We were not poor by any means but did not have a lot of what they call now disposable cash on hand so most of my costumes were home made and often thrown together at the last moment. I do remember a store bought costume that I think my Mom had picked up at a garage sale it was a Doctor Doolittle costume that I wore for years. It was a plastic mask with slits for eyes and a fabric suit that tied around me like a hospital gown. I wore that costume so many years it was four sizes to small the last year I wore it. It looked something like the picture bellow. I have always been an animal lover and loved the idea of being able to talk with the animals so I loved this costume.
Halloween night was always so magical to me and also very scary the whole idea of venturing out in the dark chilly fall night was always a bit unnerving but a must if you wanted to score as much sugary treats as you could. The TV stations for days before would show spooky movies and Peanuts Charlie Brown The Great Pumpkin was never missed if at all possible by most kids. The week of spooky movies helped to build up the tension and add to the spookiness of the night.
On Halloween night all the kids would get dressed in their costumes and most armed with a pillow case or paper bag to catch the candy the people would hand out although some had plastic pumpkin buckets back then for most a pillow case or paper bag was the vessel of choice. I always preferred the pillow case, because it never seemed to fail that it would rain or snow making everything damp and a paper bag once wet and filled with candy would giveaway under the pressure, but a pillow case on the other hand could take as much ill gotten booty as one could fill it with.
The name of the game was (CANDY) and getting to as many houses as you could and fill the pillow case to the rim. Back when I was a kid many houses gave out whole candy bars and not the so called (fun size) they hand out now. Some gave penny's and at that time popcorn balls and taffy or caramel apples something you can no longer do because people are afraid they are poisoned by the person handing them out. Now depending on what day of the week Halloween fell upon weekend or weekday being that school was in session would depend on how long you could stay out and beg for candy from your neighbors.
We would always make sure to go though the trailer park first because the houses were closer and you could collect more candy faster that way. I would get dropped off at one end of a row of houses and picked up at the other running from house to house yelling trick or treat get the candy and run to the next. You had to move fast and try to get to as many houses as possible before they ran out of candy and they shut their light off. A house with the porch light off meant they had no candy so you had to skip that one and move on to the next.
There always seemed to be that one house that was overly decorated and was so spooky I would almost want to skip it but after all it was candy so I would brave my way up to the door and pray I made it back to the street alive. There also always seemed to be some older lady with a camera and saying how cute you were and want to snap a picture. I would always pose for them but it annoyed me a bit because it was eating into my candy grabbing time. Often it was just cold enough out I would have to wear a jacket that covered my costume but not cold enough so the jacket would make me sweaty from running around from house to house.
Towards the end of the night my little legs would be tired and I would be soaking wet from sweat or drenched from the rain. For many kids a nasty cold would followed soon after that wonderful night of candy mania. Once I got home and changed into something warm it was time to dump out the treasures I had collected. We could not eat any of the candy until it was inspected by an adult. I am still under the assumption that inspection part of the night was thought up by the grown ups so they could abscond with some of the candy and not really for our protection. Once the grownups had pilfered the candy they wanted from your pile of goodies you could dig in and separate the good from the bad. I would pile all the Tootsie Rolls in one pile and the Smarties in another and so on.Of course I would have to sample each one as I worked to divvy up the goodies. It would never fail that night even though I was tiered from all the running around I could not fall asleep no matter how hard I tried. Being that I was overly excited about the amount of candy I had gotten and the fact I was so sugared up feeling like a jumping bean it would be hours before I would calm down. Eventually I would fall asleep often after being yelled at and threatened with having my candy taken away. If we had school the next day I would grab a hand full of candy and put it in my Scooby Doo lunch box and head off to school.
