[Mo_Gearhead]

They turn the normal world into some strange and sometimes bewildering place, if only for a moment.

As youth’s, my sister and I always went out in costume for Halloween. I had a Zorro outfit; black mask and cape. She dressed as a Witch. I had not seen that particular mask since the 1950’s. It was rubber and had the requisite long, narrow slits for her eyes. The top-front had a mix of yellowish/green hair. The nose had a large wart on one side and another on the chin. One moment she was my older sister, but putting on that mask …transformed her! It was still her voice …but damn that F’ing mask scared me! I found that exact 50 year old mask in a flea market recently, purchased and mailed it to her. We had a good laugh.

Later, in my late 20’s, my wife and I were at some friends home on Halloween night. Their young daughter was getting ready to go out trick - treating. The cutest little blonde girl in her Strawberry Shortcake outfit. All well and good ...till she slipped that mask on! How in the hell can a Strawberry Shortcake mask turn a sweet little girl into some three-foot-tall being that looks like she could suddenly walk into the kitchen …and come back dragging a huge butcher knife that is dripping blood?

My wife tells me she had a mask of some sort that scared the bejezzus out of her younger brother. He would run and hide under the kitchen table at the very threat of her putting it on! ( Don’t make me get the mask! )

Too many movies I assume?

I recall several. The bank robbers - all with Richard Nixon masks. A scene in S. King’s ‘The Shining’ where a boy opens a hotel door and a naked man on his knees between a woman legs turns his head…and is wearing a dog mask with its tongue lolling to one side. All those beauties in ‘Eyes Wide Shut’ …naked but masked. I mentioned Zorro already. The Lone Ranger. V - in that English film about blowing up Parliament. Jason in ‘Halloween‘. And so on…

The reason for this mask flashback; I just drove through a nearby small town. A local police car had two women (in an older Oldsmobile) stopped. As I slowed and approached on the narrow street from the opposite direction, cars were stopping behind them, unable to safely pass till I had done so. The third car back in that line contained three teen-age boys. As I looked in at them they were laughing and putting on …MASKS!

I can only guess - a dare perhaps? Teenage silliness? Who can say?

Or …I may read about it in tomorrow’s paper?