Back in the day, three or four of us, anywhere from age 12 to 14 or so, did an East Andover “patrol” on a Friday or Saturday night. Of course, we didn’t have snowmobiles, trail bikes, or other “stuff” that kids have today.

One Saturday night, we noticed the Log Cabin Association from Webster Lake had square dancing at the Grange Hall here in East Andover. On warm summer nights, the windows would all be wide open. When the dancers would go out onto the dance floor, they would put their cups of cider on the window sills. So, we went and got a large bottle of Moxie. Then we would take the cider cups off the sill, dump the cider out, and refill the cups with the Moxie! Yuck!! Some would accuse others of doing it. A couple guys tried to come outside but we had tied the door handles with a short piece of rope. They finally used the back side door, of course, but we were long gone by then!

Once in awhile we would ring the church bell. The janitor would come running to catch us up in the steeple. One of the last times, he went up to the top (none of us was up there). Someone had an extra long length of clothesline rope and we tied it to the ringer and threw it down over the side of the church. As the janitor started to come back down, we would ring the bell again. Back up he went!! Needless to say, we kept him busy! (Before we went home, we took the rope down).

Another night, we found an old hay rake and hooked it at the end of a caboose on the railroad tracks. On the seat of the rake, we put an old teddy bear with a fishing pole beside him. The railroad workers got a big kick out of that! (That event made the local paper!) Also, a few mail boxes along the street had hay in them.

Another Saturday night,we noticed a truck parked at the town beach, so we sneaked over to investigate. We discovered a guy and his wife (or girlfriend) skinny dipping!! A couple nights later, we took a jack and a couple large blocks of wood there and hid them behind a tree. The next time the guy came to the beach at night (while he and his lady were skinny dipping) we got the jack and blocks and jacked up the rear end of the truck. When they tried to leave, they couldn’t back up. The woman tried to push the truck and then the guy did, with no luck. Finally they walked to a nearby house to get help. A good neighbor came over and hooked up a chain between the two vehicles (by then, we had removed the blocks of wood.) As the helper backed his vehicle up trying to pull the stuck truck, the guy in the truck revved his engine and he backed right into the helper’s vehicle!!

Several weeks later, after dark, there was a work train sitting on the siding; an old locomotive with two cars and a caboose headed toward Andover. It was running, so we jumped aboard between the caboose and one of the cars and rode to Andover! In Andover, we were lucky to get off! As we walked down “old” Route 11 towards home, a pick-up truck stopped and offered us a rid, so we hopped into the back of the truck. There was a guy driving, with a girl sitting next to him in the cab of the truck. We suddenly realized that it was the couple we had played the trick on at the beach a few weeks before. We were very scared! However, the couple had no idea we were the culprits, and dropped us off just before they turned down the beach road!! Whew!!

Another man (a mean one) had several calves in a pen. We “borrowed” a couple buckets full of old chicken manure from old Brigham Young and dumped it into the calf pen. Someone told us the next day that the man spent an hour or more looking for the chickens!!!

Another time, someone’s “billy” goat was loose with a six-foot rope hooked to his collar. We took “him” for a walk up to the grammar school, and tied him to the hand rail of the steps. The first teacher to arrive the next day couldn’t get in to wait for the kids to arrive. A few kids came along and one said it was his fathers’ goat! So they tied him to the flag pole and they all played with him at recess. The goat even got to eat ice cream cones! Some of the kids said “We know who did this!” But we were pretty sure they were guessing and they never told!

Well, enough reminiscing for now!! Hope you enjoyed these true stories!