Halloween Then and Now

Halloween is over for another year, and I’m glad. I must confess it’s no longer my favorite holiday, even though my book Ghost Writer features a ghost. But as a kid, I loved it.

At the time I grew up, the celebration was much different than today. For one thing, our parents made our costumes because no store-bought ones were available. And I think many of them were better. They were certainly more creative.

I was twenty-six months old when my grandfather died four days before Halloween. No one had thought about a costume, so I was wrapped in a sheet to visit a couple of the neighbors.

The next year, my mother outdid herself with one of the cutest costumes ever: Little Bo Peep. Mom (who didn’t sew) made a pink and blue confection of a skirt. I wore my own blouse, and my mother trimmed one of my bonnets to match the skirt. She wrapped one of my great-grandfather’s canes in pink and blue crepe paper and added a big bow. I carried my stuffed lamb and thought I was the image of the character in one of my favorite nursery rhymes.

This costume was eventually worn by several of my cousins and always elicited positive comments.

In following years, I was a princess (my favorite), a graduate, and several other cute and equally creative characters.

I was raised in a neighborhood that was more like an extended family. Nearly every house contained kids our age. Most had more than one. We lived in a post-World War II housing tract, and the whole place was safe. We could go from block to block, and the families knew each other.

Trick-or-treating was great. No parental supervision was required. We went out in large groups.

This was the era of popcorn balls and homemade candy apples. Some families gave purchased candy, but our treats were most often packaged by the family.

Our favorite house was a couple of blocks away. All year, the parents put their pennies in a large fishbowl they kept inside their front door. (Pennies were used much more frequently at that time, and they were worth a lot more.)

On Halloween, they’d allow each child to keep as many pennies as they could hold in one hand. You put the other hand behind your back, then opened your fingers wide and clutched as many as you could grasp.

The tricky part was the transfer to your Halloween bag, often a pillowcase.

The kids with larger hands could hold onto more. Long discussions of strategy preceded each holiday outing. Some argued for turning your hand up before removing it from the bowl to balance as many pennies as possible. This strategy was not always successful, however as if you caught the rim of the bowl, you were likely to lose your treasure. Others believed in the tight grip method. Still others claimed a looser grasp would capture more loot.

Whatever our individual outcome, we all felt richer at the end of the evening. Of course, this might not be as appealing today. Pennies aren’t worth as much, and most of us don’t want to be bothered with them. Some merchants don’t even accept them.

Trick-or-treat was only one of the Halloween celebrations, though.

The elementary school held a carnival, usually the Saturday before Halloween. Everyone, including many of the adults, came in costume. Prizes were given for the best ones.

Each group at the school (PTA, Boys Scouts, Girl Scouts, etc.) sponsored a game or other activity. Some required skill. Others, blind luck.

Our Girl Scout troop always had the game where you rolled baseballs up an incline, trying to get them into holes drilled in a large piece of plywood. The number that went into the holes determined your prize.

Then there was the fishing booth. You were given a pole with a clothes pin on the end. The line was thrown over a curtain (a painted sheet), and an adult on the other side attached a prize at random. (Sometimes, the person in back was told the age and/or gender of the kid so that we’d receive an appropriate prize. Of course, we were oblivious to this conspiracy.)

All the kids had to try to win a goldfish. They were kept in small bowls with even smaller openings. We threw Ping-Pong balls and tried to get one into a bowl. Most of us were successful and took our new pets home in plastic bags. Of course, the fish tended to die quickly, but a few survived their trip home to live for a long time thereafter. One of ours, Goldie, stayed on our coffee table for many years.

Everyone’s favorite booth was the dunk tank. Most often, the ‘victim’ was one of the older boys or even one who had moved on to high school. They loved coming back and enjoyed being dunked.

The mechanism was connected to a long pole. Baseballs were pitched at a padded target at the end. If they connected with enough force, the seat fell away, and the ‘victim’ ended up in a large vat of cold water.

Each year, we had a ‘mystery guest.’ This person was always in disguise. Part of the fun was trying to figure out who it was. Sometimes it was a popular dad, others a teacher. I remember best the year that the principal was on the ‘hot seat.’ One of the high school kids finally dunked him.

