Born on the day before Halloween, I seem forever destined to be connected to that holiday. Anne and I married early in 1980 and decided to host a Halloween party that year. Halloween was on a Friday, so we planned the big bash for Saturday. Not all of our guests got the message as three revelers showed up for the party Friday night. Jakob, an Israeli expatriate that was doing stonework around our house for us, came as a cowboy. He was soon followed by Nancy, a geologist, dressed, strangely enough, as an Indian princess. John, another geologist, came a little later, his only costume a black mask. Making the best of the situation, Anne and I broke out the alcohol and we all began to party.
There was a championship boxing match on television that night -
Those days there was no rule about excessive bleeding. To say that there was a little blood strewn around the ring would be a true understatement. The ring looked more like the inside of a working slaughter house, all the viewers, myself included, in total shock. The fight was soon called and Watt proclaimed the world champion.
We went on to drink, carouse and to celebrate into the wee hours, neither Anne nor I in much shape for the real Halloween party that continued as planned the next day.
A few years later I met Sean O'Grady at a Christmas Party in
He wasn't smiling and I could tell from his expression and the clinch of his fists that he was getting ready to slug me. Having seen his devastating punching power on more than one occasion, I immediately raised my right palm.
"Believe me, I'm not "Little Red" Lopez. I'm one of your biggest fans."
Sean's expression thankfully changed and we proceeded to have a nice conversation. Lopez, it seems, had beaten the then teen aged O'Grady badly and he had never forgotten, or forgiven.
That was the first Halloween party that I hosted, eventful like everyone else that followed. I have another Sean O'Grady story but I will save it for another day.