OK, go ahead, call me out of the loop. But I never heard of the Rondo Hatton Classic Horror awards until today.

And this will be the eighth year they give the things out!

Though the more I think about it, the more I realize that what’s far more likely is that I have heard of them, only they got lost in the grooves of my brain with all the other awards handed out in science fiction, fantasy, and horror.

But what got stirred up from the depths of those very same grooves is the memory of a weekend I spent with Rondo Hatton. Well … not the real Rondo Hatton. (You may think I’ve met everyone, but I really haven’t.)

You can see the Rondo Hatton I’m talking about in the photo below.

He could pass for the real thing, right? He’s not, though.

Beneath that mask is comics fan Tom Watkins, who wore some of the most awesome costumes ever to grace Tom Fagan’s famed Rutland Halloween parades. Some years he was Solomon Grundy. Other years Man-Thing.

I can’t remember exactly when that photo was taken, only that it was the late ’70s. Maybe 1978. I’ll have to get back to you on that.

And what did I wear when Irene and I headed north to Vermont that Halloween? Sadly, while my wife and her sister cooked up wonderful costumes based on comic-book characters (Irene was the Valkyrie, but that’s her photo to share, not mine), all I did was put on a store-bought werewolf mask.

Check it out below as I pose with our friend Ron Erickson.

Since there was nothing special about my mask, I didn’t climb onto one of the floats, but just walked along the parade route as my better and more appropriately garbed friends rolled by.

See, I told you I didn’t really do costumes.