Halloween: Those were the Days

I know there are some people who would rather ignore the fact that Halloween is a yearly event. They would like to see it done away with all together. But I have fond memories of Halloween. My memories of Halloween were built in a more innocent age.

On the Saturday night before Halloween our school hosted a huge party. Each classroom would decorate their door for the grand prize. Children and parents would be dressed in costumes and join the parade around the gymnasium. The Boroch family always won the big prize. The mom was a great seamstress. One year they all came as skunks. They really “skunked” us all that year. After the costume judging and awarding of the prizes, everyone enjoyed playing games such as dunking for apples, donuts on a string, and dodging the apple in the doorway.

Today the whole idea of trick-or-treating is to see how much candy can be gathered from the treaters. In my time, we were excited to get apples and homemade donuts and as much apple cider and hot chocolate that we could carry away in our tummies. Halloween to us was trying to fool our friends better than we did the year before. Since we lived a mile from our nearest neighbor, Mom always drove us in the jeep to trick or treat.

Several hours went into deciding which of Mom or Daddy’s oldest clothes we should wear. Any skin showing had to be blackened with coal from the cellar. Decorated, brown paper grocery bags with cutout eyes covered our heads to serve as masks. For extra padding, we stuffed wadded up towels or straw in our shirts. We were always careful to wear dark-colored clothing, because half the fun was sneaking up on the houses.

With the jeep lights off, Mom quietly and slowly drove up in a neighbor’s field. Then we tripped and stumbled through the field to the unsuspecting house. Once we were all standing on the porch we started yelling “Trick or Treat!” Porch lights quickly lit up the front of the house, we were invited in and the guessing began. We very rarely stumped anyone, but on our way back to the jeep we convinced ourselves that our neighbors never had a clue.

Mom dressing up in costume was a big part of the fun. But I remember one Halloween that beat all other Halloweens. Mom found an old man’s mask somewhere with warts, wrinkles and sagging jaws. She put an extra supply of straw in her shirt and pants and held an old corncob pipe in the mouth of the mask. I thought this would be her best performance year ever. No one would guess her!

One of our visits was to old Manley Van Ness and his wife, Ada. The VanNess’s were a sweet couple and well up in years. Manley was using two canes now. Mom directed us kids to go in the front door while she quietly sneaked in the back. No one noticed her until she was right behind Manley in the living room. She just stood there for a while, hands in her pockets and the corncob pipe hanging out of that warty mask.

As I said, Manley was old and was not moving very fast anymore. That night was different. Manley sensed someone behind him and slowly turned on his two canes. I never knew an old man could jump so high. As he came down he roared with tears gushing down his face, “Why, Blair, I almost didn’t recognize you!” We laughed so hard as we slurped hot chocolate and gobbled down our donuts. We all agreed that was a good laugh on Mom!

Now days kids have to buy their outfits. They have lost the creative excitement of creating their own. I also think people enjoyed their neighbors back then more than we do our neighbors today. We live closer to our neighbors now but hold them farther away from our hearts. Yes, those were the days and could be again.