Since Halloween is my birthday, I’ve been thinking of my past birthdays since this October began. Some I can write about and some that will stay buried in the crevices of my mind…not for Prime Time.
It took my mom three days to push me out – feet first. She probably didn’t care that she had a Halloween baby, just that the whole ordeal was over. Breach baby, born on Halloween, double Scorpio and just an out and out weirdo. Thanks Mom.
The first Halloween that I can remember, my mom dressed me as a pumpkin. I remember her stuffing my green and orange costume (homemade?) with newspaper. The double joy of having such a holiday birthday was getting a gift and the best part; going out trick-or-treating for candy. I remember walking in the dark to one house, with many steps up to the front door. They didn’t answer the door. Some of the older kids talked about egging the house, but no one had eggs.
When we moved out into the country, my step-father would drive us to an upscale neighborhood to trick-or-treat. While driving down the dark roads he’d swerve like mad to miss goblins that came out of the shadows. “Oops, there’s another one,” he’d gasp as he swerved to miss the imaginary goblin. Of course, we screamed and giggled like crazy.
Trick-or-treating with my daughter and her two children, plus a couple of their friends, we walked around a neighborhood where the houses were spread far apart. One of my granddaughter’s friends surreptitiously hid in the bushes as we walked. The little fart jumped out at me and scared me so much that I peed my pants! They laughed about that for years and years. Thanks, kids.
One of my wilder Halloweens was when I dressed up as a 90-year-old whore. I had found a complete over the head mask with straggly gray hair. I overdid the make-up on her, put a black scarf around her wrinkly head, wore a spiked dog collar, high wedged boots to my knees that I glittered up, with orange tights, a short black and white skirt that I had stuffed a towel into, so I had a big stomach, black leather Michael Jackson gloves and a leather jacket. I also made up business cards that said, “BB, biker b%#*h, call for a good time.” It listed an 800 number that I can’t list here.
I wore that costume to a ball in Santa Cruz where I faced off with a 10’ cyclops. It tried to scare me, but I stayed in my whore persona and stuck my tongue out suggestively while a crowd of people gathered around us to see what would happen. It did scare the bejesus out of me, but I was determined to stay in character the entire night.
A group of my Santa Cruz friends and I once dressed as a chain gang. We made the prison uniforms from white plastic coveralls my then husband brought from his work. We spray painted black stripes on them. Husband was the Great PumpCon with a real carved out pumpkin on his head adorned with a file. Rose was an old, old Rosie the Con, wrinkles, wig and all. I was the unknown convict and wore a black and white striped paper bag on my head. I had used makeup prosthetics and made my face as gory as possible. In fact, one friend told me to keep the bag on as my face was disturbing. Perfect. There were about seven of us and we were chained together with balls and chain in the convict theme.
At the Santa Cruz ballroom, where people planned their Halloween costumes a year in advance, our gang arrived chained together. Our first dilemma was climbing the many entrance stairs. I got everyone to step in unison. “Hup, hup, hup!” It wasn’t easy because not everyone was sober.
We wandered around looking at all the amazing creatures. A some point someone tapped us on our collective shoulder and told us to go to the stage. Apparently they thought our costume was great. Until we tried to walk up the stage steps, still chained together. One of us fell off the stairs, the rest of us looked out at the audience of ghouls. I remember doing a bit of a cancan. Not sure what the others were doing. We hadn’t prepared a stage show. Finally we were booed off the stage. Thank goodness.
What’s a girl to do this Halloween? You’ll have to read next week’s column to find out!
Lucy Llewellyn Byard is currently a columnist for the Record-Bee. To contact her, email lucywgtd@gmail.com
