Now that I have your attention...
Boy, Halloween doesn't seem like the same 'ol rollicking, nutso holiday
like before.
There are a few more costumes, Halloween and otherwise, that I've worn...see 'way 'way below.
I remember...
-The Halloween weather was ALWAYS autumn-perfect. You'd see leaves in colors that you'd only see in a 64-Crayola crayon pack. There'd be only a slight breeze, making the leaves dance in a 'spooky waltz' around us. I can't EVEN remember it raining on a Halloween.
-In school we'd have 'art'; pumpkins, bats, witches, anything Halloween-ish, any holiday art that didn't involve any creative thought on our part nor the teacher's. Each season had pre-thought of, pre-cut artwork-Easter, Christmas, Thanksgiving, St. Paddy's Day, Valentine's Day. Did some coloring, brought it home, it'd be on the refridgerator for a week or so until the Thanksgiving stuff came home. Hey, art was better than social studies by an EPIC margin.
-Dalmation outfits for both my sister and I, which were cold weather PJ's doing double duty as costumes, with big black felt dots all over them. Why do parents do that? Turn perfectly good PJ's into a costume, so then we have to lay on the buttons/felt dots/frou-frou costume crap that was sewn onto the PJ's?
-Halloween fairs and carnivals; no rides, just fish bowl ping-pong ball toss, regular ring toss on coke bottles, bean bag toss, cake walk, and lots of plastic trinkets like rings, necklaces, spiders and stuff that we thought at the time were GOLD but ended up being stuffed into a drawer for a gazillion years until we cleaned the drawer out and threw them away.
-Our mom making our favorite dinner, spaghetti.
-Plastic jack o'lantern buckets? NO WAY, they'd NEVER hold enough loot! We used the BIG GUNS-large grocery store paper bags with handles or, if we were into sibling competition and a lot of short sprints, pillowcases. Sometimes we'd make such good time, going door to door, that we'd have to empty a full pillowcase at home and go back out to fill up again. Speaking of the grocery store paper bags, in school we'd bring in said paperbags, cut eyeholes in them and decorate them as masks. I sucked at it, but Tori was really good. She was the 'artsy-fartsy' one in the family.
The houses in our neighborhood now are too big and far apart, so it's not energy-effective for kids to go trick or treating around here. The people don't give extra-special treats, just same ol', same ol', so each year the kids would get fewer and fewer. One year, however, we had a TON of kids...figure that they musta bussed 'em in from Fresno or something.
Our feet would be in the starting blocks just after dinner at dusk, just WAITING for the street lamps to come on. Once the streetlamps came on, it was like the starting gun at a track meet. G'BYE!!!
(The littlest kids were out just before dusk, but their parents usually just went to 5 houses then took 'em home. I now realize that the little ones went early, kind of like a runner that has a few seconds to get ahead, because the little ones' parents didn't want to get run over by us.)
The first 5-10 houses were warm up houses, to get our 'Stop-Yell "Trick or Treat"-Look at the Loot-Run' timing down pat. Our parents wouldn't EVEN try to keep up-they'd wait on the corner for us to circumnavigate the block, they knew we'd be back to them within around 20 minutes.
Why is it that the people who have shitty candy, like boxes of raisins, just place them into your sack so nobody could tell what they put in there, whereas people that had great candy would toss it in there so everybody could see what everybody was getting? AND we used to get handfuls of candycorn, for God's sake! The neighbors would grab a handful and just toss it into your bag.
Just as now, our parents would check our candy, but I think the motivation was a little different than now. Now, parents look for contraband, unsafe stuff, possible tampered-with candy; THEN, our parents went through our candy but I'd notice some of the REALLY choicest, goodest stuff gone after they went through it. I guess we should've thanked our parents for saving us from potentially unsafe stuff. I GUESS...
-We never needed flashlights, we'd just trust our 'radar feet' to avoid the neighbors' sprinklerheads, and if we tripped and fell over one of them, well, we'd just pick ourselves up and try to make up for those lost 10 seconds of candy-gathering we spent picking ourselves up. Didn't bother crying, that'd take ANOTHER 10 seconds away.
Another note-did anyone realize how much time we as kids spend 'gathering stuff' during some holidays? The loot and spoils we get? Halloween, DUH, but Christmas for presents, Valentine's Day for valentines and candy, Easter for eggs and candy...I think it's a plot for our parents to make us do something to get us out of their hair and feed us candy to keep our mouths occupied. It's a plot. I know it. I use it even now.
-We'd go through all our candy and separate it into four piles:
Great
Good
So-so/Iffy (like those stupid boxes of raisins)
Duplicates
We would get dupes, and those would be for trading with siblings. Not everybody got the same thing each time.
We'd then leave the So-So candy in an obvious place (for our parents to find) then hide the good stuff in the closet. We'd put a couple of duplicate good ones in there so they'd get the idea that they had FOUND the stash.
