The Mischievous Adventures of Joe Costa: Part 2

Yesterday I had the pleasure of interviewing my mom to get more details about my Grandpa Joe's childhood shenanigans.  She said he would lay awake at night thinking of pranks to pull on people in the town.  Here are a few more of his stories.

Bob on the left, Joe on the right.

The Two Old Maids

There were two old maids who lived next to each other in my Grandpa's neighborhood.  The ladies both had flower gardens, water pumps, and porch swings in front of their houses.  Grandpa Joe, his brother Bob, and some of their friends took advantage of the fact that these ladies didn't like each other.  

First, they removed one of the lady's porch swings and threw it over a hill.  Then, they took the other lady's swing and put it where the first one was.  They did the same thing with their water pump handles.  They also switched the flowers in their gardens.

It backfired on the kids because when the old maids began accusing each other, figured out it was neighborhood kids pulling pranks, and became great friends.

The Bumbling Sheriff

The next victim of Grandpa Joe's pranks was the town sheriff.  He was a heavy set, clumsy man who always had food all over the front of his shirt, wore ankle boots with one pant leg tucked in and one out, and only half of his shirt was tucked in.  There was an old widow in the town who owned the Welcome Inn and my Grandpa and his buddies would stir up some sort of trouble with her so she would call the sheriff.

This was happening in Ohio when it was freezing, so the sheriff would leave his car running and rush inside the Inn to take his report.  While inside, Grandpa Joe would jack the wheels of his car up, just barely off the ground.  They would hide in the tree above the car, trying desperately to hold back their laughter, and wait for the sheriff to come back out.

When he would try to leave, his car wouldn't move and the wheels would just spin, so he would have to go back inside and call a tow truck.   While he was inside, they would remove the jack so when the tow truck came, there would be nothing wrong with the car and the sheriff looked like a fool.

The Old Farmer

There was an old farmer in the town who had a chicken house.  My Grandpa and his friends would stuff burlap sacks into his chimney so his house would fill up with smoke.  They would also attach a string to the leg of a rooster and hide up in the trees while they waited for the farmer to fall asleep.  After a while, they would pull on the string and the rooster would go wild, stirring up all the chickens.  The farmer would wake up, grab his gun, and go outside to protect his animals from what he thought was a fox or wolf.

Once he went back inside, they would wait until the farmer was back to sleep, and do it all over again.  Sometimes, this would happen all night.  Eventually, he realized it was neighborhood kids and fired his gun up in the trees where they were hiding.  Thankfully, no one got hurt.