Dave Wood

Halloween 2023 has come and thank goodness, has gone. It has lost its former charm. There was a time when I enjoyed it as did my Beautiful Wife. So when we arrived in River Falls, we decided to go all out for this hallowed day. The beginning of the end occurred when we frightened a child trick or treater by trying to look fake spooky, which was followed by a set-to with his doting mother. Was all this hoohah and the money folks spent on this holiday (which used to require just a mask and a grocery sack) worth all the trouble? 

Furthermore, as a registered TV addict, I have concluded that this so-called holiday has cost at least one month of quality TV viewing time as cable TV has nowadays chosen to continually flood us with spooky movies, all of which are made in 1932 and star Boris Karloff and Mae Marsh in a haunted castle, to the exclusion of really valuable shows like American Pickers and Bizarre Foods starring Andrew Zimmern. We’re calling it quits with staying up to amuse kids.

Thus having found out that adults aren’t supposed to have fun doing the trick or treating in this Brave New World of sensitive children, we have since put out a big plastic pumpkin full of Milky Ways and a sign that invites kids to help themselves. We then jump in the car and get the hell out of town to head for St. Paul and a masquerade party held by our croquet club members each Halloween when the court’s hoops are covered with snow. 

Over the years, our costumes, designed by Ruth, have garnered best of show on several occasions. One year we received a cunning abacus for coming as the near-sighted President Theodore Roosevelt—and his favorite prey. I came wearing my great grandma’s pince nez spectacles and carrying a big stick, while Ruth came as a tremulous rhinoceros that sported a huge snout she made of papier-mache and legs made fat by stuffing the pants of some fuzzy grey pajamas. And it was a bully evening for this big game hunter!

Our success prompted me to go the next year as portly Winston Churchill, a cigar protruding from his bulldog visage and a bottle of brandy from his back pocket. Winny was accompanied by his wife Clementine, played with regal aplomb by my wife. Thus I had nothing to fear but “blood, toil, tears, sweat” and freely offered a pull off the flagon of cognac for any masquerader who felt the need.  

So this year dawned with a tough decision. What couple would be next? “I know, I know,” shouted Ruth. “It’s been so sad with the Israel mess, inflation, the new House speaker Mike Knutson or (whatever his name is), let’s have some fun! Let’s go dressed as former president Donald Trump and his wife Melania!”

“Are you out of your mind, my precious?” asked I. “I can’t be the Donald because I don’t have orange hair!”

“You don’t have ANY hair!” continued my precious. “But don’t let that stop us! We need to cheer up after having watched all those terrible horror movies offered by cable; I’ll get you an orange toupee.”  I forgot all about the project until a week before Halloween when Precious Wife said, “Look what I just received from Amazon, all for thirty bucks! So simple! I just got on the internet and asked for a Donald and Melania kit, with wigs and all the accoutrements that bespeak his former presidency. She spread out the kit’s contents. There was a red seed corn cap stamped with MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN, a garish red necktie that was so long that when knotted, the tip hung down past my crotch, and the topper, a two- pound toupee that was styled ala Trump in a dirty yellowish hue. My wife? She’s just as cute as Melania and shares her Slavic roots, so little needed be done, just a brunet hairpiece that hung almost to the floor, and a bust enhancement accommodated by the purchase of a copious brassiere from a thrift store on Main Street which she then stuffed to a fare thee well and dazzled our companions with her audacious buxomness.       

It just goes to show what one can make happen in this brave new world of e-mail shopping. Look for “Trumpkit” back on Amazon’s list after the election next year. Hats off to Halloween. Or should that be caps off?

Dave would like to hear from you (as long as it’s not an attack for having a little fun at the Donald’s expense). 715-426-9554.