Halloween memories
By Tanya Pike
On trick-or-treat night last week I was driving down the street of a modest neighborhood in town. The mostly ranch style houses were festive with Halloween decorations. Most were gently scary - grinning pumpkins, orange blinking lights, ghosts made from bedsheets swaying in the trees. The kids were just beginning to emerge from their houses, bags at the ready to haul home their candy stash.
I slowed down wanting to watch their joy and animation. I remembered the feverish anticipation of choosing what my sister and I wanted to be each year, planning the best candy-hauling routes and meeting my schoolmates to see their costumes.
As I rounded a curve in the street I saw the quintessential Halloween tradition - a tiny little boy dressed as a cowboy, standing on his front porch with his plastic pumpkin in his hands, waiting for Daddy to take his picture. He looked a little anxious, as if he were not sure that walking around and asking strangers for candy was necessarily going to be a fun thing.
How many pictures of yourself do you have from trick or treat night? If you are lucky, you can probably chronicle your childhood in Halloween costume photos. I remember being a witch, an Indian princess and being a hobo on at least two occasions. Hobo was always the last minute costume of choice - throw on your Dad's clothes, put a handkerchief stuffed with paper on the end of a stick and make your face dirty with your mom's mascara and you're good to go!
Most of my costumes were homemade. It was before the "Disney-fication" of all things Halloween. Not to mention that my parents couldn't, or didn't see the necessity of, plunking down $35 for a costume made from the textile equivalent of tissue paper!
The year I remember being an Indian princess my mom helped me take a brown paper grocery bag and cut it the bottom out of it. We slit it up the center and added arm holes before decorating it with beaded trim, fringe, and of course, all the colors in my 64 pack of Crayolas!
I still love the simple innocence of Halloween. Every year I watch "It's The Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown" and remember the simple pleasures of Bit 'O Honey feeling like it's pulling your teeth out, trading Milky Way bars for Snickers from my sister and giving my dad all the Three Musketeer bars. . .all while wearing a scratchy, crinkly paper bag vest and feeling like the happiest kid in the world.
Stories Posted This Week
Monday, June 16, 2025
- CORRECTED LINK Recreate a historic Bluffton photo for BOHS contest
- Lions Club hosts pain specialist on June 17
- 2025 swim lesson updates from Bluffton Community Pool
- Bluffton Community Pool anticipated open is June 21
- June crop line up
- Upcoming BPL events, June 16-21
- June 2025 Chamber breakfast take-aways
Sunday, June 15, 2025
Saturday, June 14, 2025
Friday, June 13, 2025
Thursday, June 12, 2025
- June 10 field reports from Ohio Division of Wildlife Officers
- 4th quarter Honor Roll for Cory-Rawson High School, 2024-2025
- Meetings announced by Village of Bluffton
- C. Lynn Lukehart was a minister of music
- June 19 afternoon Downtown Bluffton Art Walk
- Cramping your style: Managing nighttime leg cramps
- June 13 Festival of Wheels will turn back the clock on Main St.
- 100 Years of Mennonite Women, a musical on June 20