The first year I lived in Washington, Lori and I went down to Georgetown to celebrate the anniversary of our first kiss. We went into the Chadwicks at the bottom of Wisconsin Avenue for dinner, and when we stepped out a few hours later it was like we had walked onto the set of a Fellini film. The streets and sidewalks were jammed with every kind of costume imaginable; including the “team” of college guys dressed in white sneakers, pants and hooded sweatshirts swarming through the crowd yelling “Impregnate! Impregnate!” There was every sexy-devil-something-or-other imaginable. And there was my favorite: a guy dressed all in pink—including a pink hooded sweatshirt—with a small child’s chair attached to his head… He was “used bubblegum.” Very clever.
Growing up, we were never without a costume as kids. Whatever we wanted to be, my mother would sit down at the sewing machine and create it. Batman? No problem. Superman? Same costume—just different colored long underwear. (Ingeniously incorporating long underwear was key because it was not uncommon for us to trick or treat in the snow in Lyndhurst, Ohio on October 31). A leopard? Easy! No long underwear required.
One thing’s for sure — we never just grabbed a pillow case and went out without a costume. That’s probably why it drives me crazy when high school kids show up on the steps sans anything resembling a clever costume idea and expecting the same response as the fifth grader who shows up dressed as a dishwashing machine he made out of an appliance box, dryer vent flex-hose and plastic silverware, or the sixth-grade Bryce Harper look-alike who has her hair combed to look exactly like the Nationals slugger’s fine coif.
One thing’s for sure — we never just grabbed a pillow case and went out without a costume. That’s probably why it drives me crazy when high school kids show up on the steps sans anything resembling a clever costume idea and expecting the same response as the fifth grader who shows up dressed as a dishwashing machine he made out of an appliance box, dryer vent flex-hose and plastic silverware, or the sixth-grade Bryce Harper look-alike who has her hair combed to look exactly like the Nationals slugger’s fine coif.
That’s why I had to laugh when I first heard this song because it shares my Halloween sentiment exactly. The Happy Medium Song of the Day on the night before Halloween is “No Costume, No Candy” by the Swingin’ Neckbreakers from Trenton, New Jersey. (Please use the comments box to share your thoughts.)