About the big black cat and the guy who was driving it (The Maui News, Nov. 2), let me clarify something for everyone: Anything being driven down the street decorated or built as a theme piece, being viewed by spectators on the sidewalks in the other 49 states is called a float. Hear me now and hear me good, it is not a costume.
We've been putting up with this for years. If it has wheels and a driver, it's a float. The costume the man was wearing was shorts, a T-shirt and a hat. Granted, the cat was cool, but if he thinks huge means costume, he is wrong.
Entering and winning the costume contests with these structures is wrong. No structure with a driver should be in the same category as a detailed, handmade or store-bought costume. It's apples and oranges. It should, if it hasn't already, be in a different category.
I made costumes for myself and my husband for years and placed several times in the top 10, along with others' fabulous hand-sewn costumes. We had to go up against these floats then too. We haven't been back to Lahaina on Halloween since 1998, because a guy was doing the same thing, year after year, and the LahainaTown Action Committee did nothing to separate the two categories. I had hoped they had changed it by now, but from the wording with the photo, they're still trying to call it a costume.
Helen Alipio
Wailuku
