Well, you knew there had to be...right ? So it's October and everyone is deciding what to go out trick or treating as, guess this was about 1964.

I seem to recall this night and the coconspirators I will have to leave nameless, as they may come back with another story later that I really don't want to be reminded of. Although since they live in California I'm probably safe.

Many of you will remember "H" street had at the bottom of the hill, two areas of plantings that separated the road. "H" was connected to Recreation by 11th street up from the circle splitting "H" where the AC tower was. Now we knew that there was an all girl sleep over at house 1026( Almost sure of this) and we also knew that since it was Holloween we ought to really give these girls a fright and scare them out of their sleeping bags..

Yes, I know, such perverts....

So we decided to paint ourselves all black with a white skull face and therefore all you could see would be the skull. That idiot T. decided that we needed something to paint ourselves with and so he was in charge of getting the paint. He went to the art class and got several large bottles of black paint. This was going to be great. We got rags and painted our faces black, we had on black shorts and t-shirts so all we had to cover was our arms and legs. Then using white paint we drew the skull on our faces. P. decides that we ought to take advantage of this and hide in the planted area and jump out at little kids and demand candy or we would devour them. A little early on life of crime I guess. Real Hi-way men.

We knew we could get away clean as all we had to do was jump into the cooling tower and wash off the paint and be home free. Somehow, great plans of mice and boys go astray. We did get a lot of candy, but soon heard a commotion and here come several parents with flashlights and rather a bad frame of mind. So we run for the ac tower, planning on hiding behind the concrete wall till they go off and then go over to the sleep over and wiggle our heads thru the hedges and scare the devil out of these girls.

Several of you have talked about Kit Simon, well she figures into this in a minute. Seems as if the parents of this house had a few friends over while the girls were camping out. So we manage to get our heads thru the hedge, and that hurt let me tell you. The bad part was we let T. pick a spot, and so our heads, painted black with white skull like markings pop out looking right into a group of about twenty adults, with Mrs. Simon costumed as a witch AND with broom, being head butted by one of us as we struggled to push thru the hedge.

Needless to say, she managed to use our heads and do a clean sweep of all three and her cackle was heard all over and the hollering and girls screaming and parents cussing. One hell of a pickle. Now we can't get out of the damn hedge and, as you may recall, there were wires in these hedges and we are hung up. Mrs. Simon is getting ready for a home run on our heads with the broom, several parents over in the planted area with flashlights hear this commotion and start over to see three butts squirming like fish on a boat floor trying to get loose and suddenly the earth opens up and here is Danny Noskys' Dad with a branch behind us. (We had got his little sisters candy.) Finally we break free, T. into the yard and P. and I out of the hedge and away like Saluki's we did go. I swear to this day Mrs. Simon was coming behind us like a banshee on her broom, but undoubtedly this is part of my fear syndrome of witches.

 We managed to end up over at one of our houses and we know they still don't know for sure who we were, but our butts are sore and we all have headaches and visions of the broom coming round like the mighty Casey at the bat. So we start to scrub off the paint and we are doing fine, beginning to think we are too "cool" when we made a major discovery. That fool had got two bottles of India Ink.

Well, school the next day was a major illness time at home, but to no avail..Mom said just because I had turned Black overnight was no reason not to go to school. I argue this point with her today and still lose. Mom already knew it all as Kit had recognized us, had a field day and told our parents and so we all went to school. Talk about social outcasts. Perhaps the worse part...several of the little kids had told their parents they had twice as much candy as they did and we had to make it all up to them. I'm sure the Golding brothers did well on Mars bars....No, I haven't forgotten Martin...

Halloween just hasn't been the same since those days. Ohh and for the curious, Lava soap does not do well in removing India Ink. The only think that saved us was the fact we had healthy skin and kerosene did get a lot of it off. But I think even today I seem to have a slightly darker complexion than I had looking at baby photographs........
 
 

Mike Crocker, (DH65)
Date: Thu, 31 Oct 1996 15:32:46 -0600
From: Mike Crocker