It's the not-so-great pumpkin, Charlie Brown!

Today Wendy from the Sauk County Corporation Counsel's office called. When I answered the phone, she identified herself and asked if I were wearing a costume.

"Well," I said, "I'm not wearing a tie."

Apparently quite a few people do wear costumes to work. I saw it at Wal-Mart and in some of the shops around the square. In fact, at lunch there was a table with several middle-aged ladies dressed as witches, cheerfully eating with several other women dressed normally. (Normally? That doesn't sound polite, somehow. And when did women younger than I am become middle-aged?)

It reminded me of my favorite Halloween costume story. Back in 1987, I was the new novice master for the Carmelites (the guy in charge of the students during their intensive second year of training), and as such, a fairly big fish in a pretty small pond. I happened to be in DC for a meeting at Halloween, and Steve Payne and I decided to go over to Georgetown after dinner to see the crowds. I had some kit I had found at Walgreen's to make myself up like a cat. (See the photo for an idea of how this worked.) It required no costume or mask, just the face and whatever you chose to wear. I just followed the simple directions about how to do it, and it turned out remarkably well. Anyway, I had my cat face, put on a letter jacket and jeans and went downstairs to wait for Steve. He is always late, so I wandered into the television room and sat down in the back.

One of the older priests came in without seeing me, went to the television, fooled around and then turned and caught sight of me. I hadn't said a word. At the time, one of the postulants (guys in their first year who would be coming the next year to the novitiate under my direction) was named Richard Clark. A great guy, and we were then about the same build, hair color and so on. Fr. Regis assumed I was Richard, and snarled, "I'm going to tell the novice master," hoping to strike fear into his heart. In the old days, the person who was novice master was highly respected, considered one of the most exmplary of priests and somewhat feared as being a strict disciplinarian.

"I am the novice master," I replied.

Regis nearly hit the floor.