All the proceeds from this event went either to the individual groups or the PTA.

Most of us went home with some sweet treat we’d bought at the bake sale.

Life was simpler, and I truly think we had more fun.

This year we only had eight kids at our door. And only one of them was from our neighborhood. How sad for all of us, and how much we've lost.

Sleep Deprivation

Have you ever been so tired you couldn’t sleep? That’s been the norm for most of my adult life.

Last month, I took a grueling contract job. I used to regularly work nine-to-ten hour days. But I’m not used to it anymore! The last Friday was a twelve-hour day—with no lunch period. Of course, the pay will be very nice, especially since Larry had two new crowns put in his mouth!

In addition, I was doing a very challenging edit. I can usually zip these out in a few hours. This one took four passes and over forty-eight hours total to complete. And I was doing all this while hosting out-of-state company for two and a half weeks.

I managed to spend a couple of days at Disneyland, but even that didn’t affect my insomnia.

Since I retired last year, I'd thought I had learned to relax. I usually walk every day and sleep at least seven or eight hours a night. I’ve also taken a few afternoon naps. But during the contract, I was so overtired I couldn't unwind enough to sleep at all. It's a recurring pattern.

I’ve been thinking about Nan Burton in my new book, Ghost Writer. She’s stuck in a house with a noisy ghost, and he won’t let her sleep until she does what he wants her to do.

At least when she finally goes out to the beach to get away from Max (the ghost), she can get to sleep. But I wake ridiculously early, my mind running at warp speed. I think of all the writing I have to do, bills to pay, email to answer, etc. Then I lie awake trying to nod off, but it’s usually useless. After an hour, I usually just give up, get up, and turn on the computer.

Of course, back into the routine of exercise and a regular schedule, I'm starting to catch up. We're scheduled for some speaking engagements and other events in the next few months, but I should have a bit more discretionary time.

Does anyone know any good secrets for getting to sleep—and staying asleep? Melatonin doesn’t work for me, and I am very resistant to taking medications. Other than retirement without commitment (not likely), I’d appreciate any suggestions.

The Joys of Home Ownership

You know the definition of a house: a hole in the ground into which you pour money.

We’ve recently been trying to help our daughter purchase her first home. The ones she likes in the area where she wants to live are too expensive. The ones she can afford are much too small, in bad areas, or would require an exorcism and resurrection to make them habitable.

We’ve owned two houses plus a townhouse in our lives.

The first was supposed to be a ‘starter home.‘ We owned it for seventeen years, during which time we structurally changed all but one room. And we did all the work ourselves. We defined DIY long before it became popular.

While we owned that place, we also bought the townhouse. We used it on the weekends, and our daughter lived there while in college. We did nothing in the way of changes to it, even though I hated the electric stove and kept threatening to replace it.

Instead, we sold both the first place and the condo and bought a larger house near the beach. Our daughter was grown, so no one could understand why, instead of downsizing, we upsized. The answer was simple: we loved the house, location, and proximity to the ocean. (Since Larry is an avid surfer, our priorities were clear.)

We also bought this particular house because it was only about seven years old and had just been completely refurbished: new carpet, fresh paint, new plantation shutters. The yard was lovely and already landscaped. It required nothing in the way of repairs and little maintenance.

Twenty-five years later, however, we’ve replaced the roof, all the windows and most of the doors, survived four broken pipes and a cracked shower pan, relocated all the piping, added another breaker panel, re-landscaped both the front and back yards, remodeled all the bathrooms as well as the kitchen. We’ve also re-carpeted the whole house and replaced some of that.

Now that we’ve retired, we hope nothing major will be required since the house is in better-than-new condition. But we’re not counting on it.

I’ve also been thinking about home upkeep since Nan Burton, my protagonist in the new book Ghost Writer, to be published this summer by Oak Tree Press, inherits a beach cottage and soon discovers the questionable joys of home ownership.

How about you? Do you have any horror stories about how your house self-destructed? Or are you one of the few blessed souls who never seem to have houses turn against you? I’d like to know.