Halloween 2010

It was my busiest Halloween. I partied from October 1 until November 1.

Like many of my Halloween costumes, the seeds of design were planted during an earlier Halloween, when I attended OrangeFest on October 31, 2009, at a church on Southwest Capital Circle that has since moved. Wearing a paper mache suit of armor on a homemade motorcycle as "Biker Knight" (FL license plate BKR NGHT), I bested a well-known churchgoer who was pregnant and wearing a kitchen range she had made from cardboard called "Bun in the Oven." Biker Knight was my first weight-bearing costume and harbinger of my third-generation of Halloween costumes.

When I complete a Halloween costume, I take it out as often as possible and to as many costume contest venues as I can find within a reasonable radius of Tallahassee. That means I'm usually at each party in costume for at least three or four hours with lots of time to think about my recent work, modifications I might want to make before the next party, and what I might want to be for Halloween next year.

I never divulge what I'm working on in advance unless an observant friend or family member espies my project in progress and guesses it. My rationale is two-fold: I enjoy the anticipation of completion of a year-long woodworking project, so I figure others should, too; also, I have more than once switched costume projects entirely with little notice before Halloween. One night at Studebakers on Apalachee Parkway in 1987, my costume could not fit in the narrow confines of the establishment and I used the headless mask I kept in my 1975 Ford LTD and borrowed a carved pumpkin jack-o-lantern and candle from Studebakers and won their scariest costume contest as the Headless Horseman. I won a $100 bar tab that I almost let lapse before I spent it on the last night they were open. I still have some of the test tubes in which shooters were sold for a dollar. I gave away a lot of drinks that night.

Back to OrangeFest 2009. Only one entrance of the U-shaped driveway to the church was being used. The other was blocked by a Tallahassee Fire Department truck. I began making sketches shortly before Christmas and began construction in January. I would need all that time to finish before Halloween.

It was on the softball field in July that made 2010's Halloween particularly memorable. Just about anything is fair game for discussion between pitches on the hot Georgia clay in Tallahassee in summertime, and I like to talk about Halloween. I'd been saying for a couple of years that I wanted to do something different for Halloween, mentioned I'd love to show off all my costumes at once, perhaps at an art show, as I'd never done that anywhere. Sean playing third base told me that he knew the owner of the Tallahassee Rock Climbing Gym at the Railroad Square Art Park, who would probably let me bring my costumes over to do just that.

Fortunately, Rich, the owner of the Tallahassee Rock Gym had just acquired the vacant Belly Dancing Gym next door and was happy to let me bring my costumes over and store them there throughout October. On the day of the Art Park's First Friday celebration on October 1, I brought out my costumes for public display all evening, and people came by with their children and took pictures. The Tallahassee Democrat newspaper came by and published my story two days later. It was such a success, my costumes and I were invited to lead the Art Park's Fall Fever Festival parade three weeks later.

I hadn't led a parade in 20 years and had the time of my life enlisting volunteers and leading the procession with my seven most successful Halloween costumes. Thanks especially to Randi and Allyson from Godby High School's Drama Club, and to Zan for videography.

I won eight costume contests in the Tallahassee area as the Gadsden County and Tallahassee Fire Departments, including five contests in the last 48 hours of Halloween. Leading the costume parade has become one of the highlights of my costuming career.