Introducing Billy
Grandpa’s Story
By Delbert Blickenstaff 

Grandpa has told me many stories about happenings when he was younger.  He’s not going to write them down but I think some of them should be recorded, especially this one.  So here goes. 

Grandpa was the principal at the high school in a small town in Indiana.  In those days some people still used outside toilets called privies or outhouses.  I didn’t even know what a privy was until Grandpa explained it to me. 

One of the favorite Halloween pranks was to overturn people’s privies in those days.  Imagine the trouble someone would be in if he got up the next morning and went out to find his privy lying on the ground.  Some would think it a big joke. 

Well, one year some people thought it would be a good joke to move Grandpa’s privy to the center of town.  So they did and they put a sign on it which read “Principal’s Office.”  Of course they didn’t know that Grandpa had a toilet inside his house and didn’t really need the privy. 

Grandpa decided he was going to ignore the “joke” so he left the privy sitting in the middle of town.  Finally, after a few weeks people got tired of driving around it so they brought it back.  Grandpa didn’t say anything but he decided that he had the last laugh. 

Billy