Back in the early 80’s, on a cool autumn afternoon in late October, the 31st to be exact, I stood in my Mamaw’s living room trying to explain to her what I wanted to be for Halloween. Since there was a more than an apparent generation gap between us, just suggesting a character from a popular TV show was not going to be enough information for my “ever eager to please her grandson” Mamaw to draw up a cognitive image of this person of whom I was speaking. So she asked me to describe him. And I did. Thoroughly.
“He has brown skin,” was my first descriptive clue in what was going to be much harder to explain than I had originally anticipated. Had I not been raised in a somewhat sheltered manner, the quest of becoming my favorite TV character would have abruptly ended then and there. There would have been no way my Mamaw would have let me be what I considered to be the ultimate TV icon. But thanks to my parents not exposing me to human labels, my quest was allowed to continue.
“You mean he has a tan?” replied Mamaw. “Yes. A REALLY brown tan.” So she grabbed bronzer and went to work. After my face was of a close enough hue to what I deemed acceptable, she went to work on my arms. She did her best to stretch bronzer to cover both my arms. And it didn’t look half bad! I was very impressed at how this most epic of Halloween costumes was beginning to come together.
“OK, what else?” She asked. “He wears a lot of gold necklaces!” I exclaimed with feverish jubilation, knowing that a distinguished lady such as my Mamaw would, without a doubt, have acquired plenty of gold necklaces in her time. It wasn’t quite as many as I had anticipated, but it was enough to make it to the next step. I already had bronzer covering 100% of my exposed skin, so there was really no point in changing my mind at this juncture.
“OK, what else?” I already had on the proper clothing for the costume, and I already had the necessary hardware to make the costume believable. There was only one thing that remained. “Mamaw, I need you to cut my hair so that there is just hair on the very top and around the ears.” Well, Mamaws will go to the end of the world for their grandchildren’s costume aspirations, but cutting hair was something that she just was not going to do. So she assured me that wearing a blue bandana over my hair would be just as convincing.
My costume was complete. It was time to pound the pavement in search of endless amounts of candy. Almost every house in the neighborhood had its porch light illuminated. This was a very good sign! Just thinking of all the candy I was going to rake in almost gave me a self-induced sugar rush! “Come on, Mamaw!” I rabidly squealed as I raced through the neighborhood. As we approached the first house to begin what I had already determined was going to be” the greatest night of trick-or-treating ever,” a confused expression came over the face of the woman that was poised in the doorway ready to hand out candy.
“And just what are you supposed to be?” the woman asked in a somewhat befuddled tone.
This wasn’t good. I thought my costume was spot on and that there should have been no confusion of who I was supposed to be emulating. I was crushed. Heartbroken. But I held it together. She was about my Mamaw’s age, so I quickly chalked it up to the generation gap, as the explanatory experience with my Mamaw was still pretty fresh. “Perhaps I should recite some catch phrases,” I thought to myself. Still nothing. I decided to just end the turmoil and tell her who I was.
“I’m B.A. Baracus from the A-Team!”
Laughter ensued. I was somewhat confused due to her immediate response. She obviously knew of B.A. Baracus, yet my embodiment of the A-Team character did not meet her standards. It must have been the blue bandana. It had to be. It was the only element of the costume that didn’t belong. From then on I just decided to make my identity known outright. And each time, copious amounts of laughter ensued. I was beginning to become ever so curious as to why my costume was so amusing. My Mamaw was pleased that I was having such a good time, but I could tell that she was a little curious as well. And when she asked one of the candy givers exactly who B.A. Baracus was, she was quickly illuminated as to whom in fact this distinguished gentleman was that I had so courageously been portraying.
“Oh dear,” she replied. “Jeremy, the sun is beginning to go down and we need to start heading back to the house.”
I had already collected a quite a severance package of tasty treats, so I wasn’t reluctant to start our journey back to the house. There were just a few houses with lights on during the trek back to Mamaw’s house, and I convinced Mamaw to let me stop in for my last efforts of conquesting for candy. Well, it turns out that the next house was going to be the last house. And certain lessons were about to be learned. An epic night of trick-or-treating was about to be transformed into a traumatic experience of life lessons learned in the school of hard knocks.
Lesson #1: Don’t be greedy. When you have more than you can possibly manage, it is time to retire.
Lesson #2: If you want to pet a dog, in this case a full-grown German shepherd, ask the owner first.
Lesson #3: Don’t dress up in blackface. Even if it is after Labor Day. Just don’t do it.
The dog bite wasn’t that bad, but it was bad enough to teach me a lesson. A little Neosporin and Mamaw’s love quickly made the discomfort dissipate. A supper of Sloppy Joe’s brought the evening back around to a comforting level, and that my friends is the story of “The Politically Incorrect German Shephard”
