Halloween Memories

I don't recall much in the way of trick or treating from when I was little. Perhaps that was because we lived out in the country and neighbors didn't live within walking distance. By 3rd grade, however, we moved into a small town and I do recall going door to door. This, of course, was northern Minnesota, so not only was it very dark (still standard time before they extended it into November), but also very cold on Halloween. The typical "costume" had to fit over a winter coat, sometimes snowpants too, so an old worn-out white sheet was cut up, enough to see and extend arms, and that was it. That, or your costume went under your coat where nobody could see it, so what was the point?

Being the fifties, nobody worried about real predators or freaks who might be malicious with what they handed out. A couple years we also took out little boxes to collect pennies for UNICEF. Mom gave us each a small container for our treats. A pillowcase was considered scandalously greedy. As it was, when we got home, our parents went through the candy. It was not to protect us, other than from too much sugar over the next month. That was about how long the candy was expected to last. Or popcorn balls. Even a caramel apple or two. We didn't meet anybody rich enough to hand out whole candy bars, but you might get a little Tootsie Roll. Or Tootsie Pop.

I grew up not knowing there were people who TP'd houses or threw eggs or tomatoes at them, though I did hear stories about somebody (never somebody I actually knew) getting an outhouse tipped over. Since those had all but disappeared by then, those stories usually were told by older kids about even older perpetrators. The "worst" story I ever heard, from somebody who swore they had a hand in it, was taking fertilizer to an unpopular teacher's house and spreading it in the pattern of THE naughty word. Come spring, and for several years later, that stood out as the greenest part of the whole yard!

It's really hard to spread more fertilizer carefully enough to fill in around the letters and hide them from view in equally green grass. It's still pretty funny. For the record, I am in no way encouraging anybody to repeat that kind of mischief.

Seriously.

No, I mean it. Stay away from that high nitrogen lawn greening stuff!

Occasionally I was aware that some older kids went to parties to keep them entertained and out of trouble, and most likely to attempt to make up for the lack of a candy bonanza. As a kid, however, I never attended one.

After I got old enough to be prohibited from the great candy handouts, I stayed home and helped answer the door, the other side of the equation. Mom shopped as cheaply as she could for goodies, and other than home-made popcorn balls, there was little incentive to sneak a little bite of something for myself. Not that it stopped me.

I didn't return to trick or treating until it was time to escort my own kids around the neighborhood. They balked at the tried and true sheet ghost costume, but some years that was all that was affordable. Buy one at the store? Never! One year, however, there were inflatable plastic "alien heads" that you wore like a hat, with color-matching makeup for your face so you could pretend to be about 18" taller and spooky. The kids complained they weren't "real" costumes, but by then the child support payments had stopped and it was those or nothing, and nothing included staying home. They wore them.

Once.

Next year they were mysteriously unable to reinflate.

My favorite my-kid's Halloween memory came from one of the 3 years we lived in Georgia. It was a fairly close-knit neighborhood, lots of kids, some even friendly to us newcomers. We didn't go too far, staying where we knew people, and most likely my youngest got toted around in a wagon. From our house at the bottom of the hill to the top and back again was our route. The father of the family at the top of the hill came from the same small Minnesota town that I did. In fact, his family owned and ran a lumberjack-style restaurant outside of town which was one of the very few my parents ever took us to. Down in Georgia now, with milder weather, and Halloween becoming more of a holiday, this family really did it up good! Besides spooky decorations, Mama opened the door dressed as a witch to greet kids. We thought perhaps Daddy was escorting his own kids around the neighborhood, but apparently he found another parent to take their kids. As we left, he stalked each group back to the street, wearing a hairy gorilla suit, and shuffling and making grunting noises which passed enough for real that the kids were either entertained or scared. I heard from the neighbors that he did that every year.

Eventually trick or treating ended for another generation, other than the handing out candies part. By then we had to be careful and buy prepackaged goodies. A lot of publicity that may have been real or urban myth had parents searching every candy piece for poisons and razor blades before kids were allowed even a bite. Officially, anyway. Lots of pieces were scarfed up before returning home with the goodies despite all promises to the contrary. But no more popcorn balls, caramel apples, repackaged candy corn with other miscellaneous tiny goodies. More yard decorating was going on besides carved jack-o-lanterns with candles inside and gooey messes scraped off the table and into the garbage. Halloween was now officially expensive!

As an adult with older children, I finally had occasions to go to Halloween parties. They were held on Saturdays, regardless of the actual date, so you could still man the door at home and enforce a curfew. These were costume events, and I was into making my own. The first year, no money to spend, I wore my work uniform for my costume. I wasn't the only one to do that. The next year I bought red and black felt and glue, making a tube and pointy hat, going as a red crayon. I may have done a copyright infringement, since I copied it down to the wavy black line on a real crayon. That wasn't the part I was bothered by, however. Not only did I forget pockets, that thing was hell to get in and out of for a bathroom break!

Other memorable costumes included my belly dancing costume, made for real performances at a very amateur level, and a "blind date". These too had drawbacks. While modest, the dancing outfit gave a couple of well-lubricated party-goers the idea that touching was encouraged. Since they were complete strangers rather than friends like most of the others at the party were, it wasn't.

The blind date was something I worked hard on. I made a shiny brown long tube, gathered top and bottom and supported to hold its form by a large domed hat inside. Then I added sunglasses, lenses made from a black netting so I could see out, and a white cane, the latter borrowed from a friend who had known someone who actually used one. Unfortunately, proud as I was of it, there was a very well-known TV commercial featuring singing raisins at the time, and nobody got the pun.

These days Halloween is still fun. No decorations, other than that one house a few blocks over that packs their yard with all the lighted ones they can cram onto it, just like they over-do it for X-mas. We carve no pumpkins and roast no seeds, have no kids visiting our seniors-only community, no pranks, no parties. But we can hit the stores for bagfuls of our favorite candies just for ourselves, and make them last just as long - or not - as we want to!

For a bonus, we can watch any TV program or read any book without interruptions all night long. Or whatever.