Rick Houser
As I have said in past writings I grew up on a farm in a very rural area just a few miles removed from the Ohio River. I enjoyed farm life and living in the country and all that went with it. I accepted that our neighbors, however nice lived at distanced spacing’s. But when I was about 12 to 14 years old Herb and Charlie Marshal and I decided we wanted to do as the boys in Moscow did. It was fall and we were fast coming up on Halloween. Instead of going into Moscow in costumes that almost always looked like a hobo since it cost nothing to dress like that, we decided it was time for us to go Halloweening! Instead of receiving the treat we would give the trick.

The first thing to do was to tell our parents we didn’t want to go Trick or Treating. We were too old for this. It wasn’t a hard sell and actually came as a relief to our parents. They didn’t really want to take us to town and wait while we went door to door again.

So with that behind us the next step was to lay out which homes and in what order we would travel and what trick we would do. Next was to get out of our homes with an excuse that would hold water. Last was doing the tricks we had planned.

October 31st arrived and we put operation Halloween into action. As soon as it became dark we told our parents we had been invited over to their house to a Halloween party that would last a few hours. Our folks didn’t have to worry as we would walk to the party and in those days was more than ok with our parents and safe. We met close to my house and began our night of wildness! First we went to Tom Houser’s’ barn disassembled a buggy, hoisted it onto the barn roof and reassembled it. When complete we looked up at the barn roof and admired our accomplishment. With the buggy setting squarely on the roof we became confident. Next was on to where my brother Ben lived. Three fourths of a mile from the buggy. There we removed the hub caps off his Pontiac and strung them on the cloths line, Then we pushed his Volkswagen Bug into the tobacco barn. There we pushed the bottom rail of tobacco back, pushed his car in and then pulled the sticks of tobacco back into place so as to hide the Volkswagen. Again pleased and satisfied with our work it gave us energy to move on. Next on the list was Norman Griffiths’ place where we took a pile of pumpkins that were getting very soggy and stacked them in their lawn chairs on the front porch. The chairs were very close to the front door and proved to be the closet we came to being caught. But the night riders were not to be caught. Were moved on to my Aunt Margaret’s’ house and knew there was no one there as they had taken their children Trick or Treating. So we took everything we could lift and placed it near or in front of their front door.

By now more than two hours had passed and we were more than a mile and a half away from where we started. We made a couple more minor stops along the way but we moved back toward home.

When we got back to where we started it was approximately ten o’clock. Even though we were tired from our adventure we were on schedule and feeling very smug about what we had done. The perfect crime. Nobody saw us and we left no clues. Nobody would ever know.

The next morning we got on the school bus and as it made the rounds the kids laughed and pointed at the pumpkins in the chairs and swing sets in the middle of fields and more than all else was the buggy on a barn roof! The three of us had become living legends. But the coolest part was our identity was unknown. How awesome!

Two or three days went by. During which time we reveled in our famous deeds. Then Dad called me aside after supper one evening and said it was time that we return all the items to where they belonged. Stunned, I denied knowing what he meant. Then he said I knew very well what he meant. We had had our fun and got to enjoy its rewards but when you mess with peoples things it was only right to return them to their original place. So come the following Saturday we did return all things. We felt a little let down but the three of us would always be known for our bold deeds of that one night. To this day I still don’t know if it was really worth it all, but if we hadn’t I would not have this memory to write about and we might have never known if a buggy could balance on a barn roof!

Rick Houser grew up on a farm near Moscow in Clermont County and likes to share stories about his youth and other topics. He may be reached at houser734@yahoo.com.