Mischievous Melvin

 

My first part-time job was at a small family-owned grocery store in town, and I couldn’t have been prouder. It wasn’t much—bagging groceries and hauling them out to customers’ cars—but to me, it meant independence, a paycheck, and a foot in the door of the real working world. I was the youngest “bag boy” on staff, still a little wet behind the ears, eager to prove myself.

The owners were good people—a husband and wife team who ran the place like a well-oiled machine, their daughter working one of the registers with a quiet competence. My first day was mostly a blur of brown paper sacks, awkward pleasantries, and hauling groceries to the parking lot under the watchful eye of the older boys. One senior in high school took me under his wing and promised to show me “how to get the good tips.” His strategy? Compliment the customer, especially if it was someone he already knew. “You been to Gertrude’s today?” he’d ask, nodding to their hairstyle. It worked. He’d walk away with dollar bills while I clutched my fifty-cent coins and tried to remember how to make small talk without sounding like I was reading off a cue card.

But for all the good-hearted lessons and occasional kindness, that grocery store had its dark corners. Literally.

On my very first shift, I made the rookie mistake of waiting too long to use the bathroom, determined to stay on the floor and prove my work ethic. When I finally gave in, I hurried to the back storeroom and into the small bathroom tucked away from view. What I hadn’t noticed was the metal hasp on the outside of the door—the kind you could drop a pin through to lock someone in.

I was no sooner seated than I heard the sharp clink of that hasp slamming shut. A few seconds later, someone slid something under the door.

Ammonia.

The sharp, choking fumes hit me like a punch to the lungs. My eyes burned, and I gasped for breath, panicking, clawing at the door, beating on the walls. I couldn’t breathe. Just when I thought I couldn’t take any more, the door opened. The owner stood there shaking his head. “Those guys, always picking on the new kids,” he muttered, before telling me to clean myself up and get back to work.

That was my welcome to the team.

Then there was Melvin.

Melvin was the store butcher, and he could’ve been plucked straight out of a southern tall tale. He was part storyteller, part jokester, and part mad scientist. One Saturday morning, I arrived to find a small crowd gathered at the back of the store. Melvin stood at the center, a wooden box in his hands. “Caught me a weasel,” he announced, eyes twinkling. The box, he explained, was a trap he’d set in the woods behind his house, where he’d supposedly spent hours waiting for this “vicious little critter” to wander in.

He had us hanging on every word. He warned us the thing was nasty—that it could leap out and latch onto your face if given even the smallest opening. I begged to go first, and Melvin, clearly savoring the moment, agreed. “Just crack it a hair,” he said. “Just a hair.”

I leaned in slowly, eyes inches from the lid. At the perfect moment, Melvin flung the lid open—and a spring-loaded raccoon tail shot out and smacked me right between the eyes. I must’ve jumped ten feet in the air. Melvin howled with laughter. So did everyone else.

He got me again a few months later.

One afternoon, Melvin called me over to the meat counter and handed me a package, about the size of a cigar box, wrapped neatly in white butcher paper. “Take this to the boss,” he said, holding one end while I reached for the other.

The moment I had a grip, I felt like I’d grabbed a live wire.

A jolt shot up my arm like lightning. I screamed and dropped the package as Melvin and the older bag boys nearly collapsed laughing. Once I caught my breath, I couldn’t help but admire the sheer creativity behind it—Melvin was more prankster than butcher, and this was his pièce de résistance.

Later, after enough pleading, Melvin agreed to lend me his “shock box.” He made me promise to return it after one day. I had plans.

I showed it off to my friend Mike, and we hopped on our motorcycles and headed to the Leeds city pool. That’s where we spotted Marilyn. She’d just gotten out of the water and was walking barefoot toward the concession stand.

I called out, “Hey Marilyn, can you take this up to the snack counter for me?”

She smiled, always one to help, and reached for the box.

