This used to be a favorite holiday of mine....what's not to like? Dressing up funny, getting to stay up late at night creeping around the neighborhood, scaring each other silly, and then having enough candy to keep ourselves sick for weeks. Back in our day there was a costume parade through the school, parties in every classroom, lots of coloring of pumpkins and black cats and scary spooks. Ah, the scent of overheated crayons.....
I will never forget the scent of the magic bag of candy either. A sort of sour tang of bruised Macintosh apples always permeated the whole package. To me that is the smell of Halloween.
Because somebody always gave you apples. Or pennies. And pennies mattered then. One measly penny would get you two pieces of bubblegum. Not that I liked bubblegum, but still....
Then there were those coconut things that were pink, brown, and white, and various stiff, doughy, marshmallow concoctions that were only useful for trading to brothers who could stomach them.
One of those cloying coconut jobs was worth at least three or four pieces of candy corn, which I still like. Back in those days you didn't get many candy bars or big things like that, but Tootsie Rolls were a hot item and Smarties another huge favorite.
Fast forward a couple decades and we were living in town and handing out candy ourselves. We never had a lot of money, but we tried to have enough of whatever was on sale to drop into the sacks and plastic pumpkins of however many ghouls and goblins and gangsters showed up at our place. What with two towns in such close proximity there were always a rather staggering lot of them. Still it was fun and the kids got a huge kick out of it, even when they got too old to trick or treat.
Now we live up here on the hill and pretty much never see any visitors...and that is okay too...all the more Tootsie Rolls for me.
***I was going to write this post detailing the stuff my dad, who grew up in a much more open-minded era, told us about his Halloweens, but I thought the better of it. But I remember......Ticky tackies and outhouses.......that's all I will say
Same memories for me too, its too bad politically correct times are upon us, my nieces can no longer dress in costumes for halloween at school and they now have gluten free, peanut and candy free harvest parties at school. I remember also on a couple of years when we had to wear coats to trick or treat, now its shorts and tees..:-)) Happy Halloween
ReplyDeleteThat was a lovely trip down memory lane . .
ReplyDeleteAh the penny candy that I grew up on. I think my bones are at least comprised of 2/3's candy from those long ago days.