I've been ignoring this thing so hard because I got a lot of bad stories. My father is a pugnacious and damaged alcoholic who has been losing his one-man war against the world since he came out of the womb, Rh-incompatible and two hours by dirt road from any hospital. One of the original downwinders he has spent his life decrying the overreaction and panic associated with nuclear energy, nuclear fallout and nuclear testing.

But he took part in a good senior prank.

I went to the same high school he did. When he went there it was in the process of expanding. When I went there it was in the process of contracting. The library that was too big for us was just getting built for him - a round thing with parapets and mid-century wonderment at the end of four long masonblock bunkers (A, B, C and D wing) designed to withstand nuclear war.

The library was sited in the center of the courtyard where a 60-foot flagpole had been. While the library was under construction, the flagpole was lain on its side, a 60-foot toothpick with a massive 8-foot disc of concrete at the base. One fine Monday morning the school opened with a flagpole (and associated concrete disc) running the length of D-wing.

There were many threats, much recrimination and outrage from the administration as to the inconvenience and cheek. More than that, there was consternation as to how to deal with it. For two weeks students stepped over a 60-foot flagpole on their way to English class and a subsection of unlucky kids had to work around an 8-foot disc of concrete that didn't block their lockers, just made them inconvenient. At the beginning of Week 3 a work crew was called in to chop the flagpole into 6-foot sections while the concrete base was rolled out. No one ever figured out how it was done.

One of my dad's friends had noticed that the forklift left on the worksite didn't have a key. Another of my dad's friends had noticed that despite A through D wing being made of rebar-reinforced mason block, there was a junction box at the end about two bricks high. And my dad was a pretty good welder. So they picked the lock to get into D-wing, pulled the fuses and plate to turn the junction box into a hole, carefully cut the flagpole off its base with a hacksaw, fed it through the hole at the end of the hallway, and then fired up the forklift and hauled the concrete base 250 yards to the end of D-wing where my dad welded it back together, ground down the weld, then aged it and dirted it up to hide the injury.

My dad, never content to leave well enough alone, finished out the year with his own senior prank. He welded the doors to the auto shop shut.

Destruction. My dad is good at destruction.