Hallowe'en

I've written about this in other places, at other times.
My Hallowe'en was first of all, spelled that way. All Hallow's Evening, as a contraction. That goes back to when people cared.

We would dress up in costumes, never store bought. Sometimes we were bums. Once, Mom cut up an old fur coat to make my older brother a cave man. Another time, he wore one of her bridesmaid dresses and heels and a wig.
I remember being a bum. I remember being a cowgirl. I was a minuteman one year because we'd been to Williamsburg and I had a tricorn hat. One year someone lent us a toreador costume, with a weird hat and I wore that. No princesses, no gypsies, no brides. Only what we could fix up and Mom, bless her, wasn't very creative.

But here's the thing. We would trick or treat for miles! Our immediate neighborhood had three solid streets of houses shoulder by shoulder. Good pickin's. Then there was a newer development with three more streets of "ranch" houses. We'd go there and even sometimes across the brown bridge to the other side of the lake because we knew lots of people over there.

And nearly every house gave out "nickel bars". These, back when candy was candy, were about the size of three or four mini-bars of today.
Sometimes people tried to pawn apples off on us.
Sometimes they put little candy corn stuff in a bag with a penny. That got chucked.

One house even took our pictures...I wonder where Mrs. Gillings put them. Wish I could see them all.

Hallowe'en was and will always be, the best day of the year.