Anahola residents weren’t alarmed by the transformation of postal employees Diane Higa and Brian McCracken yesterday — in fact, every Halloween they’ve come to expect it.
In the five years Higa has been postmaster at the Anahola office she’s required costumed participation from postal clerk McCracken.
“The first year he was reluctant,” Higa said. “But I told him it was a job requirement.”
That was five Halloweens ago and the two have not failed to deliver yet. One year they greeted customers in matching Rastafarian costumes, complete with dread-locked wigs and tie-dyed T-shirts.
Over the years Higa has collected upward of 20 costumes ranging from “Wilma Flintstone,” to “Elvira” and “Cleopatra.”
This year Higa called herself “Friar Tuck” and described him to customers as “the jolly friar from Robin Hood who was always drunk.”
As a friar she offered not only 42 cent stamps to her customers, but said she’d save them a trip to church Sunday if they wanted to give a confession. By noon she still had no takers for the confession, but had sold plenty of stamps.
The tufts of hair that made her beard and bushy eyebrows were from a fake animal pelt she picked up at a craft store.
“I just clipped off the fur and glued it to my face,” she said.
But when asked by a curious spectator she told them, “I’ve been taking hormone pills for a couple of weeks.”
Cloaked in a hooded mask exploding with blond curls and sporting giant bucked teeth, McCracken’s costume was described as his brother.
“Don’t worry,” Higa assured one customer. “Brian’s brother lives in the basement and we only let him out on Halloween.”
• Pam Woolway, lifestyle writer, can be reached at 245-3681 (ext. 257) or pwoolway@kauaipubco.com
