Flashback Friday # 160

Memories of Halloweens Past


Welcome one & all. I'm so glad you could stop by long enough to hop back into the past with me. Sorry my regular "Flashback Friday" picture is missing. Blogger was having issues when I wrote this.

When I look at Halloween today, I see an over commercialized holiday where the grown ups like to play dress up more than the kids do. It has become a multi-billion dollar industry. It wasn't like that so much when I was a kid. Here are some of the things I remember.

There was nothing like getting a home-made popcorn ball when you were trick-or-treating. Mom made some of the best I've ever tasted. She would also color them various colors to enhance their appearance. These were made with popcorn, Karo syrup, food coloring and some magic ingredients. They were formed by hand and wrapped in plastic wrap. Nothing pre-packaged about them.

Apples also found their way into many-a-bag. They weren't pre-packaged either. I remember being about six when I first heard stories about sickos putting needles & razor blades in apples. We always had to examine then closely before we ate them.

Loose candy and cookies were staples for a couple of our neighbors. One lady bought bags of gumballs and dumped them into a bowl. You were then allowed to reach in and grab a handful. Orange slices & spearmint leaves also were given out. Everyone liked getting chocolate chip & peanut butter cookies. None of it individually wrapped.

The costumes were much simpler too. Most of the time you could find the makings of a hobo costume from the stuff in the rag bag. Not many mothers liked you cutting holes in their sheets, so you would pin them around your neck and cover your face & hair with powder. The scariest costumes back then were witches & devils. I never had too many store bought costumes. They were different back then too. A Batman of Bozo costume consisted of a hard plastic mask that looked like the character, but the outfit that went with it had a picture of the character, not a likeness of the character's outfit like they have today.

If you didn't get a treat, the trick you played was soaping people's windows. Once my brother snagged a bar of soap to take with him, without looking at which bar he grabbed. When he was going to use it, he discovered that he had grabbed Dad's bar of "Lava". It went right back into his pocket, and he sneaked it back into the bathroom without it being missed. You just didn't mess with Dad's soap. The really nasty kids didn't use soap, they used wax or paraffin.

I miss the old days. Nowadays, I can't wait for Halloween to be over. The emphasis on the ghoulish side of it makes my skin crawl. It defiantly has lost it's innocence.