Ghosts of Halloween Past

A few years back, I wrote a blog about those terrible Halloween costumes we used to wear as kids. You know, the one with the plastic masks with the holes in them? The masks with that cheap rubber band that always broke? Remember those? Here is a link to that blog as a refresher for you:

Halloween Dress Up

There was a Trunk or Treat close to our house recently and I could see all the kids dressed up in their Halloween costumes. I tried to remember what I had dressed up as for Halloween as a kid and I really cannot remember. So I pulled out a hard drive which contains a bunch of photo scans from my dad. I figured if my folks had taken any pictures of us in costumes, they’d be on that drive.

What I found was that there were next to none on this drive. There were a couple, which I will share, but nothing from when we were really young. I guess my parents must have thought those costumes with the cheap masks and slits for eyes were not photo worthy. The only ones they took pictures of were when we did something out of the ordinary.

One year my brother and I wanted to be vampires or something. So my dad bought the make up and such and the result was … less than steller.

We don’t even have capes! I dunno, this get up stumps me. My dad tried to make me look like Sir Graves Ghastly, who was a local horror movie host on TV. I think that he did a good job, but without the rest of the vampire ensemble, people had to wonder who they heck we were!

Another year I went out as Oliver Hardy of Laurel and Hardy.

I’m sure this also made no sense to people answering the door because my brother dressed up as a woman. Perhaps Mr. Hardy had a date? I suppose I could have been mistaken for Charlie Chaplin, but my body shape was more Hardy than Chaplin!

The only other Halloween picture I have is from my Sophomore year of high school. The band had a Halloween party at some barn as I recall and we all went to it. I didn’t know what to go as, and decided on going as a clown. I threw on a pair of pajama pants over my jeans, one of my dad’s old shirts, an awful sport coat, clown wig, hat and tie, and added a huge horn. It was ridiculous!

This is just a guess, but that year at the annual Band Banquet, I won the Mock Elections for “Band Clown.” I am sure that this outfit played a part in that win. It was cool to win that award every year I was in band.

While this wasn’t necessarily Halloween, one of the other photos of my “in costume” that came up was one that I used when I worked at 94.5 The Moose. I used to take song lyrics and read them behind some classical music and called it a “Dramatic Reading.” It was a silly chance to “overact.”

The first reading I did was Gretchen Wilson’s Redneck Woman. Imagine classical music playing with me dramatically saying, “Victoria Secret. There’s stuff’s real nice. But I can buy the same damn thing on a Walmart shelf – half price!” It was utter stupidity. To promote it on the website, they took this picture:

HA! I’m such an idiot!

I suppose it is probably better that there are no pictures of me in those cheap costumes. I remember I was always overweight and the pants always seemed to rip before we were done Trick or Treating. And half the time, the thing that held the mask on broke after three or four blocks and wound up in the bottom of the Trick or Treat bag or pillowcase anyway.

As silly as these are, they are fun to look back at!