There are few accomplishments for a kid as great as pulling a successful prank on an adult. And there are few instances of successful pranks in my childhood which merit remembering. But there were two.

When I was about eight years old we played a prank on my daddy. Family meals together were a big deal at our house. The only opportunity for the four of us to eat together was the weekend except in the summer.  While school was in session, daddy would be at work when we had our evening meal which we referred to as “supper”. Daddy worked in a textile mill on what they called the “second shift”.  He worked from four o’clock in the afternoon until midnight. 

We lived in what I referred to as an ancient farmhouse. Actually, my great grandfather had built it near the end of the nineteenth century. He had bought the land, cut the timber and built the house. We rented five rooms in the house. 

My mother said she had been afraid of my great-grandfather.  He had a long white beard.   Now the house belonged to my mother's uncle. He was an unmarried farmer and lived in the attached kitchen. Houses built in those days had kitchens separated from the main house because of the possibility of fire.The kitchen was attached though by a covered breezeway of about ten feet.  Momma usually invited my great uncle to Sunday dinner. I think she felt sorry for him. Sunday dinner was about one o’clock.

 

Sunday dinner was a big deal at our house. After church we would come and get out of our Sunday church clothes while Momma got Sunday dinner ready. Soon the smells of chicken frying and biscuits baking would waft through the house. Sunday was the only day we ate meat except maybe for ham, sausage or bacon for breakfast. The chicken would have been butchered on Saturday. I was the designated chicken decapitator. Soon the table in the kitchen would have a tablecloth on it and spread with beans, mashed potatoes and gravy, corn,  and sliced tomatoes. Fried chicken filled the need for meat. I would be hoping there would be some sweet potato pie for desert. My sister and I sat on a bench facing Momma. She was always telling me to slow my rate of food consumption. Momma would tell me, "Slow down eating, Son. Nobody's going to take it from you." My sister and I rarely spoke.  In those days children did not speak unless spoken to. My grandpa didn’t go for table talk either.  He always said. “Let your food stop your mouth!”

Now the beverage of choice for Sunday dinner, or any dinner for that matter,  was sweet iced tea. I'm not sure why Daddy always put lemon in his iced tea. To us it seemed that maybe Daddy thought his tea was too sweet. So with Momma's help, we conspired to serve Daddy unsweetened tea. But Daddy got the best of us. He added lemon to the unsweetened tea and drank it down without a grimace. Yes, the joke was on us.

 

My grandest, if I might say "grandest", prank was the one we pulled on my Momma. 

If I remember correctly, it was in the summertime when this happened. 

When I was a boy prior to the age of twelve the favorite game played by me and my buddies was  cowboys and Indians. I realize that the popularity of this game was due to that time in history. Those were the days when western movies were very popular. Television programming was filled with western shows. I remember them well, The Lone Ranger, Roy Rogers, and The Cisco Kid.  Playing cowboys and Indians came naturally. And if you didn't have a buddy to play with you would reluctantly recruit your sister. I did it. I recruited my sister to play cowboys and Indians with me. She didn't really know how to play, and she did have some reservations about playing the Indian. She knew enough about westerns to know that the Indians usually lost. Actually, in our games the Indians never won.  I told her we would do something never done before. I announced that we would play a joke on Momma. For whatever reason she went along with my idea. Maybe she was mad at Momma or something. I didn't care. The important thing was she was on board with the idea. Yep the cowboy was gonna shoot an Indian. And I was the cowboy. I found an arrow which had somehow been broken in half. My idea had come from a Three Stooges film. There were a few things I needed from inside the house. With great stealth I sneaked into my room and liberated a pair of my Sunday pants from a coat hanger. Mr. Showalter had delivered them from Star Dry Cleaners  the day before. By using a pair of pliers from the back porch I cut a length of wire from the clothes hanger. My sister obliged as I shaped the wire across her head from ear to ear. After removing it I attached a  piece of  arrow to each end of the wire. When I put it over her head the illusion was almost complete! Just one more thing was needed. With Indian like stealth I entered the kitchen and managed to get a bit of catsup from the kitchen table. I put It around the part of the arrow closest to my sister's head. 

The illusion was complete. Then I coached my sister to go crying to my momma telling her that she had been shot by me with an arrow. I did not get to see the actual delivery of my best work. But when I heard my momma's scream, I knew I had been successful. 

Momma only  said to me, "Wait til your father gets home!"

And that was enough. 

It was my grandest, but last, practical joke.