An unattended outhouse used to be a prank waiting to happen.

One of my fondest memories of living in a small community, where everyone knew everyone, was the freedom of having fun. We always anxiously awaited one exciting day of the year - Halloween. As a youngster in our hometown of Covington, Okla., Halloween was an exciting and challenging time. There was great competition among us pranksters of who could contrive the best prank. Points were earned for ideas such as dressing up in costumes and going door-to-door, soaping car windows and throwing toilet paper into the trees. Pranksters found cars from the surrounding area and pushed them into the middle of the street downtown. We ran down the alleyways turning over trashcans and outdoor toilets (outhouses). This is back in the days when "trick" was the fun part of "treat" - minor tricks or treats.

My dad had bought an old winch truck that had caught fire and the whole cab had been burnt. It had no windshield, windows, instruments or cushioned seat - only the bare wire steering wheel inside. But, it ran great.

Dad always was looking for a way to make an honest buck. So on the day before Halloween, my dad would drive down the alleys with his winch truck and for a dollar he would move an outhouse off it's hole. The day after Halloween dad would return to place the outhouses back over their holes, of course for another dollar. Needless to say, after falling into the holes a few times at night, the tricksters learned quickly. This only worked for one Halloween. The next year they were looking for dad's winch truck to disable it before Halloween.

I was kind of slow of foot and had to plan my tricks so I could get away fast. One of our tricks was to tie a rope to a tree on one side of the street, with an old pair of pants tied to the rope (lying in the street) and run the rope around a tree on the other side of the street. When a car came flying down the street, we would pull on the rope. Then the pants would jump up from the street in front of the car. The driver would think someone had jumped in front of them and would slam their wheels to a stop. Needless to say, we were running away. It seemed like such innocent fun back then.

Back then, it was just great fun. However, today our children probably would be ripped from our home by our state government as being a delinquent and then be put into a detention or foster home until they are 18 years old. More than likely, the parents would be prosecuted and forced to pay child support to that government-supported facility. Where did our Founding Fathers' common sense disappear to in the course of protective freedom? What happened to humor in politics?