When you turn into your motel and see something like this in the parking space next to you, you have to wonder if maybe you made a bad turn somewhere.
The young folks (I hope they are folks, since they are in rooms around and above me) were headed to the 39th annual Halloween party sponsored by the city of Athens and Ohio University.
I had just come from covering my first OU football game since since 1970. It wasn’t the 57 degrees and sunny promised. It was in the 40s, cloudy and with a brisk wind. I warned the gal in the blue costume that her skin would match her clothes if she stayed out very long.
It’s a wild party
The Halloween (and many other block party events) have the reputation for degenerating into public displays of drunken debauchery, sometimes ending up with cars being overturned and fires being started.
I was looking forward to covering my first Athens riot since the university closed in 1970 two weeks after four students were gunned down by the National Guard at Kent State.
The only problem was that it was cold, I was tired and parking spaces were non-existent.
So, when one of the kids asked if I would take their photo with one of their cameras. I honored the request, then decided I’d rather have Halloween come to me instead of me chasing it.
I’m officially old.