-PICTURES. TONS of pictures and Super 8 movies of us. Pictures of us leaving, at the neighbors, coming back in with our full sacks, all sorts of pics. Wish I still had them.
-When we were older, we'd pick our own costumes, and try to be 'cool', be 'in'. Hard to do when you have no figure, no front, and you look more like a boy than a girl, but I tried. One year it was the British Invasion, Twiggy and the British black and white, checkerboard, plastic had look was in, so I did that. As usual, turned out sucky, but whatever. I think Halloweens like that taught me to prepare WELL in advance for any situation or event that requires special attire.
-When I was in my 'kinda' teens, in the 60's the neat places to go with a date were the haunted houses. They were THE place to go, especially with a cute guy. I'd pretend I didn't know the Campus Life friends that were monsters and I'd use every possible moment to scream and clutch at my date. If the guy liked me, he'd hold on to me and 'protect' me from those monsters. Unfortunately, I never went on a date where BOTH those things happened. It'd be either me trying to cling and he'd shy away with a non-verbal body language type of 'ewwww', or HIM trying to grab onto to me and try to cop a feel. I never knew if they did or not because when you're a -28 -AAAA bra size, a walnut would notice more than I could.
-I can remember a few very choice, very cool parties. My sister Tori always gave great parties; one year around 1979-1980 Bub and I went as Laurel and Hardy (I was Hardy) and another year Bub went as a priest, complete with a 'church key' around his neck (a beer can opener, children) and I went as a pregnant nun. I carried a guitar with me which had a sign on the back that read, "I should have DANCED all night!" Another year, we were barbarians.
One party was pretty cool also, given by some friends of ours in Moreno Valley 1992. I ACTUALLY still have a pic from that! They're below.
If I have a memoir of 'back in the day', I just can't avoid pics of kids to embarrass them with!
To the 'way below left is Laine as a devil (talk about TYPE-COSTUMING!) in 1985. Immediately below, he's a ninja in 1986.
Below is Jackie, circa NOW. TODAY. October 31, 2009.
Here are some blast from the past pics...below, Barry & I as barbarians for one of Tori's parties. I'm below as a cheerleader for a party in Moreno Valley, 1992.
Shit, 
17 YEARS AGO. YES, I still have the outfit, don't know if I can get into it or not...I'll give it a shot for NEXT Halloween, k?
Boy, Halloween doesn't seem like the same 'ol rollicking, nutso holiday
like before.
There are a few more costumes, Halloween and otherwise, that I've worn...see 'way 'way below.
I remember...
-The Halloween weather was ALWAYS autumn-perfect. You'd see leaves in colors that you'd only see in a 64-Crayola crayon pack. There'd be only a slight breeze, making the leaves dance in a 'spooky waltz' around us. I can't EVEN remember it raining on a Halloween.
-In school we'd have 'art'; pumpkins, bats, witches, anything Halloween-ish, any holiday art that didn't involve any creative thought on our part nor the teacher's. Each season had pre-thought of, pre-cut artwork-Easter, Christmas, Thanksgiving, St. Paddy's Day, Valentine's Day. Did some coloring, brought it home, it'd be on the refridgerator for a week or so until the Thanksgiving stuff came home. Hey, art was better than social studies by an EPIC margin.
-Dalmation outfits for both my sister and I, which were cold weather PJ's doing double duty as costumes, with big black felt dots all over them. Why do parents do that? Turn perfectly good PJ's into a costume, so then we have to lay on the buttons/felt dots/frou-frou costume crap that was sewn onto the PJ's?
-Halloween fairs and carnivals; no rides, just fish bowl ping-pong ball toss, regular ring toss on coke bottles, bean bag toss, cake walk, and lots of plastic trinkets like rings, necklaces, spiders and stuff that we thought at the time were GOLD but ended up being stuffed into a drawer for a gazillion years until we cleaned the drawer out and threw them away.
-Our mom making our favorite dinner, spaghetti.
-Plastic jack o'lantern buckets? NO WAY, they'd NEVER hold enough loot! We used the BIG GUNS-large grocery store paper bags with handles or, if we were into sibling competition and a lot of short sprints, pillowcases. Sometimes we'd make such good time, going door to door, that we'd have to empty a full pillowcase at home and go back out to fill up again. Speaking of the grocery store paper bags, in school we'd bring in said paperbags, cut eyeholes in them and decorate them as masks. I sucked at it, but Tori was really good. She was the 'artsy-fartsy' one in the family.
The houses in our neighborhood now are too big and far apart, so it's not energy-effective for kids to go trick or treating around here. The people don't give extra-special treats, just same ol', same ol', so each year the kids would get fewer and fewer. One year, however, we had a TON of kids...figure that they musta bussed 'em in from Fresno or something.
Our feet would be in the starting blocks just after dinner at dusk, just WAITING for the street lamps to come on. Once the streetlamps came on, it was like the starting gun at a track meet. G'BYE!!!
