dismissed mischief with a shrug and said, \u201cKids will be kids.\u201d\u00a0 \u00a0The pranks were not intended to hurt anyone.\u00a0 The fun was in not getting caught.\u00a0 If the prankster got caught, the punishment was meted out by parents or a teacher or principal.<\/p>\n
Ken outgrew most of the misdeeds he and his brother did in my post, \u201cBoisterous Boys.\u201d\u00a0 However, in high school, he did pull a Baby Giant firecracker out of his pocket one day in shop class.\u00a0 He stood looking at the teacher with the firecracker in his hand.\u00a0 The teacher gave him a stern look and said, \u201cStandifer, don\u2019t even think about it.\u201d At that point, Ken reached into his pocket, got a match, lit the firecracker and pitched it toward the middle of the shop. \u00a0The resulting bang was so loud that the lunchroom next door was evacuated.\u00a0\u00a0 Without a word, the teacher marched Ken to his desk, told him to bend over and grab his ankles, and administered another bang, this one to Ken\u2019s backside.\u00a0 It was the only paddling he ever got in school.\u00a0 It is interesting that the shop teacher was, and still is, Ken\u2019s all- time favorite teacher.<\/p>\n
The after school and evening activity in Breckenridge was often, \u201cmaking the drag.\u201d\u00a0 This involved starting from either the east or west end of the main street and driving to the other end, turning around and driving back the other direction.\u00a0 This could go on for hours.\u00a0 One night Ken was making the drag alone.\u00a0 There was a young policeman on duty who had a good rapport with the teens.\u00a0 Ken topped a hill on the east end of town and pulled into the parking area in front of the grocery store where he worked.\u00a0 The young policeman pulled up beside him and they started conversing.<\/p>\n
After ten or fifteen minutes, he asked Ken, \u201cHow fast will that old car of yours run?<\/p>\n
Ken said, \u201cIt will outrun that new Plymouth any day.\u201d<\/p>\n
The policeman said, \u201cLet\u2019s just see about that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ken was up to the challenge.\u00a0 They agreed on a point about two miles away where they would stop.\u00a0 There was a Y in the highway and a parking area in front of a small store.<\/p>\n
There was no traffic.\u00a0 They lined up and took off.\u00a0 They reached their destination at about the same time, stopped, and talked some more.\u00a0 Finally, the policeman said that he needed to get back downtown.\u00a0 Ken followed him and then went home.\u00a0 When he walked into the living room, his Dad was sitting on the couch waiting for him.\u00a0 He stood with his belt in his hands.\u00a0 It was\u00a0folded double.\u00a0 He began to pop the belt and said, \u201cI\u2019ll teach you not to try to outrun the police.\u201d He would not listen to any explanation or excuses.\u00a0 He administered his behavior modification without any discussion.<\/p>\n
Georgetown High School had an annual bonfire when my children were in school. For days, students gathered anything that would burn and took it to the site.\u00a0 The signs from the city park were usually in the fire.\u00a0 We were awakened one morning at 4 AM by a policeman at the door.\u00a0 He asked to speak to Kevin, our oldest.\u00a0 It seems that he and a friend had absconded two signs from the park.\u00a0 They made a big mistake.\u00a0 Instead of taking them directly to the bonfire site and dumping them, they left them in the back of his friend\u2019s pickup.\u00a0 They were not arrested or taken to jail.\u00a0 Their punishment was to meet the policeman in the park during their lunch break the next day.\u00a0 They had to reset the signs while other students who were in the park during lunch watched.\u00a0 That was humiliating.\u00a0 Some other signs were also missing, but they were already hidden in the pile for the bonfire.<\/p>\n
A friend of ours who grew up in a small town told a story about the teens making it a challenge every year to find the switch to the town\u2019s Christmas lights.\u00a0 They would turn them on or off at inappropriate times.\u00a0 The city would attempt to hide the switch in a different place every year.\u00a0 The teens would persevere until they found it.\u00a0\u00a0 He and two friends were riding around one night admiring the lights and decided to turn them off.\u00a0 The switch was under the canopy of a service station on the corner of a block.\u00a0 They would let the perpetrator out.\u00a0 He would stay in the shadows while they went around the block.\u00a0 As soon as he saw their headlights turning the corner toward him, he would flip the switch.\u00a0 They would slow down and he would jump into the car.\u00a0 They let him out and made the turn to go around the block.\u00a0 The town\u2019s only police car was in front of them.\u00a0 That was not good.\u00a0 At the end of the block, the policeman made a right turn.\u00a0 They followed and saw the car make another turn.\u00a0 This could mean trouble if the car turned right again.\u00a0 Disaster was imminent as the police car made another turn and moved toward their friend.\u00a0 They had no way to warn the boy.\u00a0 Sure enough, the boy saw the headlights, quickly flipped the switch turning the lights off, and sprinted toward the car.\u00a0 He grabbed the door handle and lunged into the back seat of the police car.\u00a0 Our friend just innocently drove right on by<\/p>\n
Today mischief often has the intent to hurt someone.\u00a0 Bad judgment can also lead to an arrest and a jail record.\u00a0 The environment for teenagers today is altogether different.\u00a0 Society, in general, seems to be intolerant of teen mischief and pranks.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The parents of my generation dismissed mischief with a shrug and said, “Kids will be kids.” The pranks were not intended to hurt anyone. The fun was in not getting caught. If the prankster got caught, the punishment was meted out by parents or a teacher or principal. Ken outgrew most of the misdeeds he […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[150,154,155,151,152,149,153],"class_list":["post-532","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-other-things","tag-firecracker-in-class","tag-kids-will-be-kids","tag-pranks-can-lead-to-jail","tag-racing-with-policeman","tag-signs-in-school-bonfire","tag-teen-mischief","tag-turning-a-towns-christmas-lights-on-and-off-as-prank"],"yoast_head":"\n