We never wore scary costumes. Kids didn’t dress with blood and gore back then. A white sheet over your head was about the spookiest thing you might see. No one decorated houses, no lights. Jack-o-lanterns had triangle eyes, not too creative. My mom often made me a costume. I’m on the far left, dressed as fraulein Deila. Then there’s Pam Hale and Pam Dressel and Mary Lee Moffatt. My sisters, Jeni and Talee, round out the group. And happy birthday to my little sister, Talee.
When I got married and had kids, I made costumes and handed them down to the next born. All five of my children wore the leopard costume at age 3 or 4. We moved on to Dick Tracy, poodle skirts, Zelda, and clowns. But unfortunately, I couldn’t let them wander the streets for candy. By then, we had the razor blade scare, so my kids didn’t get to canvas the neighborhood as I did. It had become so bad that hospitals opened their emergency rooms for x-ray scanning of your kid’s candy. In our community, parents would follow their kids around from house to house. Turns out, this scare was a bit of the media hype that we see more often today.
By the 1980s, some communities banned “trick-or-treating” while hospitals in some metropolitan areas offered to X-ray Halloween candy. Parent-teacher associations encouraged fall festivals to replace Halloween, and on Long Island a community group gave prizes to children who stayed home altogether for Halloween 1982.
In 1982 the governor of New Jersey signed a bill requiring a jail term for those tampering with candy.
Worries of parents and community leaders drove the fear. In a popular nationally syndicated newspaper advice column called “Ask Ann Landers,” Landers warned in 1983 of “twisted strangers” who had been “putting razor blades and poison in taffy apples and other Halloween candy.” (ref)
That’s when our church began to sponsor a “trunk or treat.” Everyone showed up in the parking lot and handed out candy from their car trunk. Not the same as the good old days. Kind of a bust for me.
Halloween became not so much fun. Costumes became more evil-looking, and maybe evil people were tampering with the candy. I became kind of a Halloween Scrooge. Â I bought my small size candy, ate it, carved a pumpkin, and wished I had an elaborate witch costume. Yea, a lovely black hat and cape and magical power (I’ve always wanted to be Samantha of Bewitched.)
And how about some Halloween, not-too-scary movies to share with the family? I’m thinking, “Witches,” “Young Frankenstein,” “Ghostbusters,” “Beetlejuice,” “Frankenstein,” “The Adams Family” and maybe some from my youth — we were always tormented by “The Body Snatchers,” “Night of the Living Dead,” Â “Psycho,” and “Wait Until Dark.” I might prefer “Vertigo” or “The Birds.” Though, “Vertigo” might make me dizzy.
