One, about Four Corners sledding in Lee’s boyhood, I’ll save for another time. But though another probably should be tucked away for next Halloween’s column, is just too good not to pass on at once. The great thing in this case is that, rather than my column raising somebody else’s memories, Lee’s story raised one from my past. But first, Lee’s story. I’ve filled it out a bit with my own imaginings, but I’m think I’ve stuck pretty close to Lee’s adventure:

In Lee’s boyhood, Fly Creek had a public telephone booth on the curb next to Portabello’s present location. The booth wasn’t the boxy type built of brushed aluminum and glass (even that kind is disappearing now), but the earlier model: wooden, tall and narrow, with Ma Bell’s bell-shaped symbol on its windows and with a skinny accordion door that opened and closed on piano hinges.

The booth’s inside dimensions were pretty close to those of a coffin stood on end; and if you were, say, a largish woman with a bag of groceries, you’d be challenged to squeeze in and get the door pulled shut behind you. Then, wedged inside between the small seat and the little shelf with telephone above it, you’d be hard put to get a hand into your purse for a dime. (Yep, a dime. We’re talking a lot of decades ago, friends.)

Through the summer and into the fall when Lee and his buddies were 14 (Oh, blessed age for boys!), they eyed that phone booth as they lounged around the Four Corners. By first frost, they’d developed a plan, and Halloween saw them ready to implement it.

By then they’d built themselves a dummy, life-sized. Its pants and shirt were packed tight with old rags, gloves were attached to its sleeves, and old boots to its trouser cuffs. Its head, topped with a wool watch cap, was made of heavy canvas, and the boys took some trouble to mold it with a presentable nose and chin.

Past midnight on that Halloween, Fly Creek’s Four Corners was deserted and the surrounding houses dark. The only signs of life were music and loud laughter from up the road at the Fly Creek Hotel.

After double-checking that the way was clear, the boys dragged their dummy through the darkness and propped it, standing, against the telephone booth’s door. Then they ran a light rope from its waist, across the road and to a spot alongside Aufmuth’s (now Tom Bouton’s) store. There they crouched and waited _ probably close to peeing themselves with excitement.

Soon they heard sounds of their prey: hooting laughter, the slam of a car door, the grinding of a starter, all from just up the road at the hotel. They grinned. Too good! Somebody who’d been emptying mugs into the night was starting home from the bar. They heard him gun the motor, spray gravel as he backed, clash gears as he shifted into first and turned east on Route 28. The boys held their breath as the headlights swung their way and lit the black roadway.

Now, I know you’ve never driven in a drunken state, but imagine yourself behind the wheel of that car, eyes slightly out of focus, concentrating hard to stay on the asphalt and off front lawns. You’re doing OK, you think. Now you’re coming into Fly Creek’s Four Corners, lit by a single streetlight.

You’re about to pass the telephone booth when, good Lord! A figure has stepped jerkily from its shadows and into the road, right into your path. You gasp, slam on the brakes. Too late! Your car has knocked down the figure, your wheels, front and back, have ground over it.

As you would have done, the driver that night screeched to a stop, threw open his door, dragged himself out moaning, "Oh my God! Oh my God!" He staggered along the side of his car, looking behind it for his victim.

But the victim was gone. From across the way, alongside the general store, the boys had yanked their run-over dummy all the way across the road and reeled it in next to them. They now crouched wide-eyed, open-mouthed, as the drunk searched for the body, then sat back against his trunk. rubbing his face.

They watched the man circle the car again, muttering, still searching. And they saw his first horror give way to confusion, then shift to suspicion, then blaze into to rage. He was glaring now, shading his eyes and sweeping his gaze around the Four Corners. That’s when the boys whooped and ran like blazes as the drunk roared and shouted death threats after them.

They took their dummy home and stashed it, perhaps to use on another Halloween. They never did, but no matter. That one use made for a lifetime memory. Just ask Lee.

Read about Jim Atwell’s new book, "From Fly Creek _ Celebrating Life in Leatherstocking Country" at Jim Atwell.com.