How did you trick or treat? Jerry and I got to talking about that a few days ago as we noticed the signs of the holiday everywhere. What we remember is digging up some kind of “costume” 
around the house, maybe with a purchased mask that didn’t necessarily have any relation to the rest of the outfit. At our house we had various clothes and masks stored in the cedar chest in the attic. We would dig them out each year. I do remember especially an ugly rubber devil mask that I never wanted to wear for my evening’s outfit. I would slip it on to try to scare my younger sister, Linda, if I could. But she was pretty tough. (Still is!) Here’s a photo of me and my older sister, Martha. See what I mean about the potpourri of costumes.
After designing our attire, we would wonder the neighborhood with friends gathering our goodies. I recall passing others along the way, sharing the news and giving advice on who was giving out the best candy. And then we would go home and dump our treasures on a piece of newspaper to sort it into stacks, saving the favorites. There would be rejects, of course, like the popcorn balls. The leftovers might be traded or offered to parents.
I can’t remember anybody worrying about bad things in the candy or whether adults were escorting the children from house to house. Maybe the parents were watching us up and down the street and all I had on my mind was my bag of treats.
It appears that the basic fun of it all has survived, even if some parts of the event are different. There are more organized programs, rather than visiting homes where the kids may not know the occupants. We saw children dressed in their costumes when we were in a restaurant on the night before Halloween. All the wait staff were wearing costumes too. And today we watched the NFL football fans in some ingenious attire. It’s a wider celebration all around.
Passing along my 
family Halloween customs, I sometimes created my daughter’s costumes. One year when my daughter, Krissy, was about six I made this witch gown from a spare piece of black fabric. Isn’t she cute? We used the household broom, found a hat and she selected a store-bought mask. Now that I look closer, I think this is a Kiss mask. Oh well, that carries on my non-matching costume tradition.
What kind of costumes did you wear? Or how did your family/neighborhood get into Halloween?
Hope you had a nice Halloween. Talk to you later.
Thanks for the memories. Those masks all seemed to have a smell to them, from the manufacturing process I suppose.
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