It Sure Beats Being T.P.ed

I had a conversation today about having campaign signs stolen that reminded me of an incident from my teen years.

It happened in the early 1980's. It was election time and there was a candidate running for supervisor who's last name happened to be the same as my first name. All around town were signs proclaiming, "MOODY" in big bold letters and under that, "supervisor".

Well very early one morning, round about 2am, My dad is awakened by someone knocking on our front door. He gets up to answer it, opens the door, and is astonished to see at least a hundred of Mr. Moody's campaign signs in our front lawn, along with a few of his 4'x8' plywood signs propped against the tree and cars.

Dad woke us all up to see this amazing display. I must say I was quite flattered to see my name all over our lawn. It was quite the tribute. However, my dad was FREAKING OUT. He knew we'd get in big trouble if anyone saw all these stolen signs, so unfortunately he plucked them all up out of the grass and stashed them in the garage before anyone else woke up and saw them.

I'm pretty sure my dad surreptitiously got rid of the signs, but thinking back I don't know why we didn't just call this candidate's office and tell him what happened.

None of my friends would ever admit to the mischief, but I pretty much knew who had done it.

At any rate, the gentleman in question went on to be elected and is now a senator, so I guess all those missing signs didn't hurt his campaign too badly. It did however, make a very shy, awkward teenager feel very special.