No one said boo to me about my laziness for an instant costume. It was the ’70s. All Hallow’s Eve was strictly a time for my buddies and me to stay out as late as possible and beg for as much candy as possible.
Period. We used old pillowcases — not store-bought plastic pumpkins — and we stopped back at home only to unload our candy before venturing out again into the darkness. We literally ran house to house screaming, “Trick or treat!” and then lurching into The Lure hamburger stand across the railroad tracks for free french fries.
Every year we’d track down a van of volunteers who offered warm apple cider and cold doughnuts to kids before we circled back to the same houses, only after we exchanged our costumes. The only kids I knew who didn’t trick-or-treat were physically unable to do so. I remember one of my friends broke his leg the week before one Halloween and he had to use crutches to get around our subdivision.
He went as Evel Knievel, motorcycle helmet and all. It. Was.
Brilliant. At the end of the night, my friends and I would swap each other for our favorite candy. I went home with every Nestle Crunch bar I could find, and my dad would pillage my pillowcase for his cut of our pirated booty.
My friends and I thought we were so cool every Halloween. It was the best night of the year because we were allowed to pretend we were adults, sort of, just us at night navigating our neighborhoods. We followed our instincts and strangers’ porch lights, not ou.
