The same group of friends who got very involved in the citizens band
radio hooliganism were also up for a little Dingdong Ditching of an
evening. We did not at the time call it dingdong or even doorbell
ditching we had a much more ugly and racially charged name for it
which I will leave to the uninitiated's imaginations. For those who
may not be familiar with this practice it is just going by houses
late at night and ringing the doorbell and then running off. Not a
lot to do in a small town. One night a car and a van's worth of
ne'er-do-wells stayed late behind the pizza restaurant that my friend
worked as a delivery boy for until he got off and then headed off
looking for a little mischief. We decided to go by a couple houses of
people we knew on that side of town and dingdong ditch them. The
first house we went to was a girl who was not on the romance radar
and was a little annoying. Our older friend ran up and rang the door
bell about twenty times and then ran off to the van being chased by a
rather athletic and quickly responding dude in his early twenties. We
escaped just barely and mainly because we had the element of
surprise. We went to five or six other houses with nothing more
exciting then the porch light coming on. It was getting to be about 1
am and our lunatic friend decided he wanted another swing at the
chaser so we headed back for a rematch. We were poised with the van
door open when he approached the door and gave it a too long set of
rings and then took off with the psycho chaser responding in half the
time and had the van not been rolling and the door open my
friend would have been bagged for sure. We went to a half dozen more
houses and seeking the ultimate dingdong thrill my friend requested a
third go at the chaser. We pulled the van and car up a few hundred
feet down the road so as to not tip our hand and our friend went in
for the final insult. Even though it was now 2:30 in the ante
meridian he had scarcely depressed the bell switch the first time
when the door opened and out shot the dude hot in pursuit with
retribution on his mind. My startled friend scrambled and fell down
the stairs a little and had only made it to the end of the driveway
when he was captured. We didn't see what was happening because we
were on the wrong side of the driveway to see what was going on
behind the car. Our friend struggled a bit was arguing a little and
then came out to the van a few seconds later. He said that the guy
caught him and twisted his arm and told him that he was in the air
force and that if he rang the doorbell at night again he was going to
beat him. I figured that was the night for us and it was time to go
home but wounded pride demanded a final rematch because my friend is
crazy. We drove around the block and came right back my friend was a
little more ready for an ambush this time and the car and van were
both ready for action as he went to the side door this time rang a
good long ring and run jumped in the van and we were pulling off when
the harbinger of doorbell justice realized he had sprung out the
wrong door and was a step behind. We were a couple of blocks away and
not giving too much to our escape and focusing more on laughing when
we saw two sets of headlights pull out of the house we were just at
and start closing the gap on us really fast. The Van and car drivers
connected by the thread of radio took off towards our hometown six
miles away and to more familiar streets for evasion. The pursuers
stayed right with us and when we decided to split and head down
country roads one vehicle stayed on the van and one followed our car.
They followed us up and down streets and through windy roads for over
an hour until we shook them it was a little after four as we sat
parked backwards in some scrub oak on what was then known as the
bench watching the jeep that had been following us make a few furtive
passes up and down the side streets that we had abandoned. He finally
gave up and drove away. We gave it a few minutes to make sure we were
not driving into a trap and then made our way to the pizza delivery
friends house to spend what was left of the night and recount the
thrill of the escape.
