Well, it's Halloween weekend - time to pull out the facepaint, fake blood, colored hair spray and beer. But 15 years ago or so, my Halloweens were quite different.
I remember my dad used to take us Ammons' girls trick-or-treating every year when we were in elementary school. He would always wear a long, white lab coat - and with his crazy afro-like hair, he looked like a mad scientist with that coat on. Us girls would dress as classic kiddy stuff - throughout our childhood we all wore one of these costumes from time to time, as we handed them down the Ammons' line: little red riding hood, a bumble bee, a witch, a ghost, an Indian...I'm sure there was more but I can't recall them right now.
Anyway, we would go trick-or-treating down good old Robinson Drive, leaving just at dusk and not getting home until 10 p.m. or so. I remember we always watched Michael Jackson's "Thriller" music video on VH1 while we were sorting through our acquired stashes of sweets at the end of the night. That music video used to scare me though! Now I just laugh at it.
For a few Halloween's, the Ammons gang merged with Stephanie and Patricia Thomas to create one big trick-or-treating posse. Along the years we had other neighboorhood kids join us - just a large crowd of loud, excited children being hyper and having a blast.
Along our Trick-or-Treating quest, our first stop was always Wayne and Lynn's house. One of the houses further up Robinson Drive used to decorate the yard like crazy - almost like a mini haunted house. They even had a casket with a man lying in it who would jump and scream at you when you approached the candy bowl in his hand.
One of the old ladies on North Robinson Drive would always give us a can of Coke. As children, we always found this odd.
We hated when people gave us those cheap, nasty peanut butter candies with the black and orange colored wrappers. They were nasty and impossible to chew. My favorite candy was the "candy cigarettes" with the monster pictures on the miniture boxes. But Mom always made us throw out the candy cigarettes, because she didn't want us running around the house pretending to smoke. Little did I know I would end up smoking all through college and for a couple years after that, until I finally realized how disgusting it is and quit only a few months ago.
I look back on my childhood memories of Halloween and I wonder if kids still enjoy those same things today. With the messed up crime stories we always see on the news, it's no wonder kids don't trick-or-treat door to door as much these days. I honestly can't say that I would be so willing to take my own child door to door on Halloween. It's crazy sometimes to think about how much things have changed just in the last 10 years. Already feeling nostalgic at age 24.
No comments:
Post a Comment