I cannot remember the first time someone pulled a trick on me. I’m pretty sure it was my dad. Tricks are part of the learning process of life. I come from a family of tricksters. My extended families: Hopper’s, Chapman’s, Crumpton’s, Dutton’s, Waldrop’s, Smith’s, Barnett’s, and Clark’s are well schooled in the art of trickery.
One memorable time was on a visit to my Dutton cousins. They were poor as we were and found entertainment with simple things. They told me that they wanted to show me something in the woods behind their house. Following cousins Floyd, Wayne, Larry, and Danny in the woods was fun and exciting. They were more like older brothers than cousins.
As we trekked up the trail, I paid more attention to my surroundings than I did where I was going. Suddenly I stepped and I disappeared into a gigantic hole. I found myself looking up at four laughing cousins peering down. I felt like a trapped animal about to be speared to death. They retried me from the hole and showed me how they built the trap.
The hole was formed by stump of a large tree that either had rotted or had been removed for the resin it possessed. They had placed rotten pine sticks over the hole and then covered the sticks with pine straw. They showed me how they stepped around the hole allowing me to step into hole. I couldn’t wait to get home and build one for some unsuspecting soul.
School was another place where tricks were fun. My senior year there was a mump epidemic. I had already had them. One of my favorite teachers, Ms. Harvey, was an old maid that had never had the mumps. I had her for advanced math.
The principal and biology teacher enlisted Tony, my friend and future brother-in-law, to pull a prank on Ms. Harvey. They gave us some bubble gum, which was prohibited in class, and instructed us to hold the bubble gum in our jaws resembling the mumps.
We went to advanced math and did as directed. I held my face on my desk and got my face hot and red as did Tony. Ms. Harvey summoned Tony and me to her desk where she felt our faces to check for fever. With classmates in cahoots with us, when Ms. Harvey asked if I was okay, classmates told Ms. Harvey that my brothers had the mumps. They were really home with them!
Ms. Harvey ordered us out. She was terrified she would catch the mumps. A couple of our friends pretended they were sick, and she told them to go to the office. Back then there was no school nurse.
When Tony and I arrived at the office and informed the principal and the biology teacher, they laughed and applauded our diabolical deed. They told us to return to class and tell Ms. Harvey.
Ms. Harvey did not appreciate out Academy Award acting debut and became livid. We told about the scheme orchestrated by the principle and biology teacher. She said they would never do such an evil thing and expelled us from class.
When we told the principle and biology teacher, they realized their blunder and accused us of taking the trick too far. Tony and I got demerits. The joke was on us as the principal and biology teacher put the blame on us.
The cement plant was a perfect place for tricks. When I operated the cement kilns my oiler and I made a deal about losing weight. We decided that the first one to lose twenty pounds would be treated to a steak supper and all the fixings by the loser.
I told him to bring a set of scales to the burner floor, and we would weigh and record our weight at the end of our work week and the first shift to the new week. We worked seven midnight shifts from Wednesday through the following Tuesday and were off two days. Then we worked seven evening shifts from Friday through the following Thursday and were off Friday. Day shift started Saturday and went to Friday, and we were off to Wednesday midnight.
My oiler got the scales, and we stated our weight loss competition. What he did not know was that the scales were used to weigh raw materials. The scales design was conducive for me to put my little finger on a rod that connected the counterbalance weights and slide that determined our weight. When we weighed before being off, I made him weigh less. When we returned, I made him weigh more. His weight was fluctuating twenty pounds, and it was driving him crazy.
He accused me of cheating that is why I had my hands were where he could see them. He never realized that my little finger was on the rod that controlled the counterweights. I carried on the deception for several months. Our coworkers told me I should be ashamed.
Finally, I showed Allen, my oiler, how I controlled him. He laughed after giving me a big cussing and threatened to kill me.
Last year, thirty years later, I had the privilege to baptize him. Thanks, Allen, for your friendship.
The Bible has plenty of tricksters. Here is one from the Book of Joshua 9:3-8 KJV
And
when the inhabitants of Gibeon heard what Joshua had done unto Jericho and to
Ai,
