The Dumbest Halloween Costume

Let me take you back to my childhood.  It was either 1984 or 1985, I can't quite remember.  This was before the internet.  Heck, it was before most of my neighborhood had basic cable.  It was a period in time where AM/FM radio was just as important as television.

I have written before that I was not allowed to go trick or treating during my childhood.  In fact, here is the original post:

How a Few Jackholes Ruined Halloween For My Entire Childhood

However, the day care that I attended held it's own Halloween party where we (the kids at the day care) were allowed to dress up.  They would give us candy, and Mr. Betsch, the co-owner, would take us for tractor rides around the property.  We would also get to march around the property while dressed up.

They were really nice and caring when it came to taking care of the kids.  They threw a lot of special events.  I really looked forward to this since it was pretty much the only Halloween I got.  It's also where I received most of my candy for the Halloween season.  Not that I needed that much candy.  I was a touch overweight as a kid.

So when it came to dressing up for Halloween I was pretty terrible at it.  I didn't have the experience, and in the 80's store bought costumes pretty much sucked.  A few years ago I remember one guy had an Angelfire or GeoCities website with old photos of vintage costumes.  I was glad to see I remembered it correctly.  They were just awful.

So in 1984 or 1985 I was trying to think of a Halloween costume.  I was also trying to work with what I had, which wasn't much.  I remember thinking how much I liked music.  So did I dress up as Bruce Springsteen, "Born in the USA," era?  Maybe Sting from "The Police?"  No, remember we still didn't have basic cable, so I didn't know what any of those guys looked like.  But you know which music icon I was familiar with?  Famous Top 40 DJ Casey Kasem.

That's right, Casey Kasem.  There's always been a joke that DJ's have the perfect face for radio.  In other words, no one actually knows what they look like.  That leads to the question, "How does one dress like Casey Kasem?"  The one thing I knew was that he liked wearing sweaters. 

Lot's of sweaters.

Plenty of sweaters.

Very colorful sweaters.

You could say he might have raided Bill Cosby's closet he liked sweaters so much.

So I wore a button up shirt, attached a clip on tie, and pulled on a sweater.  Perfect Casey right?  Except I should have worn a name tag.  Why?  Because no one had a clue who I was dressing up as.  I could have been a college professor.  I could have been, well... so many things.

I have to say I did not think that one through.  I try not to be too hard on myself since I was nine or ten, but why would anyone recognize me?  Casey was on the radio.  It's not like many of the kids knew what he looked like.  In fact, I doubt any of them had any idea what Casey looked like.  

I really could have done better.  But it's not like I ever went costume shopping.  Why would I?  I wasn't exactly going trick or treating around the neighborhood.  So, I did the best I could, but it was still pretty awful.  I guess that's life.  That's also life experience.  

It reminds me of one of my favorite sayings.  "Good judgement comes from experience.  Experience comes from bad judgement."  

How a Few Jackholes Ruined Halloween For My Entire Childhood

October is my favorite time of year.  I love it.  It's the time in Florida where it goes from 95 degrees to a more manageable 82 degrees.  It's the only time of the year that the humidity drops under 50%.  And of course there is candy.  So much candy.  Thank you Halloween!

Let's be honest, next to Christmas, Halloween is just the best holiday for kids.  You get free candy from all the people in the neighborhood.  To this day, Halloween is my favorite holiday.  I just absolutely love it. 

However, Halloween was ruined during my entire childhood due to a few jackholes.  Let me start with this.  I was born in 1976.  So I was in first grade in 1982.  So let me set up a few things that were happening in the 80's.  People were very concerned for the children.  It was all about the children.  Looking back, I don't know what is worse.  People overly concerned with children like they were back then, or how they let them run like feral dogs these days.  But I digress.

Stay at home Moms were concerned for the children.  First off there was heavy metal music.

And then there was Satanists.  (Really, it seemed to be a big thing in the 80's.)

On a side note, I've never come across a Satanist.  Not in the 80's, not now.  But for some reason, everyone was sure they were hanging around in the 80's.

But worse of all were the heavy metal Satanists.

But the absolutely the worst thing out there was jackholes putting needles and pins in candy.  Now, this legend had been around since the 60's.  The rumors were that people put poison in candy, however, no one actually knew anyone that happened to.  Even the news couldn't find anyone.  But the new thing was that evil, morally corrupt persons were putting needles and pins in candy. 

Again, it was mostly urban legend, until 1982.  You know what happened then?  Some murderer (and yes I use that word) laced a bunch of aspirin with poison and killed a bunch of people.  If you ever wondered why medicine has