(The littlest kids were out just before dusk, but their parents usually just went to 5 houses then took 'em home. I now realize that the little ones went early, kind of like a runner that has a few seconds to get ahead, because the little ones' parents didn't want to get run over by us.)
The first 5-10 houses were warm up houses, to get our 'Stop-Yell "Trick or Treat"-Look at the Loot-Run' timing down pat. Our parents wouldn't EVEN try to keep up-they'd wait on the corner for us to circumnavigate the block, they knew we'd be back to them within around 20 minutes.
Why is it that the people who have shitty candy, like boxes of raisins, just place them into your sack so nobody could tell what they put in there, whereas people that had great candy would toss it in there so everybody could see what everybody was getting? AND we used to get handfuls of candycorn, for God's sake! The neighbors would grab a handful and just toss it into your bag.
Just as now, our parents would check our candy, but I think the motivation was a little different than now. Now, parents look for contraband, unsafe stuff, possible tampered-with candy; THEN, our parents went through our candy but I'd notice some of the REALLY choicest, goodest stuff gone after they went through it. I guess we should've thanked our parents for saving us from potentially unsafe stuff. I GUESS...
-We never needed flashlights, we'd just trust our 'radar feet' to avoid the neighbors' sprinklerheads, and if we tripped and fell over one of them, well, we'd just pick ourselves up and try to make up for those lost 10 seconds of candy-gathering we spent picking ourselves up. Didn't bother crying, that'd take ANOTHER 10 seconds away.
Another note-did anyone realize how much time we as kids spend 'gathering stuff' during some holidays? The loot and spoils we get? Halloween, DUH, but Christmas for presents, Valentine's Day for valentines and candy, Easter for eggs and candy...I think it's a plot for our parents to make us do something to get us out of their hair and feed us candy to keep our mouths occupied. It's a plot. I know it. I use it even now.
-We'd go through all our candy and separate it into four piles:
Great
Good
So-so/Iffy (like those stupid boxes of raisins)
Duplicates
We would get dupes, and those would be for trading with siblings. Not everybody got the same thing each time.
We'd then leave the So-So candy in an obvious place (for our parents to find) then hide the good stuff in the closet. We'd put a couple of duplicate good ones in there so they'd get the idea that they had FOUND the stash.
-PICTURES. TONS of pictures and Super 8 movies of us. Pictures of us leaving, at the neighbors, coming back in with our full sacks, all sorts of pics. Wish I still had them.
-When we were older, we'd pick our own costumes, and try to be 'cool', be 'in'. Hard to do when you have no figure, no front, and you look more like a boy than a girl, but I tried. One year it was the British Invasion, Twiggy and the British black and white, checkerboard, plastic had look was in, so I did that. As usual, turned out sucky, but whatever. I think Halloweens like that taught me to prepare WELL in advance for any situation or event that requires special attire.
-When I was in my 'kinda' teens, in the 60's the neat places to go with a date were the haunted houses. They were THE place to go, especially with a cute guy. I'd pretend I didn't know the Campus Life friends that were monsters and I'd use every possible moment to scream and clutch at my date. If the guy liked me, he'd hold on to me and 'protect' me from those monsters. Unfortunately, I never went on a date where BOTH those things happened. It'd be either me trying to cling and he'd shy away with a non-verbal body language type of 'ewwww', or HIM trying to grab onto to me and try to cop a feel. I never knew if they did or not because when you're a -28 -AAAA bra size, a walnut would notice more than I could.
-I can remember a few very choice, very cool parties. My sister Tori always gave great parties; one year around 1979-1980 Bub and I went as Laurel and Hardy (I was Hardy) and another year Bub went as a priest, complete with a 'church key' around his neck (a beer can opener, children) and I went as a pregnant nun. I carried a guitar with me which had a sign on the back that read, "I should have DANCED all night!" Another year, we were barbarians.
One party was pretty cool also, given by some friends of ours in Moreno Valley 1992. I ACTUALLY still have a pic from that! They're below.
If I have a memoir of 'back in the day', I just can't avoid pics of kids to embarrass them with!
To the 'way below left is Laine as a devil (talk about TYPE-COSTUMING!) in 1985. Immediately below, he's a ninja in 1986.
Below is Jackie, circa NOW. TODAY. October 31, 2009.
Here are some blast from the past pics...below, Barry & I as barbarians for one of Tori's parties. I'm below as a cheerleader for a party in Moreno Valley, 1992.
Shit, 
17 YEARS AGO. YES, I still have the outfit, don't know if I can get into it or not...I'll give it a shot for NEXT Halloween, k?Another 'costume' (or not) was 1974 LBPD, to the left. I took my hat off and my hair went flying.
DO NOT LAUGH AT THE NEXT ONE-IT WAS MY VERY VERY FIRST PROM, February 1970.
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