Kids today have it so easy. My son gets a Luigi costume at Target, slaps on a fake mustache, then has us drive him around a few minutes so he can come home with enough candy to put Willy Wonka in a ten year coma. Halloween is just a blip between summer and Christmas to my kids. There’s no magic, no sense of adventure anymore.
Back in the 1970s when I was a kid, times were hard and we didn’t mess around. Halloween was Go-Time. The rest of the year my brothers and I rarely got candy (unless you count the Sucrets we stole out of my mom’s purse), so we prepared for this holiday weeks in advance.
And we were entirely on our own. Mom and Dad rarely bought us a costume. We had to cough up our own spooky designs from whatever was lying around the house. And trick-or-treating? Completely unsupervised and lasted until way past bedtime even on a school night, just like God intended.
We’d spend weeks brainstorming wacky homemade costume ideas: “Hey! I know! We can have Dad cut up some of the foam insulation from the attic and make a giant Pac-Man!” We’d analyze which houses would score the biggest payload: “Okay, rumor has it Mrs. Stevens gives out jumbo-sized Snickers but steer clear of Old Mr. Pitts, he throws moldy popcorn balls or crayons at your head and he smells like cheese.”
Once darkness fell, we’d fan out by ourselves clutching our garbage bag costumes. We’d bravely roam the streets, our sad Hobo faces covered in whatever we could scrape out of my dad’s ashtray, and beg perfect strangers for a Charleston Chew.
Whenever I tell my kids about the hardships we faced back then, they interrupt me and say, “Yeah, yeah, yeah…whatever, Mom. By the way, that is the dumbest idea for a costume, like, ever, and can you give me back my Kit Kats now? That’s your third one!”
Let’s travel back in time to my childhood Halloweens, shall we?
Well, duh! We were the Fruit of the Loom Grapes!
I think people gave us more candy because they felt so bad for us. Mmm-mmm! Pity tastes delicious!
HAPPY HALLOWEEN!
___________________________________________________________________________________
Yeah, I admit this post was a re-blog from a post I wrote in 2012. Sorry, but I think eating this Snickers bar is far more important than blogging.
She's A Maineiac 
Hahahahaha cool photos!!!
You are absolutely right nowadays kids have it easy 🙂
They sure do. I also remember a few Halloweens where I wore one of my mom’s old bed sheets so I could be a ghost. So sad.
I just about spat out my tea, looking at the first photo. I had the same costume one year: the little bolero vest, head scarf, skirt, etc.; and yes, I was a gypsy. And yes, of course, the witch a year (or two). The most creative costume I came up with was in college. I made a paper mache head of an alligator that I wore over my head. I dressed in my preppiest wide whale lime green corduroy pants and pink oxford shirt, and pasted a little person on my pocket. I was a preppy alligator (in deference to Izod). Just wish I had a photo handy. I think there is one buried somewhere in an old album.
Oh, god, do I remember the Izod craze! I would love to see that photo of you.
I thought your reminiscence would go along the lines how back then you used to go trick-or-treating in the snow for five miles to the nearest house, and the best candy you could have hoped for was a fistful of sugar-sprinkled wood chips.
Or was that your parents’ generation?
Oh, no that was my generation too. Most Halloweens we had snow. We would have killed for some sugar wood chips! We were like little Laura Ingalls who would get one candy cane and a penny and be happy about it, dammit.
The jip (how do you spell that super 70’s word?) of the plastic mask was you could only wear it for 10 minutes before sweat was dripping down your face. It was totally ruined when you had to wear it in the top of your head.
And – kids these days don’t know what a hobo is! Sheesh
Oh dear god, yes. The dreaded sweaty plastic masks! This is why in one photo you can see my younger brother as Snoopy but without the mask because he kept pulling it off his head only to have it snap right back into place. I think it traumatized him. To this day, he can’t watch a Peanuts episode without breaking out into a cold sweat.
Love the Amish hooker costume. I bet your family took the prize year after year for most creatively unique Halloween costumes. That’s truly not a bad thing at all. 🙂
My dad was a mad genius to create that Pac-Man costume.
