Thread by @Delafina777

Welp today I learned a family story I never knew before, about how my uncle was quite the hellion as a pre-teen and made his town's one cop miserable, and solved a murder, all before he was old enough to drive.

Settle in, cats & kittens, it's story time.

So my dad's family moved to a small town in Wisconsin for a while when my dad and my uncle, his younger brother by a couple of years, were in (I think) late elementary school.

Dad was a bookish kid, never got in any trouble.

Uncle had gotten arrested like 8 or 9 times before he made it to high school, because he seems to have made it his purpose in life to make a cop--we'll call him Arnie--miserable.

Mostly these were things like planting firecrackers with long fuses in flowerpots outside the church on Halloween.

Arnie was standing in front of one of them when it went off. He was showered with dirt, shrieked like a tiny child, & ended up with a geranium stuck in his hat.

So Uncle got arrested for that, and it was only one of many similar incidents.

The cop started following him around to catch him in 1950s hijinks, and so in revenge, he & his friend started following the cop because they were SURE they could catch him in something sketchy.

CW: DOG DEATH

SERIOUSLY

So there was a local dog who didn't seem to belong to anyone, but followed the mailman around and was fed and beloved by everyone as the mail dog.

Everyone, that is, but Arnie, who for some reason hated Maildog and always claimed he was going to shoot him one day.

Well, one day Uncle and his friend were vengefully following Arnie around on their bikes, and Arnie drove to the dump.

They hid and watched as Arnie took Maildog's body out of his truck and started burying it.

Then he drove off to the tavern for his afternoon drink.

Uncle and his friend dug up Maildog's body and managed to get it to the tavern parking lot, where they tied it to the bumper of Arnie's car and tucked it up under the back end.

So as soon as Arnie drove off, the body fell out from the back and started being dragged behind the car.

So the entire town, in broad daylight, saw Arnie dragging the body of their beloved Maildog behind his car.

Needless to say, the entire town was furious with Arnie for murdering their beloved, sorta collectively owned town Maildog and then disrespecting his body like that.

Arnie spent the rest of his time there a pariah, quit his cop job shortly afterward, and eventually moved.

anyway, I've never convinced a cop to stop being a cop but my uncle managed to do it before he was old enough to need deodorant, so I feel like the greatest among us have already had their day

my dad was embarrassed by his little brother's "prank"

apparently they called complete, bare-knuckled justice a "prank" back in the 50s

Uncle went on to figure out how to make your favorite ice creams, btw:

https://mobile.twitter.com/Delafina777/status/1419348269625274369

Anyway people don’t believe me when I tell them that I’m one of the more boring people in my family but I am