Halloween & the Keokuk Jaycees

I'm not overly impressed or nervous around famous people, I'm not afraid of the dark, I'm a pretty charitable person, I love Halloween & it's all because of the Keokuk Jaycees!

When I was a child my father & my uncle Mike were part of a group of men in my hometown called the Keokuk Jaycees. They were a charitable organization made up of men from all walks of life who came together to support those more needy people in our community as well as make the community a little more fun place to live. They were pretty famous for their haunted house, street fair, fireworks display & Christmas party back in the day.

The Keokuk Street Fair & the Jaycees Haunted House were their main fundraising events & the community fireworks show & Christmas party for underprivileged children were their charitable causes. The community was definitely a better place & more fun because of this organization & the men like my father & uncle.

The Street Fair... It was a week long event that was held in the beginning of every summer. They brought in a group with rides & games of chance to fill the midway & booked acts to preform each night on a stage (which they built). 

They would get a cut of the rides & sold beer from a tent beside the stage to raise money to pay for the performers. There was normally one or two pretty big acts each summer & it was kind of a big deal. In the beginning the fair was actually held on Main Street in Keokuk, but it was eventually moved down to the riverfront. 

The riverfront was a perfect location anyway, it was very cool having so much fun & listening to music with the old bridge, the dam & the river as the scenic background.

The Haunted House... It was held every weekend during the month of October at the Old Jaycee Hall. The hall was an old elementary school with full gymnasium, stage, lockerrooms, classrooms & offices. It was 2 stories & made the best damn haunted house you've ever dreamed (or had nightmares) about. The damn building was even scary looking from the outside!

The Jaycees would take the aforementioned stage from the street fair & reassemble it into a maze on the gymnasium floor. The panels were stood upright, attached to oneanother & made into a very tall & long convoluted hallway with twists & turns that was about 100 yards in length. People entered on the bottom floor of the building into the gym. Groups of 10-12 would be "guided" through the maze (which was pitch dark) into various dead ends, spooky rooms, surprise situations (including a guy with a very loud chain-less-chainsaw) & a barrage of audio & visual stimulation.

At the end of the maze the group was guided through the remaining rooms on the bottom floor & then up the stairs to the top floor (all of which were "blood-soaked" & scarier than the damn pitch-dark maze)! Each room on the 2nd floor was more scary than the next. 

The Haunted House ended in a pitch dark room that was quickly lit with black lights to expose a completely fluorescent painted room that had large bugs falling towards the group & quickly filled with about 20 scary guys carrying plastic axes, pitchforks & spears scaring you out the front door of the top floor of the building.

The street fair & haunted house were the two funnest times of the year for me... I remember them so vividly now. I have a couple special & crazy memories of my father, my uncle & other Jaycees I'd like to submit for the record...

The street fair (building the stage)... It took 4-5 days to get ready for the street fair back then. The city would clear the riverfront park & the power companies would set up special power capabilities. The police & fire departments would prepare the area to insure safety (railroad crossing gates, etc.) & even the city/county/state would come & check the rides before the fair's opening day. 

But the biggest preparation was putting together the Jaycee entertainment & event management area. 

They would bring in a construction site office trailor to serve as the Jaycee command post where they'd meet, plan, count & communicate with CB radio to everyone on the grounds (Jaycees walked the entire park as security/special assistance). The night guys also sometimes used the trailer as a place to crash. 

Two flatbeds were then brought in and placed in perfect position so the Jaycees could build the stage (backdrop, platform atop the flatbeds, side access from ground to stage & frontside walkout towards the crowd) around it. By the time they got done you couldn't even see the flatbeds, it was pretty damn impressive. After that they would raise a tent in the back for the Jaycees, their families & others to gather before & after the shows.

8 year old construction guy... One summer I was old enough to go with my father to help with the construction of the stage (something I'd seen my brother do before enviously). My father & uncle were high up in the Jaycees & pretty much in charge when it came to these events so my dad just said "be helpful, don't get hurt & don't get in the way". He & Uncle Mike were very busy & had no time to babysit so I followed his instructions very closely. 

At 8 years old I thought I was pretty much an adult & found a way to be critical to the operation (okay, somewhat helpful). As the other Jaycees were putting together the parts of the stage they would need the fasteners & tools used to secure the sections together. I stood by the 3 or 4 buckets of hardware & the tool boxes & when someone needed something... I would deliver!

Eventually the job became more challenging because I was put in charge (self-proclaimed) of nail delivery for the "finishing" part of the stage. I would have to run under full sections of the stage already built that were about 4' tall & 30' long. Being that I was only about 4' tall at the time & kind of fast, nail delivery was kind of my fortay (as I remember it)!

My father & uncle both said that I'd been helpful that first day on the job. I can still remember being proud hearing them talk about it from the backseat. Those guys were freaking giants from the backseat. I could barely understand what they were talking about, but damn it was cool! 

I pretty much became a main fixture (some would say mascot) down at the fair shortly thereafter (with or without my father & uncle). I was pretty proud of that fact as a kid, it was fun & a good part of my childhood being around the action with a little independence. 

Burn baby, burn... I think the 2nd or 3rd summer I was able to help with the build I got a little out in front of my skis & took my shirt off (being like the big guys) during the stage building. This became known as the dumbest thing I've ever done (childhood years). I learned the lesson of sunscreen importance & how the skin bubbles if burnt bad enough when sunscreen is not applied (white-white-white boy meets the hot sun). The skin on my shoulders literally, figuratively & physically bubbled! I also learned how loud my mother could yell that day & how ultimately afraid of her my father could be when she was mad.

