Halloween in the 50's

As far as I can remember, I have always loved Halloween. I'd put on a costume and go to my friends house where the whole gang would meet before we started trick or treating. Sometimes we wouldn't even know each other which made it very exciting. After all of us were together, we started walking the streets in the neighborhood.

We all lived in the same developement which was about 20 blocks in total. Things were not bad in those days and we never even thought about bad things happening to us, besides there were so many of us and so many had very scary costumes on and that kept people at a distance.

It was so much fun and we would have to go back home to unload our bag of treats and go back out. We would be out from 6-11pm. We all loved it when we got money too. Some people would actually ask us to come in the house and they would offer us something to eat or drink. I remember one year, my one friend and I were the OLD GOLD Cigarette Packs. We had to turn side ways to get in and out of the door.

When we got to my house, my mom would jump out of the bushes and try and scare us. That was her favorite holiday too and she loved being a part of all the excitement. One of the reasons it was moms favorite holiday is because my younger sister was born on Halloween, of course her nickname was and still is Spooks.

My parents were very cool and would rather have all the gang at our house instead of me being somewhere else, so they had to put up with all my craziness and constant company. There were always teenagers coming and going at my house.

I was very famous for having parties for any and every occasion so when Halloween came around they had this great party for all my friends. I didn't even know what they were doing. When all of the guests were there mom put on some spooky music. Dad would give mom the items one at a time and be in control of the music and dim the lights just enough to make it scary.

They called this game, The Making of a Witch......We all sat on the floor in a big circle and mom would give the first person and item and tell them to pass it to the next etc etc. .

She started with cooked spaghetti which was suppose to be the intestines-

hard corn kernels which was teeth

ketchup which was the blood

beaten eggs which was the mucus from the nose

and my favorite-peeled grapes which was the eye balls.

There were other things too but I cannot remember them all. If anyone wanted to do this, they can just use their imagination.

There were many of these items being thrown around the room in the dark as we really started to believe they were the body parts that we were told they were. The darkness plays tricks on the mind!

It was Great Fun!!!

I have been very lucky as I have kept so many of the same friends I have had since I was 9 years old. We all grew up together but lost touch through the years. We all went our separate ways for a long time but somewhere along the line we had a big get together and got in touch with everyone. For the last 20 years we have been having a get together often.

At one of these parties, one of the guys came up to me and started talking about the Halloween party my parents gave. He started telling me all the things my parents used for the making of the witch. I was so shocked he remembered that. While talking about it a few other people came up and remembered it and that was the topic of conversation for an hour or more.

I am so lucky to have so many great friends and so many fun memories of my teenage years but more so, I am so luck to have had parents that cared enough to do the fun things with all of us.