Pastime: Those Halloween outfits and pranks of long ago

By MAYLON T. RICE

Special to the Saline River Chronicle

It is almost time to “Trick or Treat,” but I am sure with the pandemic protocols now in place that type of community activity will not be happening with as great a number of participants or with as much adolescent zeal, as in past years.

But oh, the fun, we once had “Trick or Treating,” in and around Warren.

There we literally no store bought costumes then, just homemade or home concocted, at best. Most of us, sans masks, we either “hobos” back in the day.

This required an older suit coat from an adult family member, a couple of sewn on patches of various fabrics, some darken eyeliner on your face – to resemble a week-old beard and maybe some bigger floppy shoes.

I was never sure if I was a hobo or looked like the famous clown Emmitt Kelly, sans the red nose.

For cowboy attire, of course, you needed a straw cowboy hat – a felt hat back then would have been a real coup.

But the point I am getting at is today’s costumes are so elaborate and costly.

There was, to my knowledge, no total Halloween costume outlet – outside of perhaps such as a Metroplex shopping empires found in Dallas, Texas, where such outfits could be purchased.

And certainly no local stores that carried an entire costume, mask, shirt and matching pants to transform a child into Batman, Wonder Woman and the Incredible Hulk. We were far, far ahead in years of the later popular Ninja Turtles, Pretty Pony, Hello Kitty and even Power Rangers or other Superhero outfits of today.

For the girls, there were a lot of blue gingham dresses with patent leather shores and pigtailed hair dos, which were transformational Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz. Or many played with their mom’s out of fashion eye glasses to transform into a teacher; and there were always those in sunglasses who purported to be the hottest and latest several of a Hollywood harlot.

And also a few girls wearing cut down versions of an old wedding dress for Cinderella or some other Disney Princess of the Day (and back then there were really only two or three- not like today with many, many more such characters).

But for a lot us back in the day, there were some cheap, plastic masks sold, for Halloween dress-up,  which filled the bill.

You could for about 35 cents back then, maybe 50 cents later, get a “Casper” mask, or if you dared be the Friendly Ghost of TV cartoon and comic book fame. Or one could become a fiery red opposite of Casper and be the Devil himself, point chin and goatee on the mask.

Other masks sold at the Benjamin Franklin or Morgan & Lindsey on Main Street in Warren (these stores were almost directly across from one another) were mostly cartoon characters: Donald Duck (or Daisy Duck), Mickey Mouse (or Minnie Mouse), or a cadre of clown faces, ogre looking monster faces, even a Hobo or two or a Pirate.

For the girls there was a blonde version of a nurse, complete with the nurses cap; a Carmen Maranda look-a-like (I guess for a Flamingo dancer motif) or the sultry look of a gypsy fortune teller, were perhaps the best store-bought mask choices.

But we all made do without wildly themed costumes. We were, after all, searching for lots of candy and those homemade goodies.

Now some of the best popcorn balls, home-made cookies and other made-at-home-treats could be found along Pine Street (on both sides of the street) from the Kroger location all the way down to the corner where the Fordyce Highway turns to head northwest out of Warren.

Other neighborhoods in Warren were also very lucrative in the day for handfuls of candy and homemade goods were along Myrtle Street and down some side streets, like Shields, near the Bradley County Medical Center.

After crossing over the state highway from the Presbyterian Church back to the north and these were also good neighborhood “hot spots” for candied treats.

As we grew older and stopped the “trick of treating” for candy – came another Halloween activity – rolling houses with toilet paper and even – soaping cars.

Now as a long-time “house rolling expert,” and grandmaster at “soaping cars,” I now confess to any and all such activities. 

However, I never threw eggs at cars or on houses.

It was the farm boy in me, never  to waste eggs enough to let them “turn rotten” before throwing them.

But if armed with two rolls of toilet paper -  the home of a former girlfriend or some other wanna-be-girl friend –  those rolls were sufficient to do a really fine job on a cold October evening.

I did once, nearly get caught “soaping” a teacher’s car – well, it was an old pickup truck. 

But this time I instead of some cheap bar soap, I used some very low cost, butter. 

It made a very greasy mess and really made that male teacher mad to the point of calling me out of class and threatening me with all kinds of personal retribution. He had spent $10 at Warren’s only car wash trying to get that mess off his truck. It finally wore off.

A class or two ahead of the early 1970s once sold “soap insurance” to stores along Main Street for Halloween.  If the windows of the businesses were “soaped” which was an occasional occurrence, the class members, on the next morning, wash the windows instead of the store owners.

So I guess almost none of those activities today would seem nice or appropriate for Halloween, or anytime.

But they were mischievous fun back in the day, and that’s a Pastime we can all recall with a little tiny giggle and much regret in our adult hearts today.