Some People Just Deserve A Trick

Seems every year after Halloween I write about how things used to be. You know, less people are giving out candy than when I was young or how I would go out trick or treating by myself and now that's just not possible. So am I doing that this year? Well a little and then I'll pass on a story from when I was young. This year I noticed that if three or four houses close together were giving out candy my son referred to it as a jackpot. When I was his age almost every house was giving out candy. You could walk down one side of a street for several blocks and then come back on the other side and your bag would be bulging.

My complaint (as always) is that if you have your garage light on and your porch light on AND you have house lights on but you do not answer your door because you are not participating then you are a jerk. If you don't treat and meet the already mentioned qualities then you deserve a trick. It made me wish I had some rotten tomatoes to throw. But I didn't so I couldn't, not that I really would. What kind of message would I be imparting on my son if I did that? I just don't get why people do that on this one day of the year. It's cruel and unjust I tell you.

On to my promised story. Towards the end of my trick or treating career perhaps around twelve years of age (I can't remember exactly when, hey, I'm old) I had a near incident. I'd been out with a friend but he'd already departed for home while I had chosen to continue on to an area I'd never been to before. It was further out from my normal "territory" than I was used to and it was getting late. The lure of more candy was great however and I pushed on.

My luck was not great. Maybe because people had already given out their candy, maybe people in that area weren't participating that much that year, it's hard to say. With my prospects dimming and very few houses having their lights on I turned and started making my way home. Not long after that I heard a car pull up and a kid I didn't recognize got out. If you're thinking he was also trick or treating late like me then you'd be wrong. He called out to me "hey kid" and started walking towards me.

At this point every fiber of my being screamed out that this was wrong, something bad was about to happen. I kept walking and he kept calling out to me progressively getting louder. The car he had materialized from was pacing him down the street. Suddenly, before he could get too close to me, I decided to make a run for a house that still had it's porch light on close by and started knocking on the door loudly. His cries of "hey kid" changed as he flung epithet after epithet at me before jumping back in the car as the front door of the house opened.

The car peeled out and raced off and I was safe. I don't recall if I even got candy from that house, my mind was consumed with frantic thoughts of how close I had been to getting beaten up and having my bag of candy stolen. Clearly it was time to go home, it would have been most unwise to ignore this omen. My head was on a swivel as I warily walked the rest of the way home. The slightest noise had me spooked that the car was returning and the kid was going to finish the job he had started. None of that came to be thankfully and I made it home safely with my candy intact.

Personally while I believe the kid who wanted to assault me and steal my candy was a scumbag but really I feel that the person driving the car was an even bigger scumbag. It's one thing to go out intending to steal but the person (brother, cousin, neighbor?) was old enough to drive and still took him out knowing what he wanted to do. Hell, maybe it was his idea in the first place. What a role model. There you have it, my story of what almost was. I hope that kid didn't get anybody else that year or any other but even moreso I hope that at some point if he didn't feel some remorse for his actions then he at least eventually got his karmic comeuppance.

Hopefully my son will never have something like this happen to him but if he does perhaps I can teach him to be prepared and ready to defend himself. Of course it doesn't hurt that he's a big kid, much bigger than I was at that age. Unless of course I'm still taking him around when he's twelve or thirteen years old which I probably will be doing. I don't think a thief would have the guts to do it with an adult around. Here's hoping we never have to find out.

Written and Published by Don Leach. May not be used without permission from the author.

Maybe These ARE The Droids You're Looking For

Every year when it gets close to Halloween I start asking my son the same questions and I always get the same answers. Do you want to be a Jedi? No. What about Darth Vader? No. How about a Stormtrooper? No. Why don't you try Boba Fett? No. The answer has always been no. Until this year that is. This year he announced that he wanted to be Darth Vader. The thing that helped to bring him around was that he spent almost two months in Peru this summer and his uncle Gary got him hooked on playing The Force Unleashed video game. Gary is probably a bigger fan of Star Wars than I am, well, maybe he's equal with me.

