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Book Nook provides readers with insights into the world of books. Vick Mickunas takes you into the center of the publishing world with the latest book buzz, book reviews, and exclusive chats with authors..Home > Blogs > Book Nook > Archives > 2010 > October > 31 > Entry
Pranksters, Halloween, Election Day, and Grandpa Amos
It’s Halloween. Halloween always reminds me of my granddad, Amos. If he was still around he would be 111 years old now. He made it to 96.
Amos served in the US Marine Corps in France during World War One. He and his twin brother, Orrin, enlisted as soon as they were old enough.
After the war Amos went to Drake University and then became a school teacher. A life-long Republican, Amos could not stomach Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Amos was an old school traditionalist, a true conservative.
He had a long career as a teacher, a school principal, and eventually he retired as the school district superintendent. Following his retirement Amos and my grandmother, Ethel, moved back to her hometown, a small town in southern Iowa just north of the border with Missouri.
My granddad wasn’t the retiring type. He ran for mayor. His campaign material bore a photo of him circa 1918, from his days as a doughboy in France. Amos won the election. I always think about him at Halloween.
Back in Des Moines I was accustomed to Halloween mischief and pranks. Late at night some kids would throw eggs, soap windows, spray shaving cream, and teepee trees with toilet tissue. These acts of petty vandalism were nothing compared to what the kids were doing down where my Granddad was living.
In his small town the kids ran wild on Halloween. Amos was the mayor and he took his duties seriously. Amos was an avid pheasant hunter. As he prepared for hunting season he would also prepare for Halloween.
First he would chain down anything in his yard that could be moved. On Halloween night he would sit up in his lawn chair out in the yard with his shotgun across his lap. Then he would wait. All around him the mischief makers and pranksters were wreaking destruction; tipping over outhouses and moving around anything that struck their fancy. Every year they would put somebody’s car on top of the water tower.
Amos liked kids but he also believed in maintaining the civil order. And he didn’t like Democrats. In September of 1972 he drove his red Rambler up to Des Moines for a visit. I watched him pull to the curb in front of our house. He leaped out of the driver’s seat and scurried into our front yard, practically tackling the yard sign he had noticed as he pulled up. The sign said IOWA WANTS McGOVERN. That would be George McGovern who was running against Dick Nixon that year.
My granddad ran in the house with the sign and said to my mother: “Somebody might have seen it.” He wanted to prevent a scandal I suppose? A couple of years ago I recounted that incident to George McGovern himself. I was interviewing Senator McGovern for his recent biography of Abraham Lincoln.
McGovern chuckled. He said his own parents were the same way; die-hard Republicans and genuine conservatives. So I always think about Amos when Halloween rolls around. Election Day, too. In my mind Halloween and Election Day go together.
There’s a disgusting Halloween prank where the prankster rings the doorbell of the unsuspecting victim. When they answer the door they notice that the prankster has ignited a flaming brown bag on their porch then has run away to enjoy the results of his mischief from a safe distance.
Our first instinct is always to stomp on the bag right away to put out the flames. Bad mistake-the bag will contain some foulness that will get all over your shoes.
Those nasty flaming bags remind me of the political ads I have been seeing. One minute you are watching the World Series, the next second there’s suddenly one of those political commercials, a flaming bag so to speak, containing some manner of foulness.
The messages are relentlessly nasty: this candidate cost Ohio all those jobs or that candidate was a witch. Frankly, I feel sullied by all this vitriolic venom. I fight the impulse to clean off my shoes every time I turn on the TV set….
Happy Halloween….
Don’t forget to vote….
Vick Mickunas
Permalink | Comments (9) | Post your comment | Categories: confessions of a galley slave
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By victor mickunas
November 2, 2010 10:53 AM | Link to this
Thanks, Irish. Yes, 1972 was the year that Nixon demolished McGovern at the polls. Hard to believe that just a few years later the Nixon presidency had been reduced to a pile of smoldering ashes. I love history! Don’t forget to vote today, everybody!
By irishguy
November 2, 2010 10:43 AM | Link to this
BTW, it was 1972.
By irishguy
November 2, 2010 6:42 AM | Link to this
My Dad took me to see Nixon at a rally at WPAFB that year as well. I got caught between some anti-war protesters and the Secret Service for a bit. My long hair and casual attire led to me being grabbed for a second by an agent. He quickly realized I was a kid and let me go. I recall seeing a blue Air Force bus full of protesters being hauled off as we left. I wonder if Downsized was on that bus…
By victor mickunas
November 1, 2010 11:23 PM | Link to this
I just wish I had that Nixon yard sign, Irish. I have quite the collection of Nixon paraphernalia. Was that for 1968 or 1972??
By irishguy
November 1, 2010 9:31 PM | Link to this
Vick, you and DS would be proud of me. In my only malicious preteen Halloween prank I ignited my neighbor’s Nixon yard sign. She was some sort of big cheese with the Montgomery County Republican Party and had over 100 elephant figurines scattered about her house.
By Cider
November 1, 2010 6:13 PM | Link to this
Cute pumpkin. Nice article.
By victor mickunas
November 1, 2010 10:07 AM | Link to this
Raoul, I wish I could ask Amos about it. To the best of my knowledge it only happened a few times and the culprits were never caught in the act. One might assume that the town constable was “looking the other way” or had nodded off a la Barney Fife…
By Raoul
November 1, 2010 7:38 AM | Link to this
I have seen old political cartoons that make today’s seem tame and restrained. Vick, I am dying to learn more about how they were able to get a car on top of a water tower in your Grand Dad’s home town every year. Are you sure about that one?
By H. Lee
October 31, 2010 6:39 PM | Link to this
Vick, you’re right about the nasty political ads. Thank goodness the worst of them will end in a couple of days. But, like the Halloween tricks you describe, things were a lot worse in the “good old days.” Just Google “old political cartoons” to take a look at some insults from the 19th century! I live in a small town near Dayton, and can remember researching political statements from the 1800s in the local newspaper. Believe me, there’s no way any modern newspaper or TV ad would allow such statements as “Mr. [opponent’s] few friends will be glad to know he was not shot, and all the rest of us will be sorry to learn he hasn’t shot himself yet.” Another statement I recall reading, which might raise some eyebrows even in the trash-talking 21st century, was “Mr. [opponent’s] injury during the debate was but slight. The injury was such that, had he been of the opposite sex, he would not have been touched.” Trust me, these are genteel and sweet-spoken political times, compared to those of our ancestors. Your granddad Amos would be startled to see how amiable modern political ads are!