A Halloween payback
It was 1940, just before World War II. My mother and I had lived in Port St. Joe, Florida, for four years and she and I had just come to Miami. She had left my step father and we had gotten on the Greyhound bus and come to Miami because my father, her first husband, lived there.
We rented a room in a private home and my mother began looking for a job. My Dad was a sign painter and had a little shop on one of the side streets in down town Miami. He lived in a room in back of the shop. I stayed with him several days while my mother was looking for work. I was seven years old and it was my first real experience with my father, since I had been less than three when they divorced.
During that time with my father I had a great deal of free time to wonder around the neighborhood, go to the movies, and otherwise enjoy the sights and sounds of Miami. That might sound strange in this day and time, but in those days it was relatively safe for children to be on the streets, and, of course, Miami was not quite the big city that it is today when I was there in 1940.
To get back to the main part of my story, I happened to be there with my father on Halloween night. There was a public school just across the street from my father's shop and they had advertised a children's Halloween party for that night. They were going to have refreshments and games and it was, of course, to be a costume party.
I had no costume but my Dad helped me to draw and cut out a set of "Dracula" teeth , with long fangs, out of a piece of white cardboard. I probably had some sort of black cape to go along with the fangs and I thought I looked pretty good. I was really looking forward to having fun at the party.
That night, just before time for the party, I put on my costume and started walking across the street. As I started to go up the steps of the school, two boys saw me and started pointing at me and laughing. Their laugh was not friendly but had a cruel sound of derision. I was crushed and ran back across the street crying. No amount of persuasion from my father could interest me in going back. The party was over for me. My Halloween was ruined. It was as if Miami, itself, had made fun of this little seven year old boy.
Now, fast forward fifty years. It is 1990 and my own son, Dean, is living in Miami. He has graduated from Fashion Merchandising school and is working as a decorator at Burdine's Department Store. I was visiting him in Miami and it just happened to be on Halloween. I recalled my early experience of Halloween in Miami, those many years before. I told Dean about it and he said, "that is very interesting because there happens to be a big open air Halloween party tonight and I thought we might enjoy going".
I answered, "but we have no costumes". "Let's just see what I can do", he said. In his apartment building there just happened to be two young men who were members of the world renowned Chippendale Men's Dance group. Dean knocked on their door and they invited us in. Dean introduced me and explained the situation and asked if they might have some costumes that would fit us. They laughed and said, "I think we can help you with that". They went into a back room and brought out a huge duffel bag and said, "you can use anything in there that will fit you". We thanked them and took the bag to Dean's apartment. We found such an assortment of colorful costumes that it was difficult to choose but I finally settled on a Sultan's outfit with balloon pants, a colorful jacket, full turban, and jeweled sword. Dean had a complete Pirate's costume with eye patch, hat, and sword. We could not have been better outfitted if we had paid hundreds of dollars.
We went to the outdoor Halloween party and it was fabulous! The weather was one of those great Miami nights. It was in a large area that was blocked off from traffic. There was music and refreshments and so much more. Besides the sight of adults of all ages in every kind of costume imaginable, there were these show stopper costumed men walking around on stilts. So these characters must have been fifteen feet tall from the bottoms of their feet to the top of their heads. That was definitely the most unusual Halloween that I have ever experienced.
As Dean and I marveled at the sights I said, "Dean, you know, it is as though Miami had felt a little ashamed of the way it had treated me on that Halloween night in 1940 and they had arranged all of the details of this evening as sort of a pay back for that earlier case of bad manners".
Well, that story has become a part of my family's history and Dean has related it over and over to his friends. He still lives in Miami. They no longer have that big outdoor Halloween party I am told. Perhaps it was just too much of a disruption to traffic and commerce. But it will always be a warm memory to me. It definitely paid me back for the hurt that I felt on that first Halloween in Miami, now sixty nine years ago.