Down Halloween Lane

I really got into Halloween for years. Like my mother, Bettsey, I prided myself in making costumes by hand. I was in 4-H as a girl in rural New Hampshire and had learned to sew (wash cloth slippers, an apron, a skirt and blouse). I didn't make clothes for my kids the way mum had for me and my brother, but I did sew costumes from patterns or from old clothes.

Susie and Jack were long time best friends of Miranda and Kyle. Their mother Robin and I, for several years, constructed similar costumes for our kids. One year the kids were dressed as pirates in elaborate black, red, and white outfits, complete with shiny fringe and paisley bandanas and striped pants or skirts. One year the boys were Ninja Turtles (not made from scratch--just used their Ninja pajamas) and the girls were Hershey's Kisses. Another year the boys were Waldos (as in Where's Waldo). Not sure if that was when Miranda was a unicorn, but it might have been. One of my favorite Halloweens was the year I transformed my lime green nightie into a Tinkerbell outfit for Miranda, and cut up my wonderful, but completely worn-out, dark emerald green chenille bathrobe to make Kyle into the Crocodile from Peter Pan. Damn, was I clever, and damn, were the kids ever cute.

I really do need to dig into that box of a million rolls of unprocessed film to see what other pictures of Halloween there might be. Or I should call Robin and see what pictures she might have of those many Halloweens. The images of Kyle and Miranda when they were young bring alive again so many precious moments and, yet, it's not so hard for me to walk down the memory lane of their childhood. That toddler or schoolboy, that lively grinning little boy has been gone a long time. Ky's and my last Halloween together was in 2002 and he didn't even stay around to pass out candy to the local kids. He was most likely out doing something a mother shouldn't ask about!