Jenny Abel

He had just dressed up in bandages as Howard Hughes right before I was born.

I do remember going on to the Bill Boggs show and eating a hair sandwich, or refusing to eat a hair sandwich.

My dad somehow caught wind of the fact that there was a train car, an old caboose, like a 1916 Duluth, Winnipeg, and Pacific caboose that was down at the local train yard.

Alan decided he wanted it.

Of course, they said, no, no, no, you can't have a caboose, you know, blah, blah, blah.

And my dad had taught me how to cry on cue, and nobody wants a crying kid in the room.

So I think they just appeased my dad and said, okay, okay, okay, you got the permit.

I just remember the costume.

I remember my dad having a fake referee costume.

I don't know if he bought tickets.

I don't even know how

With security at the time, in the 80s, they got through.

But my dad had a fake referee and a fake police officer run onto the field.

And I believe the fake referee called a few plays before they were pulled off the field.

Someone realized it's a joke.

They're not real.

There was a whole, like, really involved production.

Like, he had a fake telephone number and his friend in Utah who would corroborate the story that he had skied and lost control and, like, landed in the woods and died of a heart attack somewhere in Utah.

And they had a fake funeral home director.

The way that I remember it, I had gone to school that day and everyone was looking at me with these sorrow-filled eyes and expressions.