1973
Epic Halloween Party

Clockwork Orange Costumes

The week before Halloween the University’s student newspaper the Alligator announced that there was going to be a Halloween party on the University’s Plaza Americas with live music, so I decided to go.  I left the house after it got fully dark. I smoked a joint while driving my Ford Econoline van on the way there, so I was in a good mood.  I parked my van in one of the parking lots on the campus, got out and walked to the Plaza finding a platform setup with a band playing and hundreds of students dressed in costumes.  I had never seen such costumes, there were the usual skeleton and witch costumes, but there were many more that imaginative students had come up with.  There were at least two groups of boys dressed up like the men from the movie Clockwork Orange. There may have been more than two groups as I kept seeing them and wasn’t sure if they were the same group or not.  There was one person dressed up like a giant eight foot high penis with two three foot balls, there were several robots, a walking computer, and many more. 

One of the more interesting “costumes” was the giant amoeba which floated around.  The amoeba was a twenty foot diameter piece of clear plastic rising up five or six feet in the center and a foot off the ground around the edges with a few flashlights lighting up the inside.  I wasn’t sure what was under the amoeba for it was filled with smoke, but I could tell there were a bunch of people.  After watching the amoeba for a bit, I saw people coming and going from under the edge so I decided to check it out.  As the amoeba neared me, I lifted the edge and slipped under it to find a dozen or more people smoking pot.  There were several joints being passed around and as soon as one was gone another would be lit. The pot smoke was so heavy that all you needed to do was breath to get high.   After a few minutes I had enough and crawled out from under the plastic.  It was getting close to midnight and was ready to leave so I managed to make it back to my van and got in.  I was totally wasted and knew I was in no condition to drive so I slept for the first time in my van that night.  I woke up the next morning, the sun shining through the window, taking me a minute to remember where I was before driving home.