On Halloween

Now what else is the whole life of mortals but a sort of comedy, in which the various actors, disguised by various costumes and masks, walk on and play each one his part, until the manager waves them off the stage ? **Erasmus, "The Praise of Folly"

Rosemary: The folks at cozy library discussion group recently asked what our favorite Halloween costumes were - as kids and as adults. I don't remember dressing up that much as a kid. I must have, because I certainly remember the candy - candy corn and tootsie rolls being my favorites. And I always hated those cellophane wrapped packages with the pastel colored disks in them. Yuck. What was that stuff? I do remember dressing up as a Volkswagen once when I was a teenager - that was my only memorable costume. It probably got uncool to dress for Halloween for a while. Then in my twenties, it got cool again.

When my husband and I worked for large companies we used to have great Halloween parties, lots of people. Sometimes the parties had themes. We had a Hitchcock party once. I decorated with birds all over the house, rope hanging out of a trunk and a bloodsplattered bathroom. One clever girl came as Marian Crane (from Psycho) complete with shower curtain and hooks. For the dead celebrity party, my fave partygoer was the guy who came as Marley's Ghost - Bob Marley, that is. Dreadlocks, chains. Ingenious.

In recent years I've been Cruella de Ville, Frida Kahlo (I made my husband dress as Diego Rivera), Jim Morrison, and various ghouls. This may be my favorite though - Wilma and Fred Flintstone. I'm Wilma.

HANK: They were NECCO's, Ro. (Made by the New England Candy COmpany.) In college, one year, we were all supposed to dress as a song title. I got some RIT dye (remember that?) dyed a sheet black and went as "She's Not There." (Kind of a reverse ghost idea, see?)

I've dressed up as a tea bag--brown leotard and tights, then covered myself with a plastic dry cleaning bag I filled with torn up pieces of orange and brown construction paper. I hung a string around my neck and at the bottom was a tag that said Constant Comment.

An old boyfriend and I went as spaghetti and meatballs. We created this enormous contraption, like a table, which we then hung from our shoulders with ropes. We covered the base with a red and white checked tablecloth. We stapled a big cardboard cone on top of it to hold the spaghetti. I cooked spaghetti, and figured I could just glue it to the cardboard thing.Well of course, that was ridiculous.

So I ended up sewing the strands to the cardboard with a huge needle and heavy thread. Then we covered brown paper bags with cotton balls, and sprayed them red and brown to look like meat balls, punched holes for eyes and put them over our heads.

We could not get the thing in the car, so we had to strap in onto the top. So imagine the spaghetti table flying down the Mass Turnpike, stands coming off along the way. When we got to the party, we stepped into the table of spaghetti and put the meatballs on our heads.

It worked, but it was hard to dance.
Two years ago, Jonathan and I were the Ark Family. I was Joan of Arc, and he was Noah.

Last year, I was too busy to make new costumes. So I printed out a new flag to replace the Fleur de Lis, put on a bandana, and went as Joan of Arkansas. (Jonathan was Noah of Arkansas, which I know makes no sense.)
Those are little animals pinned to his tunic, two of each, of course.

JAN: Hey, Ro, Bill and I went as Fred and Wilma Flintstone once, too -- those styrofoam balls from the crafts store make easy Flintstone jewelry. But my favorite costume was from the college years. My roommates and I hosted a party, in our lovely but pest-ridden apartment. Bill and I went as a cockroach and a can of Raid. I was the cockroach in a dark brown body suit with lots of attached legs and cute silver antennae. Bill got inside a huge wire cylinder we covered with paper?? Paper mache? Can't remember now, except that we had an artist friend who did an awesome job of copying the RAID logo and making it look just like the real can.
I also had a room-mate who was quite funny and notoriously loud. Bill and I carved a pumpkin to look like her, gave it an enormous mouth, stuck a radio inside it and squirted with her signature perfume. She had a good sense of humor and got a kick out of it.

HALLIE: You guys are aMAzing! I'm so impressed. You could have been contestants on Project Runway. (Don't you think they should have a challenge: making Halloween costumes?) The only memorable costume I ever made was a fried egg (a white sheet with a big yellow circle of fabric quilted over my stomach. I was pregnant which helped. Jerry went as a pencil wearing a bathing cap on his head for an eraser.
My kids always made awesome costumes. (Early on they felt this was child abuse). Naomi once made a cardboard box into a milk carton with a cutout for her face and under it HAVE YOU SEEN THIS CHILD. Another year she went out painted green: the state of Florida. My (now grown) daughters still get together every Halloween and make costumes to go out.
Halloween is my favorite holiday.

ROBERTA: Funny thing that I can't remember childhood Halloween costumes at all. Now if we were describing dance recital outfits, I could tell you in detail...

But we had wonderful, wild parties when I was in graduate school. My very favorite costume was Wonder Woman. I wore a skimpy purple leotard, then made big felt breast plates with stars on them and sewed a short, flared skirt to match. I had a headdress of course, and knee-high maroon boots. It was the best. The next year, I sewed a Kermit the frog outfit which was technically gorgeous. The problem was no one knew who I was under all that green felt, so it got lonely. Then I ditched the frog and moved to Marilyn Monroe.

Love all these stories. We should definitely host a Jungle Red Writers Halloween party!

Ro: You're on!