Pranks

  There is something in my nature about pulling pranks on others, especially if they are an unknowing participant.  For someone to not know that I am putting them on can be very funny for me, although some people have no sense of humor.  I have found that some people take things too seriously, which in itself is funny to me.  Take for example a few things I have already written about, such as the woman who burned up her phone, because I told her to put her phone in boiling water.  Or all the people we made phony phone calls to, when I was in college.  Or the time us kids in the neighborhood created a fake story about a plane crash in the swamp.  Or the time I called the White House and wanted to make an appointment for Strom Thurmond with the President. Or the made-up teacher I was going to marry during the pandemic.  The list goes on.

 A couple of others come to mind.  When I went to the movie premiere in Greenville, SC of "The Midnight Man" with a couple of friends, I saw myself in the movie dancing away in Lamar's in Clemson.  40 feet high on the screen.  After the movie was over, some folks wanted to get autographs from the stars who attended, namely Cameron Mitchell.  So, I devised a plan.  I would go into the men's restroom after the movie, and one of my friends would pretend to be a stranger wanting my autograph and would ask for it, while I was in the restroom.  I stopped what I was doing and gave him my autograph.  The others in the restroom asked me if I was anybody.  I said yes and walked out.  I loved seeing the reactions on their faces.  I wonder if someone told their wife that they were at the next urinal to a movie star.  That would have been priceless.  I did have a friend who told me years later that he was once at the next urinal to Gregg Allman in a restroom at the beach.  He wanted an autograph, but Gregg said that he wanted to finish first.

 The other time was at the Dallas-Ft. Worth Airport.  My two seminary friends and I went out there to play a couple of jokes on unsuspecting people.  I was walking in a terminal.  One friend was pretending to take pictures of me with his camera.  The other was trying to get an autograph from me.  The stares we got from others in the terminal were priceless.  There was a lot of people pointing at me and wondering who I was.  My friend with the camera stopped me and pretended to be a reporter asking me questions about why I had come to the Dallas area.  As many real celebrities do, I just shrugged him off and continued walking.  On another occasion at the airport, we went into a restaurant there and looked for a man sitting alone at a table.  We sat at a table close enough for him to hear our conversation.  We talked about hitting it big in Las Vegas and making millions of dollars.  Of course, we really hadn't done that, but we wanted to see his reaction.  At first, he sat there quietly, but you could tell he was listening to us.  When we mentioned the jackpot that we had won, he started leaning into our conversation.  He never made eye contact with us, but we could tell he was envious of our "winnings".

 Life is worth living, when you can laugh at others' reactions to things.  I would have loved to work on "Candid Camera" back in the day.  The point is try not to take things so seriously all the time.  And, never lose your inner child.