Winter Holiday
Dakota Territory is a land of exhilarating seasonal extremes. During the middle of the summer the sun makes the asphalt, concrete, even common gravel into an oven top. Your eyes beg for shade before discovering that Dakota has no trees. In winter’s frozen belly, your fingers will go numb seconds after you remove them from your pockets. Spring is a wet, sloppy mess. Fall blusters and drags in thick rolls of gray clouds.
Halloween is the occasion winter uses to fully take hold on the northern prairie. During my last October in Dakota, folks took all their yard refuse and filled wide garbage bags colored orange and black to look like jack ‘o lanterns. A surprising number of homeowners decorated this way.
Within moments after the last trick or treater disappeared into their homes, the snow begin to fall. It fell as a thick blanket with stitches falling as flakes. Inch after inch piled up until everyone’s Halloween decorations only poked up through the snow. A few days later, another snow fell, which all but hid the orange trash bags.
Here’s the thing about Dakota…the snow falls then sits until spring comes to clean it up. By late February, roads and parking lots are bracketed by near mountain ranges of piled snow. School children use the massive piles of snow as playground equipment.
Around mid-March, the weather finally shifted and the thermometer slowly eased above thirty-two degrees. The landscape began a slow metamorphosis as well. Heaps of dirty snow began shrinking. Dirt became mud as the semi-arid prairie became saturated with snowmelt.
“Hey Greg, you know those trash bags that looked like jack ‘o lanterns? Do you realize that there are probably still about six thousand of those things still hanging around?”
“Yea, it’s a little weird to see half the town still decked out for Halloween.”
I rub my hands together with mischievous energy. “I’ve got an idea. Let’s borrow your dad’s pickup some night, dress in black, and steal them out of people’s yards. It’s not really a crime right? In fact it’s more like a public service!”
We performed Operation Trick and Take late on a Tuesday night so that the residential roads would be relatively traffic free. We taped a piece of black plastic over the license plate. Greg didn’t want any casual observer to be able to identify us. (you know…in case we had to make a high speed get away from the police…the pickup was a 1946 Dodge with a wooden bed…we weren’t going to escape from anyone).
At a slow predatory crawl, we skirted between streetlights looking for long expired Halloween decorations. We didn’t have to search long. As Greg drove the getaway pickup, I would speed out the door and grab the yard bags. Some were so set into place that they burst open as I pulled them. Others came away freely and were tossed in the bed of the truck.
“I feel so alive!”
The decision to conclude our nefarious activities was not made for us. Before we finished mining the south side of town, the bags were piled well above the cab! There was simply no room for any more.
“So, what are we supposed to do with them now?”
“Well, I guess we could go cruising for chicks. We’re not getting a lot of attention as it is. Maybe this gimmick is exactly what we need to garner a little attention for ourselves if you know what I mean.”
“Not really.”
True to form, not a single female waved us down or even tried to make eye contact with us. The evening wore on and once the sugar from our 44 oz. Bladder Buster worked through our system, we decided to call it a night. But that left us with another problem.
“So what are we supposed to do with these things now? My dad has been leaning on me to get the trash bags out of the pickup.”
I stared down my straw looking for inspiration. A moment later, I found it. “Hey, why don’t we go and pile them up in front of the post office doors! We might even make the paper!”
At 1:30 AM, with only a few lonely drunks to see our activities, we came to a stop in front of the post office and began tossing the yard bags against the front doors both of our expressions a mix of exhilaration and trepidation.
The result? The paper never carried the story but the police blotter did mention that a dog was reported barking on 3rd and Westgate. If we had been more experienced miscreants we would have phoned in our evil deeds. Shucks!
March 27th, 2009 at 12:10 pm
matt thank you and we all love you
March 28th, 2009 at 3:43 pm
You two are frickin crazy!!!!!
Nobody messes with the United States Post Office
April 6th, 2009 at 12:46 pm
These days, we’d be given 30 days in jail and a felony.