Booby Trap

A story about enemies

One of my best friends in grade school was Tom. Or Tommy, as we called him. One of my (and Tommy’s) enemies, so far as it’s possible to have enemies at that age, was Sturgis. That was his last name. I don’t remember his first. Anyway, we just called him Sturgis. We disliked the entire Sturgis family. I have no idea why.

Behind my house, there were a series of bike trails that criss-crossed and circled the orchards. One path in particular was used more than others. Used by Sturgis. We decided to build a booby trap for him. Our trap consisted of two tree trunks, cut and then “planted” on each side of the trail, sticking straight up maybe 6 feet. We then balanced a log on top, reaching across the trunks. A shorter, crooked stick was placed across the trail, and yet another was propped on that, running up the side of one of the trunks. It’s hard to explain, but the idea was that anyone riding their bike between the trunks would run over the crooked stick, causing it to wiggle the vertical stick, knocking the log off the top and falling on the head of any fool who triggered the whole thing. Fortunately, it didn’t work, and no one got hurt. What the hell were we thinking?