Halloween-The Way it Was
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Since this coming Wednesday is Halloween, I’m taking a break from the “Life Lessons” just to ponder over and vent about what has happened to Halloween since I grew up in the 1950’s.
Those were the best years of Halloween. The Baby Boomer parents were happy and looked for any excuse to celebrate a holiday. The economy was on an upswing post WWII, and perfect little neighborhoods were popping up all over the country. Halloween treats were homemade with no threat of poison, candy bars were full size not bite size, and no one put razor blades in apples.
Costumes were simple. If your family had a little extra money one year, you were lucky enough to get a five and dime costume in a box: a plastic mask and a shiny pull on suit that tied in the back and probably didn’t fit right, but it didn’t matter. And if there was no extra money, your parents would make you up as a ghost, bum, scarecrow or some other home grown character. Those were actually the most memorable costumes because it took teamwork to put them together: father’s shirt, mother’s scarf stuffed and tied to the end of a stick you found in the woods, grandfather’s old hat, charcoal from the fireplace smeared on your face, and your brother’s oldest shoes. Nothing could have beaten that hobo costume.
And what happened to Halloween being a time to express your political views in good fun versus through hostile sarcasm? I can remember one Halloween right before the Kennedy-Nixon election. My father decided he would be a poll booth and got himself a huge cardboard appliance box. He spent hours painting and decorating that thing. There were slots on both sides; one slot said “Take a treat from here to vote for Kennedy” and the other side said the same thing but for Nixon. My father was inside the box and when the Democrats reached in, they found his hand with a huge tootsie roll for them. When the Republicans reached in, he shocked them with one of those corny hand buzzers. We laughed all night: Democrats and Republicans together. I wonder what tricks or treats would be in that box now, if they were voting for Obama or Romney. The possibilities are endless: horses and bayonets from 1916, and notebooks full of women?
Anyway, my real point is things are different now. I don’t need to tell you that but I will. I just got off video Skype with my grandson who wanted to show me his Halloween costume for this year. He is five years old and he is going to be Darth Vader. His mother told me they had to go to three stores to assemble the costume and it cost her more than $75.00; she wouldn’t tell me the final cost. Of course, there will be no houses to go to because everyone keeps their porch lights off now. Instead, they’ll participate in a “trunk-or-treat”. That’s where parents park their cars in a field or parking lot, decorate the trunks, and have the kids go from car to car for their treats. As nice and safe as that is, it’s not the same as getting scared at a neighbor’s house, walking twenty blocks with ten friends and your father to fill up a pillow case with treats, and actually eating the homemade cookies and candy apples instead of throwing all of that out as soon as you get home.
While on video Skype with my grandson, he told me I have to be Princess Leia if he is going to be Darth Vader. I told him I was sorry but I wasn’t going to be in Florida on Halloween and he said that was no problem; we would just “Skype” Halloween this year.
Sigh…..it has come to this: Trick or Treat from car trunks, $75.00 costumes, and Internet Halloween. What happened to the “good old days?”
Happy Halloween?
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I really miss the childish pranks kids used to used for tricks. Now days they use an Uzi and shoot your house up.
This made me laugh, Bill. Guns and knives have taken the place of eggs and toilet paper 🙂
Ahh Carol. How right you are. What we once had is now gone, but that’s the way of yesterday. I suspect people have been lamenting yesterday since the very beginning. Very nice.
What would life be without being in love with the stories of better times that were really not better 🙂 Thanks for the reply.
I almost cried, reading this. It’s so true. I wonder if it’s old school Halloween we miss, or merely our own childhoods, but I agree that something – no everything – is gone from this holiday.
We probably miss the childhood, but what makes us miss that (reminds us of that) are the holidays. Thanks for the reply.
First there was the instillation of fear. Razor blades in apples, needles in candy. Even though there has never been an authenticated case of either, people love to think the worst.
Then there is the extreme polarization of American politics. It has become so pervasive that seemingly intelligent adults are using what should be a children’s fun day to lambast the evil Republicrats. (or Democans, take your pick)
It isn’t like the America we knew, not at all.
You are so right, James. Thanks for the reply.