Haloween always reminds me of things I did as a kid. Particularly one Haloween when I was about 11-12 yrs old. Back then in my hometown here in Alabama it was an annual tradition for people to go to Broad street. Broad street is the central drive through downtown Gadsden. It stretches a mile or so with 2-3 story old businesses on each side.
Well, back to the tradition, Each Haloween the city police actually tolerated pure unadulterated good wholesome mayhem but only on Haloween night only. People would pile into the back of pickup trucks and cruise up and down broad street with shaving cream, buckets of water for dipping toilet paper in, eggs (shhhh) etc. and bombard the snot out of each other. The more dudes in the truck, the more damage.
My dad was completely against rolling yards and things like that, and was generally against any fun that caused a mess. This one particular Haloween he came home from work and asked us if we wanted to go to Broad street. We were fired up and ready to go in no time, it was my 2 brothers and me, and about 3-4 buddies piled into the back of dad's '72 chev cheyenne pickup. We were loaded with ample supplies for maximum damage. We got in line on broad and were nailing the snot out of cars with our "paper balls".
We got stuck in traffic for a minute and suddenly some wildman dude jumps in the back of the truck with us. His whole head is shaving cream. He's smearing shaving cream all in our faces. Who be this psycho? This crazy dude dumps our water over our heads! We then figure out the trickster is none other than our uncle Ricky. Dad jumps out of the cab of the truck and goes nutso on his brother. He smears shaving cream all in his hair, busts an egg over his noggin, all the while both grown men giggling like schoolgirls. I'd never seen my normally reserved dad so giddy. Soon he got back in th truck and we were off to terrorize other pedestrians.
Broad street was shut down a few years later because it got outa hand. (imagine that;)) No more craziness allowed on Halloween eve. But I still have my memories.
Anybody else got something interesting stories to share?
