MR. MISCHIEVOUS! POST #23

I don't know why anyone would be into something all the time! I was never a mean guy even though when I was preaching in a meeting a few years ago and ate dinner with Sue (Barber) Nash who had been a school mate at Bay asked, "Teddy, why were you so mean?" I didn't think that I was mean but upon reflection to my Herman Junction days I guess that I did get into my share of goofy things. I may have even gotten into someone elses' shares too. I remember a few even though I try to forget.

Can you imagine anyone being so dumb as I was to do some of these things. One time several of us guys where standing at the door of a classroom and the door was shut. Up above the door was a small window and it was open. There was a larger window in the door too and one could see shadows on the other side. We decided that someone should take an eraser and just drop it through that top window on the head of Mrs. Melba Aston who was standing on the other side. I reached up there and dropped it and when she opened that door I was standing there ALONE! I don't know what happened to those other guys who vanished in a second. It was off to the principals office! I opened the windows when it was snowing so it would snow in on the girls sitting next to the windows. Why did I do such a thing? It was off to the principals office! I helped make an electric chair out of an old crank telephone and a metal chair. When someone would sit down in it we would crank the old phone and they got a shock. We all went to the principals office! Barbara was crying one day in study hall. I went over and leaned down to ask what I had done...I'm pretty sure that I was responsible somehow...and Mr. Cooper came over and sent us to his office. He came in behind us and scolded us pretty good for 'mugging' in the study hall. I didn't know what mugging was but we had to quit it! Another guy put a match under my leg one day while I was sitting at my desk and lit it without me knowing it, right in the middle of class. Of course, I yelled when it burned me, and it was off to visit Mr. Cooper. It got so that I thought that every time I did something I should have just gone to the office and waited on him because I knew what was coming.

But, that all stopped one day. I hadn't done a thing but I was sent to the principals office anyway. When I got there my Dad was standing in there! I wondered what he had done to get sent to the principals office? They talked a bit about my frequent visits with Mr. Cooper, with me standing there in front of them. Finally, my Dad said, "Why don't you whip him?" Mr. Cooper replied, "He is too big!" I'll never forget it...Dad said, "He may be too big for you but he's not to big for me." That was the last visit that I ever made to the principals office. By the way, I was not too big for Mr. Cooper to whip either because he was one tough guy and I respected him greatly.

I like to think of it as just having fun. After Barbara and I were married I did something one day that got her all stirred up and she was really after me. I ran into the bedroom and locked the door. She stood there banging on that door and yelling at me. I crawled out the window and came around and rang the door bell. We had been expecting company any minute and there she was yelling 'til you could hear her all over town and our company ringing the door bell. But, it was me at the door and I thought that she would think that was funny but that just made a bad thing worse! When the company came and I went to get dressed to go to Memphis, I had to crawl back through that window to get in the bedroom to change clothes. I wonder if they wondered about thier preacher and his wife?

I've about quit those things now. I'm too old to run and not smart enough to convince someone that I didn't do it, so I think that I'll just retire and pass on the Mr. Mischievous award to Derick Harless. In spite of all these things, all is well at Herman Junction.