1984

I was paid to build my second Halloween costume.

The Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Company, better known as the A&P, was founded as The Great American Tea Company in 1859 by George Huntington Hartford and George Gilman in New York City, and renamed ten years later to its existing name, now headquartered in Montvale, New Jersey. Based upon estimated sales of $9.1 billion in 2009, A&P is the 34th largest retailer in the United States. Tallahassee's A&P at 1105 East Lafayette Street closed in the early 1980s, and then in 1984 became the Musical Moon nightclub.

In 1984, John and I worked at a business forms print shop off of Lake Bradford Road that included a paper warehouse and various business machines and equipment. I occasionally drove a forklift. Preparing plates and setting up a 22-inch offset printing press were laborious tasks, after which changing rolls of paper during a print run was usually all that was necessary until completion. I had as much downtime as I did hard work and got easily bored. I looked around through the shop and found some interesting materials... a lot of broken-down cardboard, some scraps of wood, a dilapidated buggy for hauling business forms, a carton of rolls of black duct tape, and a foot-operated stapler that dispensed the large brass staples we see on shipping boxes.

I always liked when Captain Kangaroo would bring out a shoe box filled with seemingly irrelevant materials and construct something fascinating with them.

Working bottom up, I used a hammer and smashed the sides off of the buggy so all that was left was the wheeled chassis. Then I nailed four pieces of two-by-four studs together to fit on the wheels, and on opposite sides of the rectangle, I attached two more two-by-fours vertically as handles. Using only discarded cardboard and the heavy duty stapler, I constructed four rectangular sides taller than me with vertical slits in the middle, and a top, and nailed them to my wheel assembly. I took a telephone from the trash and used the receiver and push-button pad and some cardboard to finish my telephone booth. No paint was available, so I covered the entire costume, inside and out, with black duct tape, which also served to keep everything together.

Until twenty-one years ago, I moved frequently, and I have lived in more than 20 different locations in Tallahassee. At the time I was working at the printing company, I moved into a three-bedroom house with roommates Keith and Paul on Hillsborough Street, several blocks from work. Keith owned the house and was a reclusive artist, living on a trust fund and rental income, and his sculptures and paintings were scattered everywhere throughout the house. Paul was an affable guy and wasn't home much. I put my telephone booth in the area between the kitchen and dining room and kept my watermelon costume in my bedroom.

One day I came home and could not find my telephone booth. Keith returned home several hours later and I somewhat frantically asked him where my telephone booth was. Keith nonchalantly responded, "Oh, I moved it out into the shed in the back yard. It was an eyesore." I was deeply offended and immediately moved out. I never saw Keith again, and only saw Paul once more, 25 years later.

The Musical Moon had its first costume contest on Halloween 1984, and I immensely enjoyed my first competition. As the Telephone Booth, I won first place, $200. 

On October 31, 2009, I was dressed as "Biker Knight" at the Paradise Bar and Grill (since closed) at 1406 North Meridian Road, and Paul saw and recognized me, as I certainly would have been unable to guess who he was.

Paul and I hung out together that evening, rehashing old times, trying to figure out if we still knew anyone from all that time ago, and I told Paul all my favorite cat, parade and Halloween stories. We became Facebook friends the next day and I occasionally checked in to say hello.

Paul left us last Friday, March 25, 2011, while my family and I were vacationing in Orlando with Matt and his family.

RIP, old buddy.

This story surprisingly continues almost a year later in Message in a Bottle. -- Mitch