 

Now, it wasn't as if I was derelict in my fatherly Star Wars duties before he went. I showed him the movies as well as The Clone Wars animated series (whenever we could catch it) and he enjoyed them all very much. But it wasn't until all of that was tied in to his love of video games that it became more of an obsession for him. He's already accumulated three lightsabers of varying styles and is wanting more. To that end my wife is making his Darth Vader costume (she's pretty good at that kind of thing) and he couldn't be happier. He's already wearing his cape around the house.

 

After I commented about his choice of costume on Facebook my brother from other parents Tommy asked me if I wanted any of the Star Wars books that he had. You see, about a decade ago I had given a box full of Star Wars books to his sons. I had read them all and they were only taking up space so I thought why not pay it forward and give them to someone who might be interested in them? At that time in my life I was positive that I'd never marry again and that I would never have a child to share these kinds of things with. How wrong I was. 

 

 

Fast forward to the present and now these books that were a part of my past will now become part of his future. Sure, he's only six years old and not quite at the reading level to start on these books yet but give him a few years and he'll be ready to start tearing through them. I've always been a voracious reader so hopefully he'll take after me in this area. I may even read them all again just to familiarize myself with the story lines and then maybe I can finally get caught up with all of the more recent ones. I've only read a few that weren't associated with the story lines from these books in the past several years so I know I've got some catching up to do.

 

Another thing that I also gave away were my old concert t-shirts from the 80s. Those went to my nephew because they no longer fit me and were also taking up space in a box. I've got that one covered though. You see I haven't stopped going to concerts (my wife is still waiting for me to grow up but I refuse) and I'm making sure I'll have some for his future use. Mine too, I still wear them all the time. Plus it won't be much longer before I start taking him with me and then he can get his own shirt. Of course at the rate he's growing he may have to wear mine sooner rather than later. He's already standing over four feet four inches tall and doesn't show any signs of stopping anytime soon. I can't wait.

Written and Published by Don Leach. May not be used without permission from the author.

A Very Military Halloween

After leaving college I ended up joining the Army for almost eight years and seeing the world, at least a good part of it. I can only remember two times in that period dressing up in a costume for Halloween and one of them doesn't really count. Both were while I was stationed at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C. The one that didn't count was at work, we were allowed to dress in costume and a friend and I went as movers which was our part time job. All we did was put on the company shirt and wear our jeans so really we cheated, but hey, still counts.

The other time was completely unplanned. My friend Adam and the girl that he wanted to be his girlfriend and I were hanging out. It's been over fifteen years and sadly I no longer remember her name so for the sake of the story we'll call her Lisa. Our other friends had gone out of town and we were hanging out at Lisa's apartment but were bored. They came upon the idea of going down to Georgetown and hitting a few bars but wanted to do it in costume. Personally I would have been just as happy going home and watching a movie but I gave in to them and their adventurous plans. It had to be more fun than sitting at home by myself, right? Adam was able to put together a sort of swashbuckler/pirate costume with a red shirt, black pants and a sash. It worked. Lisa already had a costume that she had worn before and it was basically a warrior but the best way to describe it is as a female Conan The Barbarian.

That left me and I had nothing, including the desire to dress up. I had long ago outgrown the police officer costume from my college days so we were left grasping at straws as to what I could be. Just when I thought I wouldn't have to dress in one Adam had a brilliant idea. We drove into the post and since Adam worked as an operating room tech he snuck in and grabbed a pair of scrubs for me. When we got back to her apartment Lisa broke out the red paint and we covered the front of the scrubs in it. My costume was now set, I was to be a not very good doctor.

