Terror and the Symphony Ball

I'm reprinting this for my Sister who was only three at the time, and I found out yesterday she doesn't remember any of it.

When I was a kid, there was such a thing as the Jackson Carnival Ball, put on by the Jackson Junior League. It was a really big deal. Patterned after the New Orleans Mardi Gras Krewes.  They had a king with a court and pages, costumes, and dancing, and the whole thing was held in the Jackson Coliseum.

The idea was to make money for the Jackson Symphony (now the Mississippi Symphony). I don't know if it didn't actually raise any money or if it was too much trouble or what, but they haven't had a Carnival Ball that big in a long time. 

My mother wasn't the kind of person to join a volunteer organization like the Junior League without doing any actual volunteer work so one year, she ended up in charge of all the costumes for the Carnival Ball, and my brother was enlisted as a page boy. I remember racks and racks of costumes filling the living room and the dining room of our house and strangers in and out to try them on. 

That year, the King of the ball was the governor of Mississippi, John Bell Williams. Williams was a World War II hero and lost one arm in battle when his bomber crashed. Sometimes he wore a mechanical prosthetic arm that ended in two curved metal prongs. 

Williams was an old-style Democrat and previously served in Congress in Washington. He supported segregation, but, as governor, he didn't fight the court order when it came down to desegregating Mississippi public schools.

Arrangements were made for the Governor to come by our house and try on his king costume before the ball. My dad supported Williams' opponent in the governor's race, so this was a slightly delicate moment. 

 My mother pulled us kids aside to tell us that a very important man was coming to the house, and we were to be on our best behavior and be very polite and say "yes, sir" and especially not to stare because he had only one arm. 

Determined to be a good boy, I spent the next day and a half preparing myself to meet this important man with one arm. I wasn't going to stare, and I wasn't going to say anything stupid like, "Nice to meet you, we voted for William Winter." or "Hey mister, where's your arm?". 

The big day came, and a nicely dressed older man came to the door in a dark suit with a hat. I was six years old. Now, my mother was wise to warn us about meeting a man with one arm, and I was ready for that, even though I'd never met a man with one arm before. What she didn't tell us was that he had replaced that arm with what looked to me like a gleaming metal HOOK like Captain Hook from Peter Pan! Captain Hook was a bad guy, so I ran and hid, not to come out until after the Governor had left.

And that was my first awkward experience with politicians.