The moment her fingers wrapped around it, I pressed the hidden button on the other end. The shock that passed through her wet, barefoot body must’ve felt like it came straight from the heavens—or hell. She screamed and let loose a string of profanity I didn’t know she had in her. Mike and I nearly fell over laughing—until the reality of what we’d done hit me. It wasn’t funny. Not really.

Melvin’s box was pure mischief. Inside was an old automotive ignition coil, wired up with a 9-volt battery and a doorbell button. A layer of foil conducted the charge right through the butcher paper. Ingenious. Dangerous, in hindsight. What we thought was a harmless prank could’ve gone very wrong.

And Marilyn, well… I still owe her an apology. A real one. It’s been years, but if I ever cross paths with her again, I’ll say what I should’ve said back then.

We all play the fool when we’re young—especially when we think we’re being clever. And sometimes the best stories are the ones that remind us how much growing up we had to do.

Treehouses, Cows, Swisher Sweets, and Playboy

 My adolescent and teenage years were spent in the Rew Development. When we first moved in, our street didn’t even have a real name—it was just called County Road. No number, no directional suffix, just County Road. It sounds odd now, but that’s how it was. Eventually, someone decided that wasn’t good enough and renamed it President Street, which sounds much more official, even if it didn’t change anything for us kids.

Right across from our house was a wide-open pasture with a small herd of cows. That field became one of our favorite places to fly kites. The cows usually stayed out of our way, meandering off to the far side of the pasture like we were more trouble than we were worth. Most of the time, anyway. I say that because one day I was cutting through the field on my way to my best friend’s house when I must’ve done something to offend the herd. Maybe it was the way I walked, or the sound of my lunchbox, but whatever it was, those cows suddenly took notice—and then took off after me.

There were maybe eight or ten of them, and when they started charging, I dropped everything and ran like my life depended on it. And maybe it did. I barely cleared the fence before they caught up. That little stampede kept me out of that pasture for quite a while. Eventually the cows were sold off, and the field became “ours” again. It was filled with broom sedge—some folks call it broom straw—a tall, rust-colored grass that grew about three feet high. It was perfect for playing hide and seek. You could drop flat on your stomach and disappear from sight in an instant. On the rare occasions when it snowed, that pasture turned into a snowy battlefield, the site of epic snowball fights that left us soaked, frozen, and grinning like idiots.

In time, the family that owned the land sold it off, and someone built a log cabin directly across the street from our house. One by one, more houses went up on that side of the road. For most people, that kind of development might seem like the end of the fun—but for us kids, it was just the beginning of a new kind of playground.

We made a daily habit of pestering the construction workers for scrap wood. Most of the time they were good-natured about it and would toss us whatever odds and ends they had lying around. We used every board, nail, and piece of plywood to build treehouses in the woods. When the workers left for the day, we’d sneak into the unfinished houses to explore. We’d climb through the rafters, crawl around under the foundations, and scavenge for anything useful to add to our forts. I swear we knew more about those houses than the people who eventually moved into them.

When I was in seventh or eighth grade, the Nelms brothers—who were a few years older than me, built the ultimate treehouse in a big oak tree right near the Leeds water treatment plant. That’s where the Leeds Memorial Park is now. Their treehouse was legendary. It sat high in that tree, just off the road that led to the sewage plant, and we knew it was off-limits. But that didn’t stop us from sneaking in when they weren’t around.

Me and a couple of my buddies would keep an eye on that treehouse like it was a military outpost. As soon as the Nelms boys rode off on their bikes or disappeared for the day, we’d make our move. We weren’t interested in the treehouse itself—we were after their stash. Swisher Sweet cigars and Playboy magazines. The holy grail of pre-teen rebellion. We thought we were living large: puffing on cheap cigars, flipping through glossy pages we barely understood, and laughing like fools.

One of my buddies even brought a bottle of English Leather cologne with him every time. After our little smoke session, we’d splash that stuff on like we were getting ready for a date with Raquel Welch. We genuinely believed the cologne would mask the smell of cigar smoke. It didn’t. But our parents never said anything, so either it worked—or they just figured there were bigger battles to fight.