A Misbegotten Tale of Celebrity

A few weeks ago, while rooting around in an old file box, I came across some documents I had all but forgotten.  Curiously, they popped up just at this time of year when talk of ghosts, memories of pranks, elaborate costuming and other assorted Halloween lore gets recycled once again.  As I shuffled through the papers I wondered if perhaps they might not be the genesis of my aversion to certain forms of cheap public display practiced by so many would-be, pandering office seekers.

            I’m not exactly sure how this particular “prank” was conceived, but undoubtedly my parents were behind it.  The year was 1944, a presidential election year. President Franklin Roosevelt was seriously challenged for the highest office in the land by Thomas E. Dewey, the Republican Governor of New York State, and a relative of mine. Potter County was, of course, overwhelmingly a Republican backwater enclave. The election, while not high on my 8-year old list of priorities, was much on the minds of the local voters, including my parents.  Apparently the campaign fervor, intense as it was, precipitated some loose thinking in the family with me as the unwitting centerpiece.

            Then, as now, there was to be a Halloween parade. In those days this parade was always held in the evening, after dark.  After which, the kids would be free to roam the streets in the annual “trick or treat” ritual.  As I recall, the parade was rather a big deal – highly organized by the local merchants with near mandatory participation by the school children and of course the various civic groups and the fire department.  Keep in mind, at that time we were a nation united in prosecuting a world war and all public gatherings were universally supported.  In other words, the whole town turned out.

            I do know one thing.  I was never consulted about my upcoming role in the parade.  Perhaps the family council feared I might “spill the beans” in advance. Perhaps my mother, who herself distained public pomp, instinctively knew, as mothers usually do, that I might rebel were I to be told ahead of time. So on the day of the parade I was innocently making my plans for the night of revelry along with others of my age group. Shortly before the marchers were to assemble, I was summoned by my father to the upstairs bathroom.

            Here I was to learn that considerable effort had already been expended to properly equip me for my public appearance.  Laid out was a miniature campaigner’s outfit (no doubt sewn by my mother) consisting of top hat, black two-piece cut-away suit, flamboyant tie, black shoes and an assortment of make up.  (My father was a Mason and had learned the art of stage make up in conjunction with the Masonic “degrees”).  Propped in the corner was a large sign (probably made in school shop).  The sign said it all:  “Tom Dewey in Person.”  Even I could figure it out!  And sure enough, after several minutes of careful explanation, reassurances “that everything would be all right,” and remonstrations artfully sidestepped, etc., etc. I was duly persuaded to don the uniform, submit to the make up, and hustled out the front door just before parade time.

            The different grades normally marched as a group, but the parade organizers, sensing a crowd-pleasing le grandee finale, hustled me to the end of the line where I was to march alone.  Ignominy heaped on ignominy!  I couldn’t even hunch down and get myself lost among my classmates!

            And so we marched.  Horns blaring, flash bulbs exploding, people cheering, fire truck sirens pealing.  A seemingly endless pilgrimage through the canyons of downtown Coudersport.  And even the end was not an end.  For there were prizes to be awarded!  And lo, I was forced to wait patiently, sign drooping and false mustache slipping by now, for the other winners to come forward, one by one, until it dawned on me that, once again, I was at the end, the final, the first place winner!  Yikes, no place to hide, no surcease, no more being just one of the gang that night as we tipped over garbage cans.  And rich beyond measure, to boot, with the $3.00 cash prize.

            Was it over?  Finally?  Could an ordinary child, longing to be a trick-or-treater for just one night, finally get back to the business at hand, the real business of Halloween?  Nay, not for me, not on that night of nights.

            No, now there were the pictures to be taken.  Walter “Bubbles” Taylor, intrepid photographer for the Enterprise, knew a good thing when he saw it.  Not the ordinary shot would do.  No way.  So off we went in search of the perfect setting for “Tom Dewey in Person.”  Having endured the parade, I was now enjoined to pose in front of the larger-than-life campaign poster in one of the storefronts.  Take a good look:  does this kid appear to be enjoying himself?  Wouldn’t he rather be with his buddies conjuring up some mischief on All Saints Eve? 

You bet.