October 24 was a fun day for Billy Bump. It was his birthday…and a week before Halloween. He had a brainstorm of an idea and decided to make his birthday party a Halloween party. For this transformation he would need the help of his buddy Chet and Sally and Daryl. Now Daryl’s dad was the 3rd grade teacher at Hillcrest School and he liked to be called the Wiz. He even dressed in black and wore a cape and a pointy hat. They had moved to Eldorado from Bath, England. Daryl was just about as close to a genius as Billy B. had ever encountered. He literally seemed to know the answer to a question before you could ask it. Of course it would be a costume party and Billy B. would attend his own Birthday Monster Bash as Frankenstein. Chet continued to be dedicated to portraying the Lost in Space Robot and Sally would be “Sally from Peanuts,”…while Daryl was coming as Albert Einstein.

Orpheum Theatre, where Billy B. spent countless happy hours, was to be the venue for the celebration. Billy’s mom, Neva Jane, had rented the theatre for the evening and Lou, the owner of the movie house, had obtained the original 1931 Frankenstein movie directed by James Whale and starring Boris Karloff as the Monster. Billy B. had borrowed his cousin Gene’s Frankenstein mask. It looked just like the movie makeup that Karloff wore.

October the 24th arrived and Billy B. was officially 10 years old. He thought to himself that there would not be many more years of this childhood business…soon he would be out on his own and making his way through life. The birthday cake and the balloons and the kool-aid and the cheeseburgers were in the Cry Room. The Cry Room was lit by a dim red light. It was a bit difficult to ascertain which was birthday cake and which was cheeseburger. Chet gleefully announced that he had spiked the kool-aid with vodka….and that there was a bottle of Peppermint Schnapps that was under the gift table. Sally asked Chet where he had gotten the booze…and he said that Lanny his neighbor had given it to him. Lanny was older than the party revelers. Soon the party started rocking and the red light seemed so appropriate for a Birthday/Monster spooky event… Daryl told Billy B. that his dad had arranged a special surprise for him during the movie.

Ooooh, whispered Sally as the movie began. She told Billy B. that she had taken a drink of the Peppermint Schnapps…and that she felt as light as a feather… Einstein was near the silver screen with his dad…The Wiz… Everyone began to laugh at the portion of the movie where Frankenstein is enjoying a cigar….and Billy B. realized that they were watching the Bride of Frankenstein rather than the original 1931 Flick. Soon each of the partiers had fallen asleep under the gentle sway of vodka spiked kool-aid…and Schnapps. When the lights came up there was a full sized Frankenstein sitting in their midst. Sally asked where Billy B. was… Frankenstein was smoking a cigar and he said with a large smile on his face…’Smoke…Good!’