Piney Woods Philosopher: Creative college pranks

By BILL COBBS/Columnist

Piney and She were girding up for the madness of Halloween. The ancient Druid rites for harvest had been joined by the Christian All Saints Day into a new kind of celebration (incidentally, it marked the 40 years Piney and She had been joined together!).
But Piney remembered the Halloween of Franklin County of 75 years ago, when “we” boys went out and moved johnny-houses (the then equivalent of “bathrooms”) into the woods! Also car windows and house windows were marked up with soap. There was, of course, among the coarser teens some vandalism. Most remarkable, because it took 30 teens to do it, was the placement of a Model T Ford on the roof of Amos Rakes’ barn… that was Amos’ car and he asleep while the deed was done!
Then, later at Roanoke College, a student who is now an aging pastor, and a group of nudniks, took a very old white horse slowly up the stairs of the dormitory (called the Third Section) and put him (he was 20 years old and docile) out a window and tied him to a chimney on the roof!
Then they went back down to their rooms where the future pastor had a “still” in his closet and drank the products of that illicit distillery!
All in fun, but the morning brought Dr. Charles J. Smith, the college president, to a called meeting to remonstrate with the brawling students and supervise the descent of the white old horse from the roof and down the stairs! (It was Dr. Charlie’s old horse!)
Now it seemed to Piney and She that the old Druid recreation for the harvest had turned into a harvest for bright plastics, Walmart excursions, and the tinsel of television blasting.
Dr. Charlie (bless him!) and the old white horse were long in their respective heavens, and true Halloweens would never be the same!

A writer, Bill Cobbs divides his time between Florida and Southwest Virginia.