The Story of Dapper D, The Christmas Skeleton

Every year, when most people have Christmas decorations on their lawn - snowmen, Santa Clause, reindeer, and lights -  my cohorts and I sneak into someone's yard late at night and replace a traditional figure with Dapper D, the Christmas Skeleton. Why do we do it? The official reason is to remind people of our mortality and that we are all the same inside. The unofficial reason: To freak them out. But after all, aren't these reasons all one in the same?                     - Bill Ectric

Below: My friend Tim Staats at the 2nd Annual Placing of Dapper D, The Christmas Skeleton.

Good, clean fun - Above, Will Baker in white shirt, Christopher Youngman in red shirt, and Kenny Fete in brown shirt, placing Dapper D on the roof of Kenny's in-laws

Origin of the Tradition My next-door neighbors are a biker couple. Big'n is a big, bearded man who rides a Harley and works as the doorman for a bar. He and his wife, Becky, go to Bike week every year in Daytona Beach. For the Christmas season, they had one of those plastic snowmen that light up at night. My friend Tim and I snuck into their yard late one cold night while drinking beer, and replaced the snowman with a plastic skeleton that, which also lights. It's supposed to be for Halloween, you know.    The next day Big'n , instead of kicking our asses, drilled a hole at the corner of the skeleton's mouth, just big enough to stick a cigarette into. He hooked up some kind of pump on it the next evening so he could draw air in from the bottom and the cigarette would glow & burn & puff smoke.       Continued on page 2

Left: My neighbors,  Becky, Big'n, and their daughter, 'Reesa

Above: Writer Chris Hutson Plugs Mr. D into the holiday matrix . Will Baker is behind him.

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