Dress Up Day - It was Halloween

When I was a kid, I think Halloween must have been the next best thing to Christmas or to my birthday. We used to dress up and take off to canvas the neighborhood in little packs of 5 or 6 kids. No danger of poisoned apples or "seeded" candied popcorn balls. Our Mothers warned us to look carefully at all of the street corners before crossing and to stay together. We knew the boundaries of the neighborhood and actually never thought of going outside of them. No parents were required to guarantee our safety as we streaked around the neighborhood, sometimes with a flashlight and sometimes not, ringing, giggling, shouting "trick or treat" with not an idea in our heads of ever really tricking anyone!

My brother, I and our friends and cousins dressed up in all kinds of costumes - mostly sheets, or grown ups' clothes, high heels or Dad's shoes - sometimes a brown paper grocery bag became a neat cut out costume of some sort and corrugated boxes could be all sorts of things - brightly wrapped packages with one of our heads sticking out of the top, arms out the side and legs out the bottom. Our Mother, or for that matter any of our friends' mothers, never would have thought about "ordering" a costume. There was no money for such an extravagance nor was there a desire from any of us for a store-bought creation.

Occasionally though our Mother, a wonderful seamstress, would sew up something really special. Today rustling through old photos, I came across this darling photo of my younger brother - I believe he was nine in this photo - I wonder if this was one of those occasions or was this a school production outfit? Whatever the event was, what a darling little boy - no embarrassment, no tears - just loving the whole look! It seems to be the only costume photo I've found in the family photos that I possess; I could not resist placing it on my site today.

There will be lots or maybe only a few trick or treaters in our neighborhood tonight. We've purchased the obligatory wrapped candy treats and I'll resist the temptation to turn off the porch light and retire with a Netflix in hand......"Really?" you think. Yeah, really but actually I'll keep the light on and ooh and aahh at every little costumed creature that rings the bell, I'll tell them how spectacular they look and let them select from the candy basket. I'll wave to their parents who are very close at hand, sometimes as far away as the front curb but not much further than that. A child could not troop around these days unchaperoned after dark even in the closest of neighborhoods. Halloween is still a wonderful time for the kids but for the parents it's a time for guarded trick or treating with their little goblins!

Happy Halloween JDS!