A walk home from school

The opportunity for doing mischief is found a hundred times a day, and of doing good once in a year. Voltaire 


I tend to find the above statement to be true. As young bucks in Happy Valley Utah we had to get creative to find ways to make mischief, but we sure did. More than often these little experiences happened spontaneously. Like the one time my friend through my t-shirt in a mud puddle, and we decided to throw it away instead of showing my mother.


We even found some good mischief walking to and from school. We actually developed quite the interesting way to pass the time. There was a large walnut tree at the bottom of this hill that we would walk up on the way home from school. On our way up the hill we would collect walnuts and throw them under the tires of passing cars. The noise that was created when these walnuts were thrown was quite astonishing. To young boys our joy could not be more full...to see the concern portrayed on the faces of the unsuspecting drivers. Most of them wondering whether or not their tire had actually exploded. 

One day our mischief almost turned into a misdemeanor. Everyone has a wild pitch every now and then. This day just happened to be mine. One of my throws just got out of hand, and instead of the walnut rolling safely under the tire it hit the passenger side door smack dab in the center. The sound must have been deafening for the people in the car. I wish I could accurately describe the livid expression on the irritated car-pool mother driving the car. I honestly believed in my heart that I was going to lose my life at 9 years old. She ended up just yelling at us for several seconds and threatened to call the cops. I always wonder what would have happened if she would have called the police station on three pre-teen children. I personally would have chuckled if I was the operator that took that call. It was terrifying for me at the time. The best of part of the story is that we didn't stop after that car. In fact we continued throwing walnuts at the very next car!