When I was a kid I dressed up as a Smurf one year and Casper the Friendly Ghost another. Perhaps ET yet another, I can't remember. I do remember appreciating the simplicity of the Casper costume, which only required cutting holes in a sheet for your head and arms.
By the time sixth grade rolled around I was too old for all that kid stuff, so that year I doled out the candy to the trick or eaters while reading the USA Today on the inside steps of the house. Those were the days--a brief period, fortunately--in which I always dressed very formally and even carried a little man briefcase to school. I believe the briefcase was beside me that Halloween night.
Every year the TV news would issue dire warnings about how some people were so horrible that they would put razor blades in little kids' candy. So every year we had to carefully inspect the candy before we ate it. This always put a damper on the proceedings, and was an early tip-off to how cruel the world can sometimes be.
Our parents always accompanied us trick-or-treating when we were young, and after we got older we strolled the neighborhood ourselves. The parents were always in work clothes, as costumes were for kids. No parent in the neighborhood wore costumes.
That was Ohio, and that was then. Here in California the parents often dress up too. I'm always surprised to see adults in costume, but why not? Over the weekend we saw many parents in costume at a friend's Halloween party, and last night the adults had the most inventive get-ups as we strolled down Piedmont Ave. Pi Wen and I were in our everyday clothes enjoying the scene without exactly taking part in it. Looks like we are journalists at heart. Or maybe I still think it's wacky for grown-ups to wear costumes.
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