The best tool we had to slow the
trolleys down was a four-foot piece of rope. We would tie a large knot
on each end and walk out onto the street when there was no traffic
and swing the rope up and over the trolleys power lines.
When the trolleys trailing arms hit the rope they would split
apart and the trolley would lose power. The driver had to stop the
trolley, get out and walk around back, and set the tailing arms back
on the power lines. We would be across the street in the woods
laughing at him.
One night little Jim showed up with a fruit jar full of
gunpowder. The four of us grew up watching "Tom Mix, and "Roy Roger"
movies and in almost every movie there was a scene where a bad man was
putting a match to a line of black gunpowder that led over to a pile
of stacked gunpowder barrels. Our plan was to draw a line across the
road with the gunpowder and when the trolley was twenty feet away from
the line put a match to it.
The trolley was hauling down the street; Jim bent over the
gunpowder and drops a match on it. The wind blew the match out. The
four of us got down on our knees and opened our coats to help block
the wind and Jim put a match to the gunpowder.
There was a bright white flash. I stood up, yelling I can't
see. There were white dots, dancing around my eyeballs, I could hear
the others yelling too. I felt a hand on my shoulder; it was the
police, leading the others and me over to the police car.
We were taken to the hospital to be examined since we had flash
burns on our cloths and face. The police took our phone numbers and
called our parents. We were never charged with anything. I think they
felt sorry for us. The next day at school I was asked how I got
sunburn in the middle of winter.
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