| From Paul Henley. "The Great Christmas Tree Caper." I won't use last names to protect the ah innocent. One night my friends Tim, Steve, and myself decided to put our BB guns to some use at a local Christmas tree vendors lot when we were about 14 or 15. The vendor had lightbulbs strung all around the lot to light the trees at night and probably to protect against theft when he was closed. We shot out as many lightbulbs as we could the first night. It was so much fun, or maybe we were so bored, we kept going back several nights in a row. Well, we went back one night too many, and the vendor was waiting for us in or near the old town hall there in Brookland sub next to his lot. As we got started again that night, he came out yelling and chasing us. We were hightailing it out of there just as fast as we could when he let off a blast from what I think was a shotgun. It definitely scared the bejesus out of us. Tim and Steve both hit the snow. I on the other hand ran like a gazelle and escaped temporarily, until events unfolded a little bit more. Well, the vendor had caught a couple of kids who had shot out a few dollars worth of lightbulbs, but he got greedy. He accused us of hauling off hundreds of trees. We were in big trouble for awhile because our parents and the police were taking this guy seriously at first. Of course, we would have needed a semi-truck to have taken the number of trees we were accused of stealing, and yet we didn't even have our drivers licenses. The vendor finally discredited himself by telling such a whopper on us, and by continuing to up the ante as to how many trees he said we had taken. In the end, we were punished far worse than we would have been otherwise (for just shooting out a few lightbulbs as a prank). We had learned our lesson. Well, for a minute anyway! |