We made the drive to Georgetown and found a less expensive parking place and started our pub crawl.If you've never been there before let me tell you it was a sight to behold. Almost every adult was in a costume and most of them were quite bizarre. The one that stands out for me to this day was the guy dressed in an adult diaper with a bonnet and a giant baby bottle and nothing more. I don't know how he could stand it in the cold weather but I guess he was well lubricated by the end of the night. The rest of our night consisted of me being the third wheel as Adam and Lisa groped, kissed and flirted with each other. As I said before Adam wanted her to be his girlfriend but while Lisa was fine with occasionally being intimate with him, she also didn't want to be constricted by a relationship. This drove Adam crazy.

He should have realized that it wasn't meant to be and moved on but the heart wants what it wants, no matter how wrong it is for you. Needless to say their situation didn't hold up well and Adam finally understood that it wasn't very healthy for him so he moved on. I left the Army on terminal leave about six months later and only got to see him once more. That was when I came back after I was officially out, to get my final check from the Army. Adam was on a different path then and like most people in the military, once you move on you rarely ever see them again. After this I only recall dressing up for Halloween once more but I don't know if I'll tell that story yet. Now I get to take my son out trick or treating and let him experience it all for himself. I just hope that he doesn't lose the joy of it for a long time.

Written and Published by Don Leach. May not be used without permission from the author.

Frat Life 101: A Very Different Costume Party

In the summer of 1986 I attended Basic Training and Advanced Individual Training for the Oklahoma National Guard which was not exactly my idea of the perfect way to spend a summer. There's something about spending the majority of your time outside marching, doing pushups and so forth that kind of ruins the day. Still, it was required in order for me to get my bonus check and I thought it would be best to get all of the training out of the way at once. I came back in the beginning of October and at the end of the month decided to go down to NSU and see all of my friends in Sig Tau right on time for a Halloween costume party. Once I got to Tahlequah I hung out with some friends and we started planning on what kind of costume I could cobble together on short notice.

The key was to use what was on hand, buying things to use for a one time occasion wasn't really an option. What we came up with was very simple, I hadn't shaved so we put on my black military trench coat and my military glasses that I had tinted black and decided I would be a terrorist. Our only research material on the subject was having seen action movies and their stereotypical versions of what terrorists looked and acted like. Still, it wasn't enough, something more was needed so we took some penny rolls and filled them with something (don't remember what) and then taped them together. That was my explosives. An old stereo microphone was added as my detonator and the costume was finished.

Well I walked in to the party and loudly informed everybody that I was seizing it until my demands were met and was immediately taken down and "disarmed" by a few of my friends. This was the first they had seen of me for about five months and most of them didn't know that I was even coming to the party so they were happy to see me. Most of them anyway. The rest of the night was a celebration of friendship for me but it also was the beginning of the end. I chose not to go back to college and in a few short months I moved back home to Ohio and then ended up joining the active Army because I really couldn't see any future for myself back there or anywhere else for that matter. I really didn't know what I wanted to do with my life (some would say I still don't know) and the Army was a job, something that I could do for at least four years without thinking much about the future. My world was never the same.

This was twenty-five years ago and it shows how much our world has changed. Back then terrorism had not made it's way to our shores, it was an abstract concept to us. Sure it existed all over the world but it wasn't real to us because we had never experienced it, it had never touched our lives or anyone that we knew. For us it wasn't a big deal to dress as a terrorist, it was even considered funny, but a lot has changed over the years since then. We've had homegrown and foreign terrorist operations on our soil to deal with. The world wide web has shown us vividly how bad the rest of the world has had it. Now the very thought of wearing such a costume would be considered to be in bad taste. But back then it was a simpler time for us. There was no thought of how others would react to something that was only meant to be a joke, where no harm was ever intended. With the world we live in now I often long for those simpler days when my eyes had not been shown what we humans are capable of.

Written and Published by Don Leach. May not be used without permission from the author.

