It Happened One Halloween

I love Halloween.

I loved dressing up in a scary costume, heading out into the night with my sister and my father or, when we were older, our friends. Halloween candy somehow tasted better than other candy.

My sister Karen and I actually had a pretend drama we played only around Halloween. We were monsters in a family of monsters, so we played more than one role. I remember she was the mother. And I remember that feeling good and feeling bad were reversed.

So, for instance, if I, my monster counterpart, didn't feel well, my sister, as my mother, would throw a pretend rock at my head so I would get a "headache" and feel better.

Ah, those were the days!

(My five kids ready to trick-or-treat the year before the sixth was born).

I remember trick-or-treating in eighth grade, happy that the legal cutoff age was fourteen, that I still had a year to go. I must have assumed the police came out at Halloween and carded trick-or-treaters to make sure they weren't over the legal age.

We were new residents in New Lenox that year and one of my new friends' moms made and deep-fried doughnuts, which have forever become associated with Halloween since that time.

My trick-or-treating break only last a few short years. With college, came Halloween parties (I have a great grim reaper story to tell one day) and shortly after that, my newborn son and I were dressed in a homemade kangaroo costume and making the rounds of two sets of grandparents and one great-grandma.

A few years after that, my sister and I decided we and my three kids (at the time) would trick-or-treat as Dr. Who. Our costumes were based on existing clothing and props.

I was the master. Karen was Jamie. Christopher was a  cyborg (Karen actually made that costume). Sarah was Sarah Jane. Joshua was Peter Davison Dr. Who complete with the celery stalk in his lapel.

Our candy went into a homemade K9, which we built with cardboard and spray painted over the kids' small plastic shopping cart. It had flaps over the top where the candy went in.

Etc. Etc.

Our first Halloween living in a two bedroom apartment in The Birches felt like huge steps backward even though we were moving forward. I walked home from work in the brutal cold hoping to go trick-or-treating with the grandchildren.

Except no trick-or-treating happened that year.

My three youngest kids were either at school or working late. My oldest son had to work late. And my third child's son came home from school sick, so they weren't going either. So I signed back onto the computer and got some work done.

Two years later was more of the same, except the weather was milder, and Timothy didn't have to work too late, and we had moved to one of the townhomes in The Birches.

We wound up buying candy, dressing up, and sitting on the wall of The Birches, technically on private property, but able to pass out candy to anyone who walked or drove by. 

We saved some for Rebekah and took the leftovers to Joliet Junior College, where Daniel was in automotive class until ten o'clock.

The last Halloween before COVID was brutally cold. I was also brutally busy at work. This time, we had a houseful of adults and children able to trick-or-treat. We made it one block, and everyone was freezing.

So we headed over to The Timbers of Shorewood, which had opened up its doors for trick-or-treating at the last minute. 

Timothy cooked hot dogs on the grill (he destroyed the first batch with too much lighter fluid), and I answered email while hanging out with the family.

And, of course, I now get to dress up and enjoy Halloween with my crocheted mouse Bertrand, who enjoyed dressing up as a mouse vampire one year and trick-or-treating with grandchildren.

We're expecting blustery, snowy-ish weather tonight, so I'm not sure trick-or-treat will happen. It might be scary movies and pizza with some of the family. But that's OK, too.

Since I wasn't sure how to wrap up this up, I'll end it this way.

If you'd like to see the kangaroo photo, you must buy a special, out-of-print, holiday edition of the BryonySeries novel "Visage" at WriteOn Joliet's anthology release party on Dec. 6, from 6 to 8 p.m. at the Joliet Public Library, Black Road branch.

That holiday version of the book has different cover than the official edition of "Visage" and a few special sections in the back.

It also has the kangaroo photo, the only place (to my knowledge), anyone will find that photo.

Happy Halloween!

(My three oldest children, from left: Little Match Girl, clown, Little Drummer Boy)