Whatever Wednesday: Les Anderson Memories!

Hello Posse!

I hope everyone is having a fabulous April Fools Day and have not been too irritated by pranks from the loved ones with whom you are quarantined. I have never been one for April Fool's pranks except for one time in my life and it always makes me remember my college advisor, journalism teacher, and long time friend, Les Anderson.

Les owned the newspaper in Valley Center, Kansas when I was a kid growing up there. He was also the cousin of one of my best friends, who we will just call Mary for this story. In Valley (as we all call it for short) there is a well known bridge that is reported to be haunted by the ghost of Theorosa. Mary and I and a male friend of ours, we will call him Sport (for my own amusement), decided one night to try to find the bridge.

To make a very long story short, we were no where near the bridge, got lost, and had car trouble. Sport did not want to walk in the dark to a strange farm house to call for help, so I left Mary and Sport in the car while I hiked in heels and a skirt on sand loaded farm roads, about half a mile just to have the homeowners at the first house turn off all their lights when I knocked on their door. I then started to hike to the next house I could see, about another quarter of a mile away. Sport caught up to me about halfway there, saying Mary made him come check on me.

Luckily, the next house belonged to one of my classmates and we were able to call Mary's dad, who was a mechanic. He came out and got the car started for us so we could get home. The very next issue of the Valley newspaper had a special notice in the personal section.

It read:

Mary, Dianne, and Sport,

Stay away from my bridge!

Love, Theo.

Our story of getting lost in the boonies was well known around Valley after that.

Now, let's jump ahead several years. I was in college studying journalism and by chance, Les Anderson is assigned as my college advisor. I was also taking a few writing classes with him and our journalism class goes to a writing conference out of state. The last day of the conference just happened to fall on April 1st.

I was rooming with a few other women I was friends with and I con them into helping me prank Les. I start off by going to the front desk and telling them I am Les' daughter and it is my job to help him keep our students on schedule while at this conference.

Since we had several students miss seminars on the first day, we wanted to change everyone's wake up calls for an hour earlier the last day. Except for our room, of course, because we got up on time. The front desk staff didn't even question it.

The next day, we came down for breakfast complaining that we didn't get our wake up call while our fellow students complained that their wakeup calls were an hour too early. We all acted appropriately perplexed.

When it came time to leave for the seminars, my friends and I got in my car and left with everyone else but we went shopping instead of to the conference. We bought Kool-Aid, plastic Easter Eggs, Easter Grass, cling wrap, and Vaseline. Then we headed back to the hotel.

My friends went straight upstairs while I went to the front desk. Again, I introduced myself as Les' daughter and said he had gone to the conference with our room key and I was locked out. I had come back to get some important papers for a speech Les was giving in half an hour to a packed auditorium and could they please let me into the room. Again, they did not even question me and handed me a key to his room. It was about this time that I began to realize I have a talent for BS.

I went upstairs where my friends were waiting for me in the hall outside of Les' room. They were all just as shocked as I that I had actually gotten the key. We quickly went in and proceeded to booby trap the entire room. Vaseline on the phone and all the handles, Kool-Aid in the shower head and toilet tank, cling wrap on the toilet and . . . well you get the idea.

As we were making little nests of Easter Eggs around the room, we found a fairly large wad of cash just sitting on the desk. I remember we were all impressed how trusting he was to just leave it sitting out like that. He had a jacket hanging on the desk chair so we put the money in the breast pocket. Then we left and went to the seminar for the rest of the day.

Later that night, everyone met up for dinner at a local restaurant. I excused myself and headed for the bathroom but snuck around and ordered a birthday surprise for Les. After dinner, the entire wait staff came out placing a chocolate cake in front of Les and sang happy birthday to him. It was not his birthday and Les was diabetic.

After the "birthday" celebration, I wished him a very happy April Fools Day with an obviously smug grin. It was then everyone knew who the instigator behind all the mischief was. Later, Les told me I should not have owned up to it all, because now he would have to get me back. Sadly, he never did. But considering he kind of got me first, I was just evening the score.

I hope you all have a wonderful and fun All Fools Day!

Enjoy,

Dianne

P.S. Note to Les, I went back and took out most of my "thats". See, I did listen to you.

Quarantine Bordem Buster:

Card game for adults: Speed

You will need:

1 Deck of cards (if you have more players you can always use two decks of cards)

At least two players

To play:

For two players- Deal the cards face down into six separate places

20 cards (draw pile)

5 cards (reserve pile) 1 card (<-- cards you play on -->) 1 card 5 cards (reserve pile)

20 cards (draw pile)

Each player has a draw pile, a beginning play card, and a reserve pile.

Each player begins by drawing five cards from their draw pile.
When players are ready the both turn over their play card in the center.
Each player then tries to play as many cards out of their hand as quickly as possible.
They can place any card that is one higher or lower than is showing in either play pile. For example: if the play card is a 10 players can lay a 9 or jack on top of it. If the card is an Ace, players can play a King or a 2 on it, etc.
If a player can lay down all of the cards in their hand, they win.
However, if they cannot lay down all of the cards and neither player can play, both must replenish their five card hands from the draw pile and continue play.
If both players hold five cards but cannot play, they both must flip the top card from their reserve pile onto the play pile and continue play until someone plays all their draw pile cards or players have used all the cards in the reserve pile and no one can play.
The winner of the hand is the person to play all the cards in their hand and draw pile or with the fewest cards left in their hand and draw pile when no one can make any plays.
The winner of the hand earns 1 point for each card their opponent still has in their hand and draw pile.
The winner of the game is the first person to reach 25 points.