The Idaho Cop Who Got Caught Smashing Pumpkins

He shared the story on my radio program. A retired Idaho cop was once shot with rock salt. As he attempted to steal a pumpkin from a porch. In Lewiston. Long before he wore the uniform. He was just a kid at the time. The homeowner was ready and pulled the trigger. The lesson? Rock salt hurts and vandalism doesn’t pay!

Last year, just before Halloween, I mentioned soaping windows to some younger fellows at work. They looked at me as if I was speaking a foreign language. They had never heard of the tradition. When I was a boy, there were kids in the neighborhood armed with bars of soap. They would smear it on car windows, and even windows of houses. It was considered a trick versus a treat.

It got to the point where stores in town wouldn’t sell soap to kids in October.

If your mom sent you to the store for toilet paper, you were also coming home empty-handed. It was common the morning after Halloween to see tissue draped from tree branches all across town. And neighbors scraping and scrubbing windows.

When I was 30, I moved to a town where the kids roamed neighborhoods hosing other kids and property with shaving cream. That was a new one, and I didn’t see it after my next move.

Toilet paper dissolves, soap and shaving cream wash away. Smashing things is another level. Including smashing pumpkins.

Nobody ever smashed or took our pumpkins from our porch. My dad was six-and-a-half feet tall and very loud. Our windows didn’t get soaped, and we didn’t see any T.P. Big dads are deterrents, and probably not considered assault, like a load of rock salt. Be smart as a kid, and be smart as a homeowner.