Tag Archives: Halloween

Halloween has always been on of my favorite days of the year. Better than Christmas? I think so. The planning was all-consuming: costume, clandestine meeting place and time, Trick-0r-Treating routes, and, of course, locating an ample-sized pillow case for the anticipated spoils of the night. Paper bags would do in a pinch, if Mom tackled you on your way out the door with a pillow case in hand. In my neighborhood, once you reached a certain grade in school, starting somewhere around 6th grade, store-bought costumes were out of the question. We refused to be humiliated in those plastic molded masks with the small eye-holes, two microscopic punctures for respiration and maybe a slit at the mouth, all held together with that flimsy, ultra-thin elastic band that ALWAYS broke away from the staple holding it securely in place. ALWAYS.  The older kids were so much cooler because they wore the classic stand-by costumes of the Bum – old clothes, a pillow for a belly, and a “beard” crafted from Mom’s make-up bag and, for the girls, a Gypsy – old dress, lots of jewelery with hoop earrings and heavy make-up. Yeah, that’s what the cool kids wore. Continue reading →