More brain droppings. Halloween of days past, being connected to today.
Yesterday morning's ride was accompanied by callers to Michael Smirconish's Sirius/AM show, talking about Halloweens of days past.
My Halloween seasons were in a New Jersey suburb in the early 50's. The day began around 7 a.m. when my mother got me into my costume to wear to school that day. She was good at costumes and my(her) costumes won several year's prizes at the Halloween parade that would take place in the evening. There would be an assembly program with all the kids, grade by grade would walk across the auditorium stage, wearing their Halloween gear.
At 3:00 p.m., the bell rang, and we were off --- off to get home and get ready to go house to house for Halloween loot.
But I'm getting ahead of myself. Ya see, Halloween was a four evening season. First came Bell Night. That was when you went from house to house, ringing your neighbor's doorbells and then running away so's they would answer the door and nobody would be there. You'd ring the bell and run like hell so the door answerer wouldn't see you. If the house had hedges or bushes, we hid behind them, figuring the homeowner wouldn't see us or know where to look for us.
Once in a while, a homeowner would yell at the invisible kids - never a curse word. Looking back at it, Mike G, probably had more fun yelling at the invisible kids than we did, ringing his bell. He had kids who participated in this, so he knew what was up.
And guess what? It took me until yesterday, thinking about Halloween, to realize that.
The next evening was Chalk Night. We went up and down the streets chalking up the sidewalks. I don't recall what we wrote or drew. I know there were no curse words written on the sidewalks.
The third night was Mischief Night. That consisted mostly of throwing toilet paper rolls at trees so's there would be streamers of toilet paper, handing from the branches for the duration of a couple of rain storms.
Then ------ Halloween. For that, we were given pillow cases to put the loot in. Stage 1 was from 3:00 to around 5:00, supper time. After that, back to the task of loading up the pillow case. Most of the time, you rang the same bells you rang three nights ago, got candy dropped in the bag and when on.
BUT
Once in a while, there would be a resident (usually a woman) who would want you to come in and examine your costume and find out who you were. "Isn't he cute?" I was a cute little dickens back than.
Then at 7, would come the town Halloween parade, followed by prizes for best costumes... usually $5.00, cider and donuts.
Then home, waiting for next year.
The kids who had brothers, had to share the loot. I was without siblings so what was mine, was mine.
God knows, I miss those days.
See you next year.
Do you have any stories of your Halloweens?