Halloween

Back when I was a kid---no, there were no dinosaurs, it was the 'fifties. It was just cars that were the size of dinosaurs---Halloween was always a confusing sort of day.  It was my sister's birthday so we could never go out trick-or-treating till after her birthday dinner which was continually interrupted by other kids trick-or-treating.  At the last clink of a fork on a plate we kids jumped up and ran for our costumes.

My big sisters were forced to drag me along with them for a little while and we hit the road, clutching---I am not making this up---pillowcases for our loot.  And my sisters' bags came back full! Mine not so much since they would stay out till practically midnight walking miles without street lights to get the best stuff. I didn't last quite that long. After the first skeleton costume I encountered walking toward us on the dark street I was ready to go home.  Heaven forbid there be a Frankenstein or a werewolf.

When my sisters finally came home we all sat on the kitchen floor and dumped out our bags.  You should have been there! We're talking full-size Hershey bars---the kind that cost a dollar today---homemade popcorn balls, apples on a stick covered in caramel and wrapped in waxed paper, homemade cookies, and if a neighbor was running out of goodies, nickels, dimes and pennies.  And guess what!  Nobody x-rayed the candy or even gave it a close inspection before we could eat it.

I was usually a gypsy or a hobo, costumes that were thrown together that day, and Danny Zinn from across the street always borrowed one of my dresses and went as a girl.  There were no costumes bought at the store.  If somebody's mom was the kind who cut the sandwiches into shapes before she put them in your lunchbox, she might have dyed a pair of your uncle's long underwear blue, put red shorts over that and with a red apron for a cape made a Superman costume, but that was as elaborate as anybody got.

By the time my boys were trick-or-treating things were in transition. Kids wore some home-made costumes but mostly bought ones.  Halloween costumes in our family, however, are like our  birthday cakes: they have to be homemade or your mother doesn't love you enough to go to the trouble.  Not that I ever sewed, but we had a few fun ones. We cut holes in boxes for arms and heads, covered the boxes in aluminum foil and made a robot. The year Ghostbusters came out in theaters we fashioned a costume out of boxes and the wand from our vacuum cleaner.  Once we did an astronaut costume made from a paper bag, arm and face holes cut out and a soda straw attached to the side for an antenna, then sprayed with silver paint.

Jake's best costume was the year he was about four and went as The Incredible Hulk.   He wore a long-sleeved green t-shirt of mine, stuffed with dish towels for muscles, with someone's green knee socks that came up to his thighs, under his shorts, and I mixed green food coloring in with my make-up and put it on his face and hands.(Who knew food coloring was a permanent dye?)  His skin had kind of a sickly pallor to it for a few weeks, but he was darn cute as the Hulk!

I did break down and buy a mask for one of Josh's most memorable costumes.  He was going to be CP3O from Star Wars and the mask was very realistic.  For the body I had gold gift-wrapping paper and we wound it around and around him, trunk, arms and legs.  He looked terrific for the parade they had at school every year, where the kids marched around the gym in their costumes first thing the morning of Halloween. There was only one problem.  He couldn't bend his knees to sit down in the car for the ride to school. Hey, I was nothing if not a resourceful mom. We had a two-by-six board in the garage and a station wagon.  We leaned the board against the back of the car, leaned Josh against that, then tipped it up and slid him into the car like a big pizza going into the oven.  I think he wore a different costume for trick-or-treating that night, though.  Something we made up on the spot, of course.

Tonight when I go to the door I'll drop candy bars about the size of your thumb into plastic pumpkins and  there will probably be very few costumes that were not purchased at Wal-Mart or Target.  I won't be wearing a costume myself, although I've seen adults do that for when kids came to the door. Okay, one time I dressed up like a dog, white sweats with black felt pieces for spots and fabulous felt ears pinned into my white hair, because the company I worked for at the time was having a contest.  The make-up was terrific and very dog-like.  Only problem,  it was on Jake's birthday and we didn't have time to go home and change clothes before we went out to dinner with him. He was in college and didn't seem to think it was that cute, but several little kids in the restaurant came over to see me.

Once when I was taking my kids around, a lady greeted us looking like a regular mom, but when she turned around to get the candy she bent over and was wearing a plastic derriere over her jeans and it had a big kiss mark on it. I think she was commenting on how Halloween has changed through the years. I don't blame her but don't think I'll do that.