Our family loves to play pranks on one another, and not just at Halloween. It is kind of a prerequisite to joining the Gannon Clan. Get a few of the men together and you better be prepared for some unexpected hocus pocus.
This 'trick', however, did take place on Halloween...a dank, dark night more then 20 years ago. There were a bunch of us up at the Gannon Family cottage in northern Wisconsin to celebrate the holiday weekend. On Halloween night we had taken all the kids to a costume party put on by the local Grade School.
We returned to the cabin after dark and had just settled in, the kids sorting through their stash of candy, when suddenly the lights went out! All the kids (and most of the adults, too) screamed and groped for one another in the pitch black room while someone scurried to light candles.
After the candles were lit and we were milling about, suddenly one of the kids let out a blood curdling scream! There at the dark picture window, his nose pressed to the glass, appeared an illuminated, grisly, monstrously ugly face! After several terrifying minutes, (he made sure all the kids were crying) Ray flipped a switch from the basement and the lights came back on. 'Lumerjack Pete' (we later named him. He was, after all, a north woods ghoul) had disappeared.
It took the kids a long time to settle down....and even after we made Tom-repulsive mask, flashlight, and ladder in hand-come clean, not many of the kids slept a wink that night.
It was quite a memorable frightful 'trick' by the Master Pranksters. A trick that was not appreciated by all. But, a trick we still talk about almost every Halloween.
