Tradition has troubling twist
Staff writers
As costumed kids haunting homes to stuff sweets into sacks began concluding their chores around 9 o’clock Halloween night, another Marion tradition took over — one with new tricks that at times treated motorists to treacherous travel.
A fleet of half a dozen or more pickup trucks, some with evidence of their mission still rattling around in open beds, cautiously darted in and out of side streets, surveying previous strafing before gathering just west of Marion Auto Supply for a final run.
Five blocks to the east, a gaggle of girls, shepherded by City Council member Amy Smith, watched in wonder at the fleet’s first efforts as police officers and sheriff’s deputies blocked traffic to clear debris and then hid in Central Park’s driveway to deter repeat efforts.
Informed of where those responsible had gathered, an officer nevertheless took off in the opposite direction to examine other locations touched by Marion’s traditional Halloween prank: the spilling of hundreds of hedge apples on the Main St. hill.
This year, in homage to past efforts to relocate flaming outhouses along Main St., a porcelain toilet — pulverized by its dumping — was added to the payload.
Trucks zooming past areas from Eisenhower Dr. to Marion Elementary School to the Performing Arts Center to Lincoln, Locust, Lawrence, Elm and Walnut Sts. deposited load after load of softball-size, yellow-green fruit of Osage orange trees.
On the Main St. hill, not only were hedge apples dropped. Repeated runs by fleet members mashed the misplaced balls into a sticky mess that covered the street from curb to curb and occasionally caused other vehicles to fish tail while climbing the slimed hill.
Smith, waiting for her young charges to return to her sport-utility vehicle, was amazed.
In Nebraska, where she had resided before moving here, hedge apples, also known as hedge balls, had been prized items — sold for $5 apiece as supposed (though debunked) guardians against insects in basements.
Littering downtown Marion with them has been a mostly innocent Halloween tradition for more than 50 years.
But this year, differences concerned authorities like interim Police Chief Zach Hudlin.
The dumping lasted about 15 minutes.
“They’re usually pretty quick about it,” Hudlin said.
Most years, hedge apples are dumped mainly on Main St. and some on Lincoln St. This year, intentionally or not, they littered a wider area, cleaned up the next morning by city work crews.
The toilet, which police and sheriff’s deputies had to block off traffic to remove, was a new twist, Hudlin said.
More worrisome, he said, was that pranksters intent on smashing the balls sometimes drove over curbs along Central Park, scaring pedestrians on the sidewalk.