Ricky Reyer Finally sent in the water tower story:
 
Hello From Cobb County;
      In answer to Harold's request, here is the Water Tower Caper from this reporters eyes.
 
The word and mood  of the day was destruction!  But we couldn't find anything to tear up.  So we marched off to the water tower, Ronnie and Ricky overheard us.  There were a lot of us: Paul, Bob Bishop, Sandy Wiley, Johnny
Ayliffe.  Here I need some help, there were others - maybe Grant , maybe Gene, maybe Dewey ?  We cut through Paul's back yard, who's Father had conveniently built a wood bridge over the chain link fence in their back
yard.  Through the woods where most of our after school activities took place, and out on the street through David Paynes yard.  We headed to the water tower not knowing that Ronnie Jenkins and Ricky Black were following
us.  We got to the tower with the can of black paint to monogram the tower with our beloved schools letters, I think Bob came up with the paint.  It was a scary climb to the top and I remember taking the last step - sitting
on the cat walk - trying to catch my breath from the climb at the same time the fright of the height made my heart beat faster. By that time Bob was already busy painting.  I looked down and here comes Ricky and Ronnie up the tower ladder.  Well - if your like most boys looking down from a bridge or some other high pinnacle, you
can't resist the urge to watch your spit travel the distance to the ground, and then see if you can hit something.  Someone or everyone, who knows, let a big one go, hitting Ronnie on the head.  Ronnie was MAD - so when they got to the top they picked up Paul and held him over the side of the cat walk, maybe a hundred feet up.  Then they told us that if we didn't throw our pants and shirts over the side they would drop Paul!  There was a mad
scramble to get our clothes off and just as I dropped my pants a Dekalb  County Police car pulls up to the tower.  I often wondered what the cops thought, seeing all these underpants- clad young boys climbing down the
ladder!  As I was mounting the ladder I saw a very dirty looking Bob Bishop lying on the catwalk.  It  was not odd to see Bob looking dirty, he always had some sort of grease on his face and hands, but this was red rust color from Bob wallowing on the cat walk trying to evade observation by the police.  :-) Bob in his underpants looking wet from the rain water standing on the cat walk and red as an American Indian!  When we reached the ground and put on our clothes, I noticed that Sandy was walking away and gettin' close to a small stand of pines that started a wooded area - thinking "he's going to run!". If he had run it would have been like popcorn popping out of the popper. We started begging the police to call the Avondale Police to handle the situation, we knew they would be sympathetic to our cause.  I remember hearing the police radio telling the cops to bring us in!  So they piled all seven, I think (?), of us in the back seat of the car. When we got to the Dekalb County Juvenile Lock Up, our parents were called to pick us up. I remember looking around and thinking how slick Bob was for staying on the tower when the Police ordered us down.  As my Mother drove passed the water tower on our way home
she looked at me and said " take a good look, that's the last thing you'll see besides school and
the inside of our house for a long time".  I always wanted to ask Bob if he had to run home in his underpants covered in wet red rust.  Ah - growing up in Avondale.
 
C-Ya
R.R.

5-26-2000