Fork Wars, in memory of Scott Conner

When I was a freshman at Austin College, my roommate Kathryn was dating Scott Conner’s roommate Dan, so the four of us would hang out together a lot. Scott had a really weird sense of humor, which was part of the reason that I liked him, and he was always pulling pranks and practical jokes on people.

On Halloween of 1990, I decided to pull a little joke on Scott. Earlier in the day, Kathryn and I had gone to Kroger, where we bought three boxes of white plastic forks in preparation. Forks were all we needed for this prank — forks, and luck.

We waited until almost midnight, then snuck out the side door of our dorm and loitered for a few minutes, trying to get up the nerve to cross the street. Finally, we crouched low and dashed across Grand Avenue to Dan and Scott’s house, forks in hand. We lurked behind some bushes in the side yard, and could tell by the noises coming from inside that there was some sort of party going on.

We figured that we were safe for a while – no one would hear us over the din of the party. So as quickly as we could, we forked Scott’s yard. We took all 72 white plastic forks and stuck them, tines up, into the ground. There were forks damn near everywhere, because it was a pretty small yard. As my final hurrah, I snuck up onto the front porch and put a fork in the mail clip next to the door. And then we took pictures — with the flash! I was so certain that someone was going to come out the front door and catch us, but luck was with us that night. We ran as fast as we could back to our dorm.

The next day, I ran into Dan on campus, and he told me that Scott walked outside that morning and just stood there, completely speechless, totally dumbfounded by his front yard which was now inexplicably covered in forks.

Three days later, I received an unmarked oatmeal container in my campus mail box. Inside were 72 white plastic forks, covered in dirt.

I do not remember how Scott found out that Kathryn and I had done the forking. Most likely, we were so pleased with ourselves that we confessed. Scott had pulled a lot of pranks on other people, but it was very rare that someone could actually “get” Scott. And we got him!

Scott never forgot the prank, because for years afterward, every time he went on a trip he sent me a postcard or a photograph that had a fork somewhere in it. He’d write a note on the back and substitute the word “fork” somewhere in every sentence!

Scott died on March 30, 2002. He had been fighting Hodgkins’ Lymphoma, a form of brain cancer, for more than two years. He had been doing better after stem cell therapy, but succumbed to an infection.

Scott was a dedicated photographer, and his family is in the process of putting together a book of his favorite photographs. They asked me to contribute some of the fork pictures that Scott took, along with the story of how it all started.