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Saturday, November 9, 2024

The Way I See It – Halloween Memories

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I was six when my mom dressed me up as a clown for Halloween. I wore a second-hand store, red polka-dotted pajama-like outfit, a yellow wig from Woolworth’s, and my dad’s oversized shoes.

The next year she morphed me into a Hobo. She spent about ten minutes rubbing the charcoal end of a burnt stick onto my face to give my peach-fuzzed cheeks a dark, hairy appearance. (Maybe this was all foreshadowing – in my later school career I was always a class clown and I started shaving sophomore year in high school!)

In 6th grade at Washington Jr. High, I was finally allowed to pick my own costume; I chose a vampire. With the popularity of movies like “Dark Shadows” and “Count Yorga Vampire,” I thought my choice was a prescient one. I had glow-in-the-dark fangs and my sister applied some kind of makeup to my face that gave me a white as-flour pallor. The final touch was fake blood drops on my neck. Funny, somewhere along the line, scary movies and the like actually began to frighten me. I don’t think I’ve seen a horror movie since “The Omen” came out in 1976!

While trick-or-treating, sleepovers and candy trading were huge as an adolescent, later on, it became more of an excuse to party. Our costumes became more elaborate.

In our first year of marriage, Renae and I were stationed in Pensacola, Florida. Seville Square was the center of Pensacola nightlife, and we dressed up as Kabuki Actors (See photo up top.) and partied like it was 1983…because it was. Throughout the night, though, I kept my eyes peeled for any of my flight instructors. The last thing I needed was to give them more ammo in the cockpit to rattle me!

Yet it’s a Halloween memory from my last year in the Navy that really sticks with me.

During AOCS, I had a “disagreement” with my Aerodynamics Instructor. He was a Marine Captain, and I was a lowly Aviation Officer Candidate (You can imagine who won that argument.). It cost me two weeks in the penalty box and kept me from graduating with my original AOCS Class. In hindsight, a two-week setback in one’s life is not even a blip on the Radar; at the time, though, it was devastating.

To add insult to injury, until I could join the next class, I was ordered to do menial tasks such as paint the barracks’ signage or mop the battalion deck…for the hundredth time. On one particular day, I was on my hands and knees, “edging” the grass along the Commanding Officer’s sidewalk with cuticle scissors. Just then my erstwhile AOCS Class marched by. Everyone in formation gave me a quick glance and a word or two of encouragement: “Hang in there Pablo,” “Just a few more days, Pablo, and you’ll be right back with us,” and “See you in a few days, Shipmate!” Well, almost everyone…

There was one particular Candidate, who for some reason relished the fact that I had been punished. His last name was Brummel, and he sneered at me and said, “Candidate, you’ve missed some grass,” then pointed to a clump of weeds at his feet. It took everything I had to keep the scissors in my hand on task, and not in his forehead!

Fast forward about seven years. Renae and I attended a squadron Halloween party in Jacksonville, Florida. I was dressed as the Invisible Man. My face and neck, wrapped in gauze. My hands covered with gloves, my eyes hidden behind sunglasses and a fedora on my head. A long trench coat completed the disguise. While getting a beer at the keg, a somewhat familiar face walked up and I poured him a drink. He introduced himself – it was Brummel! His wife was the administrative officer in the squadron, but I had not put two and two together, after all, Brummel is a pretty common name.

He thanked me for the beer and then asked me what my name was. I said, “The Invisible Man.” He grinned and asked, “No what’s your real name?”

I answered, “Claude Raines.”

As I figured, he was too daft to realize I was having fun with him. He didn’t recognize the name and asked me if I was in his wife’s squadron, which I said I was. Then he asked me if I was a helicopter pilot. Again, I said I was. I then asked him what he did. He hemmed and hawed, then explained that he had been training to be a jet pilot, but that he suffered from severe air sickness, and that he never even made it out of basic flight school. Instead, he became a jet mechanic.

The smile that I beamed was hidden by the costume gauze, but it still felt like a small bit of Karma to me. I know schadenfreude is not an honorable trait, and one that I don’t promote.

But that Halloween sticks out as a particularly enjoyable one!

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P. Araya
P. Araya
Pablo Araya grew up in Naperville and enjoys writing about his experiences in the Navy, the FBI and growing up in the best town around. Contact Pablo at boblow9913@gmail.com.
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