Luckily it was also the time I met Judy Walrath! She was a medicine woman who knew about this very cool plant extract called Aloe*. Judy (who was married to Earl, a Jaycee & my youth wrestling coach) was able to take the sting out of my burn. She cut off a stem of her Aloe plant & gently applied the extract (saav) to my boiling shoulders basically saving me from a trip to the hospital. 

FYI, I'm totally joking about her being a medicine woman, but now that I think about it, she did live in a place called "Indian Hills"!

*Note to self, go back in time & tell parents to create Aloe Vera so our family becomes independently wealthy!

The street fair (family tent)... the tent that was built behind the stage was for Jaycees, their families & the performers in the show. It was a great place to be as a kid (free Pepsi & Mt. Dew). I think I drank about $1,000 worth of free soda each summer in that tent! 

I become a climber... When we (they) finalized raising the tent someone mentioned we (they) needed to hang the lights between the poles that held up the center of the tent. It got quite dark at night inside the tent by the river with no real street or park lights nearby. 

When it came time to run the lights we didn't have a ladder around so my Uncle boosted me on his shoulders & I hooked them as high as I could. Eventually the day darkened & someone determined the lights needed to be raised a couple more feet higher. Still no ladder readily available, so my old man told me to climb up the pole & move them up.

Call it an overobundance of sugared soda or shear ignorance, but I climbed up that pole like a damn spider-monkey. I pushed the lights all the way to the top & then (tempting fate) did the same on the other pole holding up the other end of the tent. God, my mother would've killed my father & I if she'd known about it. 

By midweek the other Jaycees would bet me free-ride tickets if I was able to climb to the top in a certain amount of time. I'm not saying I was fast, but I pretty much rode the rides whenever I wanted with those free tickets!

Famous people... It was in that tent I met Jim Ed Brown & Helen Cornelius, two big country music stars at the time. I didn't know who the hell they were, I was 10. Jim Ed Brown was a goddamn giant, he stood about 8 foot tall & had hands as big as skillets (to me anyway). Helen Cornelius let me sit on her lap even though she was wearing her sequin gown (she was beautiful by the way). I always wondered why people lined up to take pictures with the lady who sat me on her lap... What was the big deal? 

I even met & got to spend time with Chubby Checker. His son Shan Egan travelled with him that summer, he was my age, we became fast friends during the 2 days they were in town & I damn-near finished the tour with he & the band (the son was very lonely being the only kid on the road). My dad was minutes from saying I could go with them, but he was reminded he'd have to explain it to my mother & decided against it (wise move pops)!

I remember being in a store on Main Street at the time & the owner made a racial slur about Chubby while Shan was with my father & I picking up something on the way to lunch (worst memory of my childhood). My father immediately told the man to shut his mouth (fists tightening), put what we were going to buy down on his counter, left it there & walked out (we never shopped in that store ever again). I'd never been so embarrassed in my life, I felt bad for Shan & proud of my father. That was a pretty good & bad memory, but a memory that shaped me nonetheless. 

FYI Shan is a pretty famous Funk Master now, I think I had a lot to do with that... Ha!

The Haunted House... My father & uncle ran the maze at the beginning of the Haunted House which included managing all of the audio & visual effects & timing everything for ultimate scare factor. I remember on the weekends I used to sit in the pitch dark (flashlight downward only) in the electronics management area with my father & uncle. 

Every once in awhile they'd let me signal the front desk to send another group through the maze (solid flashlight beem on a spot on the ceiling). Eventually they let me do a little bit of the audio & visual effects & even some of the scaring. It was pretty neat how they slowly gave me responsibility for things that I held very important. I cherish the things I learned from them, the haunted house sounds, lights, darkness, costumes, props & timing were pretty ahead of their time back then. I love scaring the pants off the young adult kids that hit our house trick or treating, they always get a little more than they expected.

The fireworks... I wasn't let anywhere near them during this event, but I sat on a tailgate with the rest of Keokuk & watched the sky light up with their hard work. Actually, I might've been a little prouder than most kids that night though, because I knew who was behind the scenes making it happen. The show was always longer & more spectacular than the year before it. 

The Christmas party... My father played Santa & gave out the gifts to the kids. I was able to help out for that event a little. It was pretty cool to know who Santa really was & to think that my father was one of "Santa's helpers". The charitable spirit was pretty amazing to see in practice. Of all the events the Jaycees had, this was their favorite. No fireworks, no famous people, no rides or scaring people, just a bunch of men giving out gifts & serving dinner to underprivileged children. It's hard for me to describe those days, all I can say is those men did an amazing thing with smiles on their faces & all went home to hug their families tight at the end of the day.

My father & my uncle taught me so much by their examples. I'm so thankful they brought me along to their events. So much of who I am as a man was formed back during those times. 

They were both eventually awarded JCI Senator status by the International Jaycee organization for their leadership, community involvement, civic pride & improvement of the local chapter. They had a pin ceremony, got a plaque, their picture in the paper & everything.

Even though my father died 5 years ago & my mom has moved from their home to a new home that plaque still hangs proudly on her wall.

I'm sad the events & organizations like the Jaycees aren't available to the community now, but happy for the memories I have & the friends my father garnered through the organization. I still see some of them back home every once in awhile. They too were giants to me & always will be in my heart & mind.

Thanks to my father, my uncle Mike & the Keokuk Jaycees most of all for my charitable nature. Whenever I give, donate or volunteer it is in your memory, by your example & in your stead...