The night the "Booger Man" lost his gun O.T. Banks was a close neighbor of mine when I was growing up . We lived about half a block apart. He was the railroad section foreman who was replaced by my Dad some time in 1926. O.T. was on the Pompano Police force at one time and some one told me he was also the Chief of Police. O.T. Banks had a nick name. He was called, but not to his face "Booger Man". When he came by this name I don't know. How he came to called "Booger Man" I can only guess. First, he was a gifted ventriloquist and on more than one occasion he scared the living daylights out of me. I heard from others, even as recent as a month ago of him scaring other kids in town. Secondly, you would have to have seen him to understand how he might have come by this nick name. Think of how it would make you feel if you grew-up living only half a block from "The Booger Man". Kids of today would probably have to have counselling to help them cope with a situation such as this. Me and "Booger Man" entered into a business agreement. He hired me to clear a lot behind his house. If memory serves me correct it was a lot twenty five by fifty feet. This lot was overgrown with palmettos, scrub oaks and pine trees. "Booger Man" offered me two dollars to clear it and seeing as how huckleberries only brought ten cents a quart and it was really slow going picking them, I jumped at the chance to make some "big money". I guess I worked all summer clearing that lot, in fact it nearly needed clearing again by the time I finished. So "Booger Man" got his lot cleared and I got my two dollars and I learned a lesson. Me and "Booger Man" kind of had a luke warm relationship after that, especially after I realized that I, at the age of eleven had kind of been taken advantage of. Three things happened in Pompano during the month of October that we looked forward to: The opening day of Dove season, the first Northeaster that brought the first Bluefish run and Halloween and not necessarily in that order. We didn't trick or treat on Halloween, that came years later with the influx of outsiders into Pompano.Our Halloween fun was that after the Halloween carnival on the bean shed down town , we'd head for the school house and squirt the soda-acid fire extinguishers and run several of them along with various other objects up the flag-pole. And then, the really big event: The Baggage Float. The baggage float was the big heavy wooden wagon with a head board and no sides that was used at the train station to load and unload freight and baggage on and off the trains. These were the same floats that were used to give the newly elected mayor a ride from city hall, up N.E. 1 Ave. to the drugstore to treat everyone to ice cream and sodas on election night. On Halloween it seems that some way or the other one of these floats always wound-up on the second floor of the school building fronting on N.E. 6th St. Sometimes they had to be partially dismantled to get them up the stairs and around the corners and they always had to be dismantled to be brought down. Eventually the School Board members thought it time to stop this activity especially since it disrupted classes the next day while the maintenance crew took the float apart and got it down, back together again and back to where it belonged. That brings us back to "Booger Man Banks", He, being a former Policeman, the School Board hired him to patrol the school on Halloween to put a stop to this practice. "Booger Man" always wore a soft felt hat pushed back on his head, bib overalls with a gold watch chain that stretched all the way across the top front of his overalls and black high top shoes. 	 On this Halloween night he also wore a big .38 Special pistol with a six inch barrel in a plain black holster on a plain, wide black belt and carried a ten cell Eveready flash light that doubled as a billy club. "Booger Man" started his patrolling on foot around the school house. Imagine the people that were surprised when getting to the school house they found an armed guard there. The "Booger Man" no less. 	This called for a "Pow-Wow" and it was quickly decided that if the old tradition, (really just fun) was to be carried out then the "Booger Man" had to be diverted, or just plain put out of commission, as he just might use that gun he was packing. A plan was quickly devised whereby he would be lured to the building that fronted on N.E.4th ST. into the circle drive bordered by the Australian pine tree hedge. Then he could be dealt with safely. Four of them headed out to find him while four others hid in the hedge. Sure enough, after a couple of shouts, the flash light beam cut through the night and the chase was on. The decoys spread out just enough to confuse the "Booger Man" and they did. They ran down the driveway and shortly here comes "Booger Man" huffing and puffing following along as if he knew the plan. When he was in the center of the four man team hiding in the drive way, they pulled bandannas up over their faces, jumped out, and grabbed "Booger Man". They pinned his arms and then very quickly removed the gun from his holster. It was up to the four men to keep the "Booger Man " detained until the baggage float was safely "upstairs", which they did. The furious "Booger Man" got his gun back the following day, delivered to his house by a policeman, who said he "found it" on the desk at the police station. "Booger Man" never hired out again to the School Board to patrol the school. But the prank of the baggage float in the school house just died out eventually, as it was getting to be a real effort to make it work, not like the "Out House Gang" in Hallandale that have carried out their prank all these years. "Booger Man Banks" believed that I was one of the ones that "took his gun" at the school house on that Halloween night long, long ago and he never forgave me for it, or any of the others he suspected of being involved. And that is how the "Booger Man" lost his gun.