Kids have it so easy? Have you finally turned into one of those? Me, too. Pull up a stool. As Bukowski said, “Scramble two.” Down in my dreary little hamlet, since it’s on a Saturday, trick-or-treating is conducted mid-day. How lame is that?! It’s all got to be put to bed no later than 7:00 p.m. Feh.
The grape outfits are really, really, really lame. Kind of shameful, really. Maybe you got more candy because they thought you were “special.” One year I dressed up as a “girl.” This was before my voice changed. Everyone thought I was a girl. It was humiliating. Not that being a girl is humiliating. It just worked too well. That night stayed with me for a long, long time.
Halloween is just a joke now. Here, most kids actually have to resort to trick or treating in broad daylight going to outlet stores in downtown Freeport. Sad.
I nearly spit out my coffee reading about your spooky adventures as a girl. Awesome.
Who the hell is Bukowski?
Bukowski is a poet of some renown. His stuff is straight-on. He doesn’t deal in flowery ambiguities.
a consistent sort
at the track
the other day
during the
stretch run
the announcer screamed:
“HERE COMES PAIN!”
I had a bet on
Pain and
he finished
2nd,
one half-length
short.
he didn’t win
that time
but he will
win soon
and you can
bet on that
again and
again and
again.
get down
heavy
And please click over to this one. It’ll only take a minute to read but it’s a keeper.
http://allpoetry.com/So-You-Want-To-Be-A-Writer
What did the veteran Amish hooker say to the new Amish hooker?…… “Beat it, this is my pasture!”
tee hee! Although, there’s probably not many Amish hookers in general. I bet there’s lots of job security in that profession.
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Worst costume my mom dressed me as? Well, she gave me a cheap straw cowboy hat. Yup, that’s it! You’re a Cowboy, now don’t come back until the street lights come on. (Ah, the 80s!)
Yes! The days when we’d use the street lights as curfew. Actually, that was just a suggested curfew. We’d still roam the streets well after dark.
I have green eyes so maybe a cat for next year? This year I’m being blase.
Don’t overdo it.
Who cares if it’s a re-blog! It’s hilarious! My favorite is the Amish hooker! I had some sad sad costumes growing up but you’re right, the worst ones get you the best candy.
It reminds me of the old Adam Sandler skit on SNL when he comes up with all these stupid costumes. “I have a banana for a face! Yeah! I’m creepy Banana Man! Now gimme some candy!”
LOL!
I thought all this awesome-sauce looked familiar. But how could precious photos of your disturbing Halloween costumes ever get old? Never.
If there’s anything my life has been good for, it’s supplying you guys with endless disturbing photos of me.
Oh my word, this brought back some memories for me. Even at 54 I still remember those tacky, store bought masks and cheesy plastic costumes the lot of us wore out that haunting favorite night. Thanks for taking me back to a memorable time!
You are very welcome. As Edith and Archie used to say, “those were the daaaaaays…”
So fun to read your trip down memory lane, when Halloween involved scrappy kids creating their own costumes and giving parents a night off. What do you think they were doing while you were out all hours of the night? Now that could be a horrifying thought! Anyway, loved the photos and the captions. Happy Halloween!
GAHHHHH!!!! OH MY GOD! NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
[faints]
Ha! Love the trip back down Halloween lane. I was only afraid of a house that had a strobe light and crazed Halloween scary music. Now I have the house with the strobe light and the crazed Halloween music…
Hope you had a spooky Halloween, Susie!
I remember all those things and more, as Halloween is also my birthday!
Hope you had a spooktastic bday!
That’s awesome that you made your costumes. We had store bought, but we were left to pour own devices to trick or treat. Every once in a while we would convince my parents to take us to the rich side of town where they gave out full size candy bars. My kids are used to me driving them everywhere. Spoiled I guess.
My dad did that for us once. He drove us to another town to trick or treat in his wood-paneled station wagon. Scary!
