Uncle Tommy’s Chainsaw

The Best Halloween Story

Back when I was around 11 years old, my parents had a house in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by a lot of land. For several years straight, we threw a big Halloween party at our house. My dad even hooked up a tractor to a trailer full of hay and gave us all hayrides. Next to Christmas and my birthday, this party was the highlight of the year.

Any decent Halloween party includes costumes, so each year, everyone showed up at our house dressed to impress. I remember one year when my dad’s brother, Uncle Tommy, showed up to the party dressed in all leather. We’re talking leather pants, leather jacket, the whole nine yards. He and his wife were supposed to be bikers, but looking back on it now, Uncle Tommy looked like the missing member of The Village People. That was the same year Uncle Tommy decided to make the night memorable by pulling a prank during the hayride.

That night, after we all piled into the hay-filled trailer, Uncle Tommy sneaked off and propped himself up in the woods. Dad was in on the prank, so the plan was for him to bring the trailer close to where Uncle Tommy hid so my uncle could jump out and scare everyone on the hayride. Uncle Tommy even had a chainsaw — without the chain, of course — ready to really terrorize us all. Unfortunately for Uncle Tommy, things didn’t work out quite as planned.

As we rode through the woods that night, I remember suddenly hearing a loud rumble out in the dark.

VRUMMM!

But nothing happened

VRUMMM!

Still, nothing happened.

To me, it was obviously a chainsaw trying to start. Uncle Tommy tried to get that thing to start up two more times before we heard my uncle saying a few choice swear words. After a few seconds, he came out of the woods with his broken chainsaw, looking so dejected. Dad stopped the tractor for him to get a ride back to the house with us. Trying to salvage some of his pride, Uncle Tommy ran and jumped up onto the back of the trailer. It would have been a cool move had his ridiculous leather pants not ripped from front to back.

I swear the sound of his pants tearing was louder than his chainsaw! They looked like Hulk Hogan had grabbed the sides and ripped them in two. There were 30 people on the hayride, and a lot of them saw more of my uncle than they ever wanted to. Poor Uncle Tommy had to ride in the hay with his ripped Halloween pants and broken chainsaw, wearing a biker hat all the way back to the house. Fortunately, Dad gave him something different to wear for the rest of the party. Uncle Tommy had managed to make that Halloween party memorable, just not in the way he would have liked.

Every year, my mom tells this story to my kids around Halloween, and they go wild with laughter. My kids never got to meet Uncle Tommy, who passed away when I was 14 years old, but his memory lives on in the many stories he left behind and the lessons he taught us. For example, if you’re going to wear leather on Halloween, avoid any acrobatics.