(company’s companies)
How about you?
Numerous decades in my case, I can’t even remember when was the last time. I was probably about 7 years old, I think I may have been Casper the Friendly Ghost. I remember those cheesy plastic masks that smelled funny, made your face sweat, it was always hard to line up the eye-holes just right, and the even cheesier string that went around your head would break at the slightest provocation. I believe my mother and stepfather took us to K-Mart for the costumes, which meant that it was the cheapest option going other than home-made. I can’t remember having dressed up for Halloween more than three different times, but even those numbers are a fuzzy memory and may not be accurate. I don’t know if it was my choice or parental influence that ended the yearly ritual in mu upbringing, maybe it was a combination of both. I don’t remember missing it when it was gone. I believe those urban legends of razor blades or needles being hidden in apples may have started around that time, if they weren’t already being circulated in previous generations. My hometown was always very cold and snowy every October 31st, so Trick-Or-Treating wasn’t very fun for us. My mother was like a prison guard leading a chain-gang when it came to crossing those streets at night, it was the only time I ever remember her carrying a flashlight. Every two seconds it was, “Look both ways, stay together, cross at the cross walks, don’t run, don’t cross between parked cars . . . ” Anyway, I do remember the rule was we couldn’t eat any candy while we were out on the trail, and that when we got back home, my mother went full-tilt TSA Agent on us inspecting our haul, every apple was immediately thrown into the trash, all candies were separated into piles by type, and over the next few weeks we’d get a few pieces or tiny raisin boxes added to our lunch boxes to take to school. My favorites back then were Tootsie Rolls, M&Ms, and Hershey Bars, I liked Milk Duds, Ju-Ju Bats, Malted Milk Balls, I tolerated Snickers Bars and Milky Way Bars, I absolutely despised Kandy Korn, the black and orange witches’ hats, that caramel glob that looked home-made, and all types of licorice.
Ok, I hogged the answers again, but once I started writing, all the memories flooded back. Sue me.
~
Thank you, BB, that’s a very good and valid question.
I doubt that I personally chose the costume, knowing my stepfather back them then. He was a miser, and very much a my-word-is-law kind of person. Casper must have been a popular children’s character at the time, or if he wasn’t very popular, the costume must have been in the bargain bin at K-Mart or some other discount store. My stepfather would have marched us (my two brothers and I) to that bin, reached in and found the first three costumes that not only had the lowest price tags but also moderately fit us, and said, “This is yours, this is yours, and this is yours.” End of conversation, we lived a very much “you take what I give you” existence.
I don’t even remember liking Casper or watching his cartoons. I know there was a weekly or monthly Casper the Friendly Ghost comic book back then, and I was a comic book fiend, but he wasn’t a go-to of mine. Additionally, my mother was adamantly anti-cartoon when I was growing up. To this day, I still don’t know why she despised them so much, but we were largely forbidden from watching them at home. (For instance, we were never taken to even one Disney animated movie when we were growing up.) Any cartoons we saw were ones we snuck into seeing at friends’ homes or in school or sneaking into the living room when we could. Of course, back then there was no 24-hour availability of cartoons either.
~
Thank you, my friend!
~
my2cents 