Eight years old and spooked-out as our favorite horror monster Creature From The Black Lagoon. Lookin' our Ben Cooper best, too - cheap store-boxed Gill-man costume with vacuum-formed PVC plastic half face mask and silk screened smock that tied in the back hospital gown style. One size fit one, so for most the eye holes didn't align and you were constantly adjusting the thing for viewing one eye or the other. Best practice was to just wear the thing catcher-mask style when not behind home plate - until the elastic head band would eventually break. The smock hung like a potato sack and was constructed from a paper-thin synthetic fabric that whiffed off some space-age plastic polymer chemistry. If you're a shorter kid it's a bit clumsy and hazardous, too. While walkin' you'd occasionally plant a step on the longer draped smock and go stumbling face down. The box graphics, indicating in large type the costume to be "flame retarded", always caught our attention. We took it to understand that the legal department recognized that the suit could ignite and go up in flames and are covering their asses in event of mishap due to Halloween shenanigans. We always imagined a scene akin to the old (urban) legend ya' used to hear of the new bride, brewin' some morning after coffee, who got too close to the stovetop burner while wearin' her thin slinky honeymoon negligee and went up like a struck match (everyone was a product tester back in those days - now'days they're not allowed to sell half the stuff).
(Internet Image)
We're costumed and headin' out to march in our first, and subsequently last, city Halloween parade. The parade began around 7pm, well past 'fall-back' standard time 5pm darkness. Mom drops me and the buddies off at the staging area and books to find a spectator stance en route. The 'trick-or-treaters' are assembled en masse and are to bring up the rear of the parade. A contingent comprising the typical city officials, parade queen, decorated floats, emergency, fire and military squads and vehicles, high school marching bands and boys and girls scout troops lead the way.
The spectacle organized and began on the west side of town. The route followed the main avenue east, over the river bridge, thru downtown, then swung south, ending in the south side at the old armory building. Maybe a mile total distance. There's no marching order or formation to the trick-or-treaters, you're basically just walking along with your costumed buddies and the rest of the group. Ya' occasionally wave to familiar faces in the crowd ("Hi Mom!"). Along with the visuals, the curb-lined spectators additionally delight in watching the marchers jostle about retrieving their frequently tossed handfuls of candy and other treats. It would at times get a bit rough with the bigger guys. To the crowds delight, there was occasionally a bit of roughhouse pushing and shoving
About three quarters along the route sets the town library. The library building sets high above and a few hundred feet back off the roadway, fronted by a long down-sloping lawn and stepped concrete entrance walkway. A low stone retaining wall and wide concrete staircase separates the library grounds and street-level public sidewalk. Parade viewing from atop the wall or a higher lawn position is like viewing from the grandstands. There's no outdoor lighting to the lawn nor entrance walk. A bit of indirect lighting filters thru from adjacent street lighting, but that's it. It's pretty dark after nightfall. The entire property is contained in its own small city block. A bit trapezoid in plan layout, at best half a football field distance fronts the main avenue and parade route.
Up to that point everyone's had a good time and most have picked up a bit of a haul from the crowd. Hitting that short dark stretch passing the library was a different tale. The sidewalk spectators are tossin' treats as usual. From the darkness of the lawn we're suddenly gettin' pummeled with an aerial barrage of hard candy - gumballs, tootsie rolls, jelly beans, hard caramels, root beer barrels, lemon drops, Bazooka bubble gum - all coming in at high velocity. Worse were frequent jawbreakers - those things were the size of 12 gauge shotgun "punkin' ball" rounds and darn near as deadly. Saw one ricochet with a loud 'THUNK' upside the head of Casper the Ghost walkin' a few steps ahead, who immediately burst out bawlin'. Small arms fire, too - lots of shelled corn raining down. A salvo of mostly spoiled red apples cannonball in - a vampire Dracula takes a head shot and is immediately covered in rotted applesauce hair slick. Some individuals are purposely targeted - a wolf man is systematically tracked and hit with a few raw eggs and a tomato. A few small pumpkins shatter on the pavement. It got to the point that most of the costumed revelers passed on retrieving the pavement scattered treats. Witches, ghosts, goblins, Popeye the Sailor, Bugs Bunny, Woody Woodpecker - they're all bee lining the short distance to the end of the block and clear of line of fire. Some in their haste are trippin' over their smocks and face plantin' - now sitting ducks. The assault eventually ceased and most returned to retrieve the abandoned loot. The assailants, now short of ammunition and having sparked the ire of marchers and spectators alike, fled.
We found out a few months later, while playin' summer basketball, that the assault was triggered by a few older guys from our end of town. Gotta' admit that the tale from their perspective was pretty funny.
The following Halloween mom inquires as to our plans for the parade -
"You guys marching in the parade again this year?"
"Naa - we're gonna' just watch from the library lawn".
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