Clever Costumes

As kids, we always were excited for Halloween. In the Midwest, the weather was usually chilly, rainy, and windy that day, but it never stopped us, nor would our parents think to keep us in. We weren't driven to wealthy neighborhoods. Frankly, we were not driven anywhere, no matter the weather (that is a whole separate story). If we wanted to go, we toughed out in all weather conditions. We ran up the streets if it was raining; our umbrellas turned inside out from the wind some years, but nothing stopped us from getting our treats.

When we got home, we dumped the candy out, sorting what we liked, eating some, and saving some for the rest of the week. Not once were we stopped from eating the candy. Back then, kids learned from experience. If you ate too much and got sick, you didn't do it the next year. The mother of one of my best friends made them freeze most of the candy, and she allotted what could be eaten and when.

I never liked figuring out costumes for my kids because I'm not crafty and hate to sew. Costume parties do not thrill me because you are expected to be clever and come in costume. However, my mother was not only extremely intelligent but also artistic; she made beautiful ceramics, taught herself oil painting, and sewed.

She was a fabulous seamstress, and one year, Mom turned me into AUTUMN. That was who I was, Autumn. She sewed me a dress with a shining brown material, put orange netting around it, included a veil, and set Autumn colored leaves into the netting. I was, and still am, in awe of her Halloween idea. The costume she had lovingly created was unique and made me proud to go to school in it for the festivities there. A rude boy said, "What are you supposed to be?" laughing at me. I tartly replied, "I am Autumn, dummy!"

She took a red checkered tablecloth one year and tied it into a skirt for me, with a side slit, and told me to be a sexy French woman. I wore my beret and swung my tiny purse, posing for everyone and smiling with my bright red lipstick.

On a long-ago Halloween, I went out with my brother Scott, two years older than me, who passed away in September 2024. He was a ghost, and his costume was a sheet draped over him, touching the ground, with eyeholes cut out. We climbed the stairs in a fourplex apartment building with unfamiliar residents (safe to do back then). I was behind him as we climbed to each floor and accidentally stepped on his ghostly garb. We heard the tearing sound. I apologized, and we continued. At the next set of stairs, it happened again. I instantly stopped, shocked. He was furious, thinking I had done it deliberately, and he started in on me: "I'm telling Mom when we get home..." I was truly horrified and had not done it on purpose.

However, thinking of it now, I chuckle at the memory of the incident and the ripping sound.

I recently looked back at old photo albums and posted some Halloween photos on Facebook. One was my pharmacist dad dressed as a pirate in the drugstore he owned. Another was of Scott and I with our faces garishly painted. I had Kukla eyebrows (the old TV show Kukla Fran and Ollie), and a comment said that we looked like we were straight out of a horror movie! With newer horror movies, the photo could make a younger person think that, but older people who saw the Kukla show would have been reminded of it because of the eyebrows. I don't know, but I guess we were a sad clown and a happy one. You be the judge from the headliner photo!

Copyright © 10/31/2024 by Andrea O. Corwin

I am grateful you read my work! 😃 If you liked it, please give it a ♡, drop a comment, and subscribe for free. - - Andi

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Author Notes: I published a similar, longer story on Vocal a year or so ago. I thought that on Halloween 2024, a shorter version with other details would be fun for Vocal readers.

Please see this poem that is in memory of Scott: