Halloween in my lifetime

The first costume I remember, I wore a store bought Bugs Bunny get-up with the mask made of that woven, stiff, scratchy fabric.  We lived on the Air Force Base in Massachusetts and every house for a thousand square miles had kids.  The pickings were great back then.

 You only needed a brown paper bag and your older 

sister (who was probably 12 herself at the time) to make sure you didn't get lost.

Cool treats. People weren't putting nasty things in our candy at that time.

I swear I'd make that bag last until March.  

The Bit-O-Honey would chip a tooth by that time but who cared?

Even the T.V. looked like Halloween in the '50's.

Decorations were simple.  One Biestle jointed cat, witch, 

or skeleton taped on the front door...

....and your basic Jack-o-lantern and you were done.

 One of the all time scary movies...ahhhh! 

(I actually didn't see this until a slumber party in the mid 60's) 

 Who didn't freak out in the shower after this thriller?

 The innocence of Halloween...

 ...and the evil Rosemary's Baby side.  No one was surprised 

when Roman Polanski came to no good after this one!

 The sixties didn't change much. Except that now my family was making home made costumes and it was just my brother and me.  My sister was too old to keep us safe and on the right street and I guess by this time my folks didn't care if we got lost.

We had these guys around all year and the "sophistication" of Halloween can be credited to them.  Now, "scary" could be funny.  We could laugh at evil children--they were harmless!

And they were.

Compared to these fellows, parents figured that,

yes, evil kids were a great alternative.

 Because this is what your tiny fireman and Sleeping Beauty had turned into.

Halloween nightmare!

 Real kids were getting spooky in the 70's.

And the movies, well, not your standard family entertainment.

(I never did force myself to watch this one)

However, Linda Blair had us telling ghost stories in the car

for two hours after the movie let out.  Fear was fun!

  

The icing on my Halloween cake had to be the Mall Crawl in Boulder, CO.

This was the first time I was exposed to such creativity in costuming.

Fun, fun, crazy, packed and closed down sometime in the late 80s when people imbibed excessively on what ever they could get their hands on.

 Thank heaven for super heroes so the little guys still looked darling and thought that, for one night, they were saving the planet.  And got paid in candy to do it.

 Trading in our snake charmer, belly revealing, sexy costumes for something more wholesome, my Mall Crawl cohorts were growing up.  And dressing respectably.

 I moved away from dressing up myself 

and wanted to dress up everything else.

Still one of my favorites-Spooky Blue.  Which, although he's been bookmarked for years, I've never attempted to make him.

Would love this guy in my yard though.

 
Or this....

    

 .. this...

or this.

Or maybe this?

It's always been about silly fun for me!