Fresh paint
(Editor's note: This school essay was written in 1927 by Ronald Pool. He was about 16 at the time and living in Garden City. He was an uncle to Judy (Mickey) Claassen and Kathy (Freeburne) Winter, both of Peabody. Pool died of complications from multiple sclerosis at the age of 18.)
One Halloween night, as I was walking down the street in Garden City, I met a boy (we shall call him Jack) who used to go to school with me. He asked me if I wanted to have some fun. I consented and he explained the details to me.
We got into my car and he directed me to drive to the eastern outskirts of the town. He pointed out to me a dingy, small, rundown house where a widow lived with several small children.
We then drove back to town and gathered up all the boys we could find and the 10 of us, putting our money together, bought two gallons of paint. We then returned to the little house and, as there was nobody at home, started to work.
Each of four of us took a side of the house while the other six divided into two groups. One group of three painted the roof while the others started sawing and splitting wood. Within three hours 10 tired boys left the little house. I would like to have been somewhere near the next morning when the woman found that her house had a fresh coat of paint and her wood was sawed, split, and piled in the woodshed.
You do not have to destroy property to have a good time on Halloween.
— Ronald Pool
