“I’m in a bind.”
It was our younger daughter on the phone and she didn’t sound very happy.
“We have a Halloween party at Christian’s school tonight and he’s decided he doesn’t want to go as a Blue Power Ranger. It took three trips to Charlotte to find that outfit and now he won’t wear it? Any ideas? We’re leaving in twenty minutes and we can stop by your house on the way.”
Christian was four years old and every bit his own person. It was unlikely that he was going to change his mind.
As any helpful, resourceful father would do, I immediately came to her rescue.
“Let me get your mother.”
I walked to our bedroom and handed the phone to my wife, silently mouthed the name “Amy”, then made my escape. This was too complicated for me. As I headed back to my study, I couldn’t help smiling as I remembered another Halloween of many years ago.
“Momma, I need to get dressed for the parade.”
I was six years old, standing in the middle of the kitchen, and patiently looking up at my mother. She was in the middle of preparing dinner and continued stirring whatever it was on the stove.
“What parade?” she asked without turning around.
“The Halloween parade,” I answered calmly. “It starts at 4 o-clock, in front of the school.”
She stopped stirring, wiped her hands on her apron, turned and glanced over my head at the clock on the wall. 3:30.
“Hmm,” she murmured, her brow furrowing a little. “This is the first I’ve heard of a parade.”
She put one hand on a hip and the other began to stroke her chin.
“When did you tell me about this, Robert?”
My shoes suddenly became very interesting and I began studying them intently. Without looking up I muttered, “I… uh… We are supposed to…”
“Never mind,” she said, tossing her apron onto the table and scanning the room. “We’ll find something for you to wear and then we should just be able to make it.”
There was a twinkle in her eye as she headed down the hallway, stopping at the pantry door and looking inside.
“We’ll find something,” she softly and slowly repeated.
The old Plymouth pulled in front of the elementary school and momma leaned over, opening the door for me. There was a big crowd of kids ambling around the yard with several adults trying to herd them into some kind of order. We had made it.
“Look, there’s Bobby Jones,” she said, pointing to one of my best friends. “Just walk along with him when the parade starts. I’ll be waiting over there when you’re finished,” she added, pointing to a nearby parking area.
“OK,” I told her, struggling to get out of the car. I could barely see through the two eye holes hastily cut in whatever was in front of my face, and I held my arms tightly by my side, as instructed. I was in some kind of cocoon and could barely move.
“But momma,” I said, finally able to get out and stand precariously on the curb. “What am I?”
“Look,” she said, pointing behind me. “The parade’s getting ready to start! Walk on over there to Bobby. And be careful.”
She pulled the door closed and drove away.
“But momma…” She was gone, and I turned around and looked for Bobby Jones.
About a hundred elementary kids were lined up now on the sidewalk and we slowly started to head down the hill. The idea was to circle the large school block, one side of which skirted the edge of town, and then finish up back here. The whole parade should take less than thirty minutes.
“Bobby!” I called out to my friend, took a step toward him, tripped on the curb, and fell on my face.
“Be careful there, son,” one of my teachers said, stepping over and helping me regain my feet. “And just who are you?”
“I’m Robert Lesslie,” I told him, invisible behind my costume.
“Well, just be careful, Robert,” he said. “And watch your step.”
That was easier said than done. My eyeholes had slipped to one side and I couldn’t see the ground. My arms remained at my side and I inched forward, trying to find Bobby.
Suddenly I could see.
“There, does that help?” It was Bobby, and he had adjusted whatever was covering my head, realigning the eyeholes.
“Thanks Bobby,” I told him. He was dressed as Superman and looked pretty cool.
“Just what are you?” he asked me, scratching his head and studying me from head to toe.
“I don’t know,” I answered, shaking my head and messing up my eyeholes all over again. “Can’t you tell?”
“Let’s go children!”
It was my first grade teacher and she was directing us down the sidewalk. She gave me a funny look and walked on. If Bobby answered my question, I didn’t hear him. We were off.
That was one of the most difficult journeys of my life. If Bobby had not been at my side and adjusted my eye holes every few minutes, I don’t know what would have happened. I might have ended up in Gastonia. As it was, things were bad enough. Halfway down the hill I shuffled off to one side and walked into a telephone pole. That was fun. But Bobby quickly righted me and we were on our way again.
Every few minutes someone would appear in front of me, dressed in colorful store-bought costumes, and would invariably ask, “What are you?”
I had given up trying to find an answer and was now only determined to survive this parade and get back home. There were no more telephone poles in my way, but when we made the turn at our first corner, I fell over a short stone wall and landed in someone’s azaleas. The same teacher reached over and helped me get back to the sidewalk.
“Robert, try to watch where you’re going,” he patiently advised me.
I was trying! But this was almost impossible. Inside my costume I was hot and sweating and praying for the end of this parade.
Finally, we were back in front of the school. I had made it, and I just stood there huffing and puffing and enjoying an overwhelming sense of relief.
A group of my friends had gathered around, staring at me and carefully touching my outfit.
“Robert, what are you?”
The same question came at me again and again. And I still didn’t have an answer.
I began to struggle inside my costume, wondering how I was going to get it off, when I thankfully heard my mother’s voice.
“Hold steady Robert,” she spoke quietly from behind me. “Let me help.”
Suddenly there was light, and a cool breeze. And I was free. Momma had lifted my costume over my head and stood there holding it in her arms.
The kids stood there for a moment staring at me and the thing in my mother’s hand. Then slowly they began walking away. Only Bobby remained.
I turned around and looked up at my mother and at the rumpled costume in her hands.
“Momma, what was I?”
She held the object at arm’s length then turned it around so I could see the front.
It was a brown paper grocery bag. She had cut two holes out for eyes and with a red crayon had drawn a smiling mouth.
I studied it for a moment, shaking my head.
“Momma, what…”
“Robert, you were a potato,” she explained. Then with a hint of pride in her voice,
“And you were the only potato in the whole parade!”
“A potato?” Bobby muttered behind me, his voice low and admiring. “Well I’ll be! A potato!”
I looked from him to my mother and then to the sack I had been wearing for the past hour.
Yes! I had been a potato! Anybody could be Superman, or Cinderella, or the Wolf Man. But I was a potato – the only potato.
“Let’s get home,” my mother said, turning and reaching out for my hand. “It’s almost time for dinner.”
There was a twinkle in her eye.
I could hear my wife scurrying around the house.
“Let me look around and see what I can come up with, Amy. Give me a few minutes.”
She clicked off the phone and passed me while heading into the den. There was a smile on her face, and a twinkle in her eye.
“No painter’s brush, nor poet’s pen
In justice to her fame
Has ever reached half high enough
To write a mother’s name.”
Author Unknown
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