Friday was bright and sunny, 72 degrees. It had the look of fall. Not from our trees, which don't show much color this year due to little rain. But the sky, and the angle of the sun were very fall-like. Plus I smelled smoke from burning leaves. I don't know how. I was on blacktop parking lots at 10Box and the Gas Station Chicken Store. Not exactly a residential neighborhood. The country people around us know not to be burning now, unless they want to risk an out-of-control wildfire.
Anyhoo... that smell took me back to Halloween when I was a kid in the 1960s. We always smelled burning leaves when trick-or-treating. None of that daytime stuff for us! We had to wait until dark. That's back when daylight savings time came before the first weekend in November. So the wait wasn't long. We always had supper at 5:10. That's the time my dad got home from work. By the time supper was done, it was plenty dark for trick-or-treating.
Our costumes came from Woolworths. The kind in a see-through box, with a plastic mask on a thin elastic strap. I can't remember what I was. Most often a witch, I guess, because that's all that comes to mind. No pretty princess for me. That was my sister, 18 months younger than me. We had a big fight one year when I told her she had boy toes. Sometimes I was just a ghost under a sheet. Which coordinated well with the pillowcase I toted to collect candy.
OH, the CANDY! That's the main purpose, you know. Getting candy. Not dressing up, or walking around at night getting spooked. Eventually we got the plastic pumpkins to hold our bounty. It seemed like a lot more in a pillowcase.
My dad always took us. He'd follow about 10 feet behind, staying in the shadows, on the main sidewalk, letting us go up on the porches. There were throngs of kids. Mom stayed home to hand out candy. We traveled our street, and the next street over. Four blocks of each. Not every house had the porch light on, but most did. You knew the old spinster ladies would be giving out popcorn balls. Or apples. Or even worse, PENNIES!
When we got home, all the candy got dumped out. We were careful to keep our piles separate. Then the bargaining began. Sometimes I could persuade my sister to trade. Sometimes not. Mom and Dad got the things we didn't like. Which wasn't much!
Chocolate was the best. Especially if you got a FULL SIZE HERSHEY BAR. Mostly they were the "fun size," which were bigger back then than they are now. I liked the Baby Ruths best. Then 3 Musketeers. Milky Way was just okay. And Butterfingers I would trade. I'd also trade the Reese's Peanut Butter Cups.
Sugar Daddy suckers were on the trade list, but I'd keep Sugar Babies. I couldn't get rid of those black and orange wrapped chewy candies fast enough. I hated them. They were like caramel with a dab of peanut butter inside. Nor did I like the big square banana chewy candy, or Now and Laters. I hated Necco Wafers. And the Boston Baked Beans. Plain caramels.
Candy corn was fine with me. And Safe T Pops and Dum Dums and Tootsie Pops. Tootsie Rolls were good, especially the fruit flavors. Lemon Heads were good. The mini jawbreakers that came in a box, or the big individually wrapped jawbreakers were keepers. Root Beer Barrels. Smarties. Wax Lips. The little boxes of chalky "cigarette" candy. And Twizzlers. Any kind of gum. Chick O Sticks. Milk Duds. Little bags of jellybeans. The Bit-O-Honey was something I'd try to trade for. Usually successfully.
In the years before the plastic pumpkin containers, our pillowcase candy was put into a shoebox and set on the counter above the kitchen sink, for browsing through as we wanted. Mom and Dad didn't steal our candy. I imagine they just ate what was left over from our handing-out candy. And poocorn balls and apples! We didn't have any rules about when we could eat it. Our stash just dwindled a little each day, until we finished off the least-favorites.
It was a different time. Kids could wander the streets, knock on doors, and eat candy from strangers. All it takes is the smell of leaf smoke to transport me back.