Frat Life 101: The Costume Party

As Halloween fast approaches I am reminded of the handful of times that I have worn a costume on that day as an adult. This is the tale of one of those days. One thing to remember is that I am a person who has never felt comfortable in social settings, especially with large amounts of people, even more so when those people are consuming alcoholic beverages. I've never been one for celebrating holidays very much and also don't care for attending birthday parties or weddings and don't even get me started on funerals. To me they are all basically just another day and I feel they are only important because society has deemed that they are and now we are pressured to conform. Then I feel pressure to interact with people when I'd rather not. But I digress.

During my first semester in college as I was pledging Sigma Tau Gamma a female who was friends with a member of the fraternity invited that member and all other Sig Taus to a Halloween party that she was having. Even though it meant that I had to go to a party where I would not know the majority of the people (a terrifying thought to me) I agreed to go with some of my pledge brothers. Once that was decided the only issue was what costume to wear. Since I was a poor college student with little to no money my choices were limited and I needed to use some originality in devising what to wear.

Luckily for me while working my summer job before starting college I had "acquired" a few items from my employer that were not being used at that time. That's my story and I'm sticking to it, besides, I'm sure the statute of limitations has expired. Still, just to be safe I'm not naming where this job occurred. You see, the summer job was for a police department and among the items was a uniform or two and a few ticket books. Please remember that this was a different era and if someone tried to do something like this now they would be treated in a very different and more serious manner if caught. In my time however, it was still looked upon in a mostly innocent way. No serious harm was ever intended. It was just a young person having fun and being stupid all at the same time.

Originally I thought I would wear a pillow under my shirt and go as a fat, country police officer however that idea changed because I really didn't want to wear the pillow all night. Instead I just went as a police officer. I had a belt and nightstick that were loaned to me but did not have a badge or a gun, not even a toy one. To me it was clear that I was only wearing a costume, especially since in my mind's eye I looked nothing like what I thought a real police officer looked like. As I left my dorm room I saw another guy leaving his room from across the quad and as it happened we were going in the same direction. Later we became friends and he told me that he and his roommate had been smoking pot in their room and when he saw me he thought that someone had smelled the smoke and called the police and that he believed he was going to get arrested. That thought was cemented as fact in his paranoid brain as I followed him to the stairwell and down to the ground floor.

Once there however he slipped away to certain freedom and I stepped out the front door and stood there for a few moments taking in the night air. Several people were gathered there and most of them drifted away immediately and to those few that remained I nodded and said something like "What's up man?" They nodded back but were acting strange towards me, almost as if they were nervous. That's when it hit me, they thought that I really was a cop! Never mind the fact that the patch on the arm of the shirt was for a different city or that I really didn't look like a cop, they totally believed it. Armed with this knowledge I went over to my friends dorm room and gathered with the rest of the pledges who were going to the party.

When we arrived at the party I walked in the door and immediately saw multiple dirty looks being cast in my direction. You could almost see the thoughts that were forming, they were angry that a police officer had dared to come into the party surely only to hassle them and ruin their good time. That is until I stepped up to the keg and poured myself a beer. Then it was if a light went off for all of them and they thought "Oh right. It's Halloween. This is a costume party and that's his costume." After that all was well and the night was fairly uneventful until right before my friends and I left. We went outside and decided to start writing fake tickets and put them on all of the vehicles parked in the yard and on the street only instead of giving them real violations we made them all up. The violations that we came up with were for things like parking like an idiot or behaving like a moron.

Unfortunately (or maybe fortunately) we were not there to see the looks on peoples faces as they stumbled out to their cars and went from believing that somehow they had been given a ticket to the uncertainty as they read what it was for. That would have been hilarious. Instead it was back to the dorms for us to sleep off whatever we had imbibed and to start a new day. We did these kinds of things as a joke back then but I can't help thinking what would happen today if someone in that position were caught how much trouble they would be in. More than likely they would be in front of a judge pretty fast for impersonating an officer, theft and whatever else they could be charged with. It makes me pretty glad I lived in that era where the motto seemed to be no harm, no foul. That's really what the intent was. It's strange to think of it as a more innocent time considering what we did.

Written and Published by Don Leach. May not be used without permission from the author.