Mud Tacks

Every month or so my family would drive across town to visit my Aunt Dorothy and Uncle Bud Love and our three cousins Tommy, Larry and David. Tommy was about my older sister's age, and I was between Larry and David.

One of the things we would do for entertainment after dark was "make mud tacks". This was a highly exciting and (we thought) risky endeavor.

We started by going out in the back yard and loosening up some dirt in a little hole - Uncle Bud's back yard had lots of interesting things, but no grass. We'd add water, and mix up a batch of stiff mud. A lot of the artistry was in getting the mud to just the right consistency - kind of like modeling clay.

Next, we would scoop up the mud and proceed to the street in front of the house. Essex Street was an ordinary neighborhood street, with normal neighborhood traffic. There were no street lights near Uncle Bud's house. We would wait until there were no cars in sight, then dash out and place the mud tacks. These were little globs of mud stuck on the asphalt and then shaped up into a sort of point, hopefully resembling large tacks sitting point up in the street.

We would continue making tacks until headlights were spotted, at which point someone would shout "car!!" (sort of stating the obvious, I see now.) Everyone would madly dash for hiding places around the front of the house - hidden, but able to see the mine field of mud tacks. We would wait with anticipation to see what the driver would do.

If the car slowed down, we had succeeded! If the car drove right by without slowing, we had failed. But failing had no emotional impact - it was still exciting, and we attributed the lack of slowing to a dull driver who didn't notice our dangerous looking obstacles.

The penultimate victory was the very few times the driver actually stopped and got out to see what these things in the road were. Then we would all run wildly around to the back of the house to avoid the possible wrath of an adult driver - filled with giggling and self-congratulations at our triumph.