State Law - Watch For Saxophone Players

I'm sure you've seen those signs at all the crosswalks to yield to pedestrians. Even little Grand Lake has them. We don't have any traffic lights yet, although there was a time years ago, when we did have one(sort of). John Henry Rhone worked for the town and decided to play a practical joke one day. He built a stop light out of cardboard and painted it to look like it was red. He hung it on a cable that ran across Grand Ave. at Garfield, where the four way stop is now. Needless to say, people stopped and waited for the light to turn green, which it never did.
Keeping with tradition, I played a little main street practical joke of my own a few years back. The town put up these new pedestrian crossing signs at every intersection down Grand Ave. with the little stick man on a crosswalk pictured on them. My good friend and musical partner, Walter Holland, thought they were intended for him being as he was about the only black person living in town.
So armed with a pair of scissors, some black construction paper and a bit of glue, I decided to really personalize them for Walter. One rainy night I attached little black saxophones to the little black men all the way down main street. I guess Bernie, the head of town maintenance, enjoyed my sense of humor and left them on for a couple weeks so everyone could yield to Walter as they drove carefully down Grand Avenue.
A little practical joke now and then is good for the soul I think. Like the time John Henry and Ray Berry rigged up a fake explosive plunger for then Mayor Gene Stover to use as a switch to turn on the new street lights that had just been finished. Little did Gene or anyone else know that it was planned to have some real dynamite go off right as Mayor Stover pushed down the plunger. Well it scared the hell out of everybody and then they handed Gene a real light switch, said,"or you might try this" and that lit up the town the way it was supposed to. BEAUTIFUL!!!