Things are fixing to get spooky. And no, I’m not talking about Halloween; I’m talking about the election. It doesn’t matter whose side you’re on – BOTH sides claim that there’s some kind of existential something or other that’s going to end us all if the other side wins.
It’s pretty disheartening, really, but don’t let it get you too down. Whatever you do, though, go VOTE.
At least then you’ll have some say in the way life as we know it is going to end.
But enough doom and gloom about all that, let’s talk about Halloween. It’s high on my list of holidays, but it’s one of the few holidays that occur during hunting season on which I’ve never made a road hunting case.
It hasn’t been for lack of trying. Year after year, I’d go out on some lonely road and sit and wait for my road hunters to come.
After a while, I started feeling like Linus waiting on the Great Pumpkin.
I guess my worst year for Halloween was October 31, 1992. I was living in Raymondville, in the heart of the local Halloween candy trail.
A steady stream of trick-ortreaters knocked on my door while I waited for my partner, Bruce, to come pick me up. I was in uniform, and I I’m pretty sure I did most of the scaring when the wee-little tricksters looked up and saw a big-ol’ bucket-headed dude with a gun on his hip handing out candy.
Anyway, Bruce came by at 8:30. I loaded up my stuff into his four-wheeldrive Dodge Ram Charger patrol vehicle, and we headed out. We had plans to patrol a National Wildlife Refuge area on the west side of Willacy County and try and catch us some road hunters.
It was a cool, damp night. The moon was full. Perfect.
When we turned off the highway onto the dirt road near the refuge, Bruce hit the kill switches, and we ran dark about a mile-anda- half to the refuge gate.
Visibility wasn’t a problem; however recent rains had made the road a little damper than we expected. No worries. The Ram Charger could handle it.
We stopped at the refuge gate, and I bailed out to open it. Lickety-split, we were in. As we slip-slided our way through the mud to our hiding spot, Bruce’s trusty Ram Charger suddenly sank and, although all four wheels were still turning, we weren’t moving. This was not good. Bruce shut off the engine, and we got out to ponder our predicament. We weren’t about to get on the radio to call for help and let every game warden within a 70mile radius know that we were stuck. No way, Jose.
Bruce grabbed a shovel from the Ram Charger and started slopping mud. I searched for sticks and rocks and anything else that could possibly be used to put around the wheels for traction. We’d trade jobs when whoever was doing the slopping needed a break.
We tried several times to bust out of the bog with no luck. Things got worse when the mosquitoes found us, and we realized neither of us had any repellent.
On the brighter side, the mud we were both covered in protected us some, but those little boogers drank their fill for the most part. Still, there was no way we were going to call for help.
Finally, sometime after midnight, the Ram Charger tires gained enough purchase to punch us out. Mosquito-bitten and muddied, we went home.
Now that I’m retired, there are many times when I look back fondly on a memory and wish I was right back in the thick of it all.
That’s not the case here. Come next Thursday, I’ll be more than happy to be the big-ol’ bucket-headed dude (without the gun, this time), handing out candy on Halloween, secure in the fact that, like the Great Pumpkin, my Halloween road hunters are never going to come.
