When I was in elementary school, my daddy used to wake me up early on Nov. 1. We must allow extra time before going to school to take a ride through downtown Union on the morning after Halloween to see what the high school boys had done. Soaped windows and tires burned in the streets just began the pranks they had completed. Sometimes we were even awakened in the night if someone had managed to sound the fire alarm on top of the water tank behind City Hall.
However, all the pranks were not saved for Halloween. In an earlier column, the late Mr. Conan Whitten made reference in his memories to the time a group of boys managed to get a cow upstairs in the study hall of the h
igh school. That story has passed orally throughout the years, leaving many people curious about how that prank happened and who did it. Thanks to my uncle Beverly Ricks, who responded to that reference, we finally have answers. In a book that he has written called “From the Great Depression into the New Millennium,” he has a selection entitled “A Cow Goes to School.” With his permission, the printed story comes back to Union:
“The little stunt that will be described here indirectly involved Mr. V.D. Thomas. In the spring of 1944, some of the upperclassmen (we 10th graders merely followed along) decided to celebrate the approaching end of the school year by carrying out an ingenious little prank.
“Some of them took a rope and led Mr. Thomas’ cow out of a small pasture behind his house and led it onto the school grounds. A volunteer was hoisted up to a window of one of the rooms at the back of the school, and then he opened the back door. Some of them then pulled the cow up the back stairs – while others were pushing or twisting the cow’s tail, with the rest of us excitedly crowding along to see what was going to happen – and then led the cow along the upstairs hallway and into the study hall.
“This was a large room, and by the windows along the east side was a long rope hanging down to the floor from the very high ceiling. At the end of each class period, the study hall teacher would pull on this rope to ring a very large and loud bell located on the roof. It was just about midnight when the cow’s head was pulled upward and quickly tied to the bell rope. As the cow was released and started pulling at the rope, the school bell began to loudly ring.
“Looking out the windows, we could see a porch light come on in the principal’s house across the schoolyard, and we saw Mr. Tennyson rapidly running toward the school. This was our signal to run equally rapidly down the stairs and out the back door, where we all dispersed toward our homes!
“I never learned the outcome of this particular prank, and how the very studious cow was identified, how she was manipulated down the school stairs, and what was Mr. V.D. Thomas’ reaction when he found that his missing cow had been attending study hall at Union High School. Such shenanigans were quite common at that time, however. A later class even stole a buggy or small wagon from someone in town and hoisted it to the top of the flagpole in front of the school.”
So now, thanks to Uncle Beverly, we have the story — no names — but the story. However, the last sentence brings a further question. Is there another story about the wagon on the flagpole that we should hear?
Here are this week’s additional questions:
• The First Baptist Church auctioned off the house behind it on the northeast corner of Horne and Walnut Streets in 1963 before building the kitchen and carpeted area addition. Who had previously owned that house?
• Where was the Southland Station that McCarty and Moore opened in 1964?
If you have memories, please contact me at 109 Woodhaven Dr., Union 39365, or 601-774-5564 or teresablount26@yahoo.com.