Since cameras had not yet been invented when I was a kid, I do not have any Halloween photos to bestow on you. We rarely got to go trick or treating anyway. I believe my mom thought we were going to be stolen, she also didn’t want to deal with 7 kids on a sugar high. When we did get to go we were hobos also. I had no idea what a hobo was but it didn’t matter, it was cheap. I remember one year I was a hobo with a Casper mask that was a great year.
You really can’t go wrong with a hobo as most kids have a bunch of torn dirty clothes lying around.
I remember all those houses in my neighborhood that would give pennies instead of candy! 😦
Yes pennies! My mom resorted to handing out pennies once because we’d get slammed with about 200 kids every year. (We lived right next to L.L. Bean) But nothing beats the year my own daughter actually got a religious pamphlet telling her how Halloween is evil.
Hlarious post! You brought back a whole lot of memories. I have no photos of costumes …. and only remember one outfit – an old sheet with holes cut out for eyes to make me into a ghost! It was the candy that counted – no tricks although we kids talked about turning over milk bottles or soaping car windows. Horrible crime ridden ideas never carried out. Well once we did two milk bottles and ran like hell. Milk bottles? Once they did deliver milk to our front doors. I think this may be age revealing? Parents never accompanied kids and we wandered the neighborhood where everyone knew us anyway. See – you brought back a host of memories. Thank you! 🙂
You are more than welcome. Milk bottles! I wish they would bring the milkman profession back. My mom said he’d bring them a few bottles every morning and my grandfather would skim the cream off the top to use in his coffee. The good ol’ days!
LOVE IT!!!!! We live on a military base and they only can trick or treat for 2 hours. Honestly… that’s fine with me. After a hour I am tired anyways. LOL
I hear you. We went out for exactly one hour this year and that was just fine with me. Confession: I really don’t like Halloween. Especially all the horror movies on TV.
What is wrong with you? LOL kidding. My kids are older so that LOVE Halloween.
I do like the little kid version of Halloween, Charlie Brown and pumpkins. That’s all I can handle though. And I used to read Stephen King! I must have gotten older or something…
Hahaha! OK 🙂
oopsy THEY* not that.
I’m going to spend the rest of the day scratching after looking at that PacMan costume. Itchy, itchy stuff.
I was driving past a group of trick or treaters on Halloween — there were HOBOs. I didn’t think folks even knew what hobos were any more!
I really wonder how the hell my brother survived in that costume. I remember we had to keep taking it off him so he could breathe. That combined with the deflated balloons in our grape costume falling out here and there, it was a really sad sight.
If he ever develops lung problems, you’ll know why.
It’s really a wonder any of us survived our childhoods. That’s probably why we bubble-wrap OUR kids!
I never got an alert for this post! Or maybe I didn’t see it from inside my foam costume. These pictures are a-mazing. I think the ‘invisible wall’ paint job is my favorite!
Teehee. I love you, Julesy. I think my mom must have inhaled too much paint fumes that day. “Hey, I know! Let’s paint the doors and the woodwork and the ceiling the same color!”
Darla! I am laughing out loud. This post is priceless, and should be reposted again, every Halloween. 🙂 You are a riot! I’m glad I stopped by tonight, you really made me laugh. And if you can believe it — I had a friend who one year also went as the Fruit of the Loom grapes! I totally forgot about that. Must have been something in the water. Anyway, glad to see you are doing well!
Hey there! So happy to “see” you! I cannot believe someone else did the grapes thing. Insane. I suppose back then they were considered hip and happening.
How the heck are you??
I’m good! Busy, busy, busy — like we all are! 🙂 But sure missing my BBFs (best blogging friends). Thanks for keeping on keeping on — I sooooo love your posts!
Oh those plastic faces. They were horrible! You couldn’t see or breathe, and you pretty much just wore it on the top of your head like a hat after the first house.
I dressed as Raggedy Anne one year, but homemade like. I wish I had pics of my halloweens as a kid but they didn’t survive. 😦
I love the sign on your costume. Kids still do that now. I get teens who aren’t dressed up at all at my door, with like a post it note to describe their not even a costume, I just want candy, costume.