Except for naming “5” as his lucky number and identifying his favorite meal as spaghetti and apple pie, Dad didn’t play favorites, and so he would never admit which holiday he liked the best – but I know it was Halloween.
I remember …
*In one of the funniest Halloween party ensembles ever, my parents once went dressed as Peter Pan and Tinkerbell … Mom was Peter Pan and Dad was Tinkerbell, complete with a green leotard, tights, and wings.
*On the Halloween when I was about ten years old, I went trick-or-treating with a friend who lived down the street. At the end of the night, I got on my bike and started riding home with my Cocker Spaniel running along beside me. On my way home, some bullies who were out that night threw shaving cream at my dog and me. When we made it home and Dad saw us covered in shaving cream, he went ballistic. My typically easy-going Dad turned into the Incredible Hulk; he flew out the door and came back a few minutes later holding two boys very nervous teenage boys by their shirt collars. They sheepishly told me they were sorry, after which Dad said, “You still have one more to go” and then marched them around to the garage so they could apologize to my dog.
*When I was in middle school, a friend of mine and I hosted a Halloween party. My dad rented a gorilla costume and hid in the bushes in the front yard so that he could jump out and scare people as they left the party. Several kids were so scared they took off running down the street … but there was no outrunning this gorilla, who chased them down so that he could tell them that he wasn’t really trying to scare them.
*When my middle sister was in middle school, he took her and a group of her friends to see Friday the 13th. Later, when the girls were upstairs in my sister’s room about to go to sleep, I heard Dad in the garage and went to see what he was doing. With a zombie mask on, he got out the ladder, hauled it around to the back of the house, climbed up so that he was right outside the bedroom window, and started making scary noises. He almost fell off the ladder laughing when the girls screamed and ran out of the room!
*My parents had just moved to Charleston, Missouri, when Dad turned 50, and we decided to throw a surprise party for him with a Halloween theme. Mom and some friends took him out to dinner while we set up for the party, and the guests hid in the bushes so that we could all jump out and yell “Surprise!” when they got home from dinner. Since the party was a surprise, Dad didn’t have a costume, but luckily someone gave him a Big 5-0 T-shirt, which he promptly put on and then modeled for everyone.
HAPPY HALLOWEEN!
No comments:
Post a Comment