Halloween Night

I was about 14 years old. My mom had died in February and I moved to Duncan, Arizona with my Dad. Virden, New Mexico was about six miles from Duncan. I was born in Virden and I went through the 8th grade there. Douglas Merrill was the school janitor at Virden at that time. They burned coal at the school to heat it. They dumped the ashes on the dirt road in front of the school.

Every Halloween the bell was stolen from the school. Douglas Merrill had been a scoutmaster of my borther. He was very mean to my brother. On a scout trip he made my brother cry because he told him what a bad person my father was in front of the whole scout troop. Douglas Merrill was the bad person. He had 8 or 9 kids. He made his wife work and they all lived in an unfinished house. He would take off and leave for months at a time. He didn't work very much. He was worthless. Getting back to Halloween Night, my Dad had just bought a new green Chevy pick up. Being 14 and having a driver's license, Stub Stewart and I decided to go to Virden on Halloween Night.

We went up to the junkyard and found an old junk car with no wheels on it. We hooked up the junk car with a chain and proceeded to go through the town of Virden. The street of Virden were not paved and we made a massive dust storm dragging this car through town.

We went by the school and the chain came loose. I stopped and back up. Stub jumped out and rehooked the old car. Unknown to us, Douglas Merrill was heading across the street from the school to catch any bell thieves. as we started to take off again, he jumped into the back of our pick up. We were doing about 60 miles per hour down the streets of Virden, there was a lot of dust. I slowed down and asked Douglas Merrill what he wanted. He said, "I want out!" He jumped out. Good riddance to bad rubbish.

Stub and I took off again and got on the oiled highway. Behind us that old car looked like a rocket with sparks streaming out behind it.

We went around a curve and the car swung out and wrapped around a telephone pole and came loose from the truck. We just left it.