Published: October 05, 2008 01:05 am            

Time to whiten those fangs

Listen to them, the children of the night. What music they make. — Dracula by Bram Stoker 



Halloween is a favorite holiday of mine. As a child I would pester my mother about needing a costume as soon as October came.

I was a clown my first Halloween (well actually my second ... I was only nine days old my first Halloween) and I won the costume contest for little kiddies. 

I got a doll as a prize because the judges thought I was a girl. It probably would be pretty valuable if I still had it today, it was one of those brunette bubble cut Barbie Dolls from the early '60s. She suddenly disappeared one day. The last time I saw her she was riding the rails of my toy train set, naked, on top of the coal car while my dad watched, and frowned. I suspect he had something to do with her disappearance.

I think I was a ghost the next year. I was completely covered with a sheet from head to toe. It must have been Dad's idea. I kept stepping on the front of my sheet, though, which yanked the eye holes I was suppose to watch for traffic through, down to my mouth. At least I could eat candy that way. I don't know how ghosts put up with that stuff.

Oh how I wanted to be the devil one year. I got my devil costume early. It had a red shirt with flames on the front and red pants, and a devil mask with horns, a goatee and an earring. I had no idea until then that the devil wore an earring. 

I couldn't wait for Halloween to scare someone so I put my costume on and hid in a dark corner of the hallway in our house until my mom walked by with a stack of clean towels. I jumped out of the shadows and scared her. At first it was cool to get the reaction I wanted. She even did one of those blood-curddling horror movie-type screams. The rest of the day wasn't so good. There's nothing sadder than to see the devil crying in his front yard looking for a switch.

There was the year of the hillbilly, the year of the mad scientist, the year of Zorro, and of course Batman. There's a picture of two of my cousins and me, all three in our Batman costumes, posing for the camera. Of course I was the Batman whose fly was open.

After the trick-or-treat days Halloween didn't lose its charm for me. Things sort of came full circle. in 1990 I won another Halloween costume contest. I was 27 years old and the judges thought I was a girl again. I had come to the party as Tina Turner, wearing fishnets, the mini-skirt, spiked heels and all. I acquired a whole new respect for women considering what they have to go through in clothes like that, mostly from guys.

One year I went to a Halloween party as Abraham Lincoln and my date was a Hershey's Kiss, all wrapped up in shiny silver foil. But, because I was Abraham Lincoln people kept mistaking her for the Liberty Bell, thinking we were both going with a historical theme. She couldn't understand why so many people asked about her crack that night: "Hey what's up with your crack?" ... "What happened to your crack?" ... "I can't find your crack anywhere."

It's always hard for me to decide what to be for Halloween. I'm leaning toward being Dracula this year. It's a classic that never dies.



Steve Gillespie is managing editor of The Meridian Star. E-mail him at sgillespie@themeridianstar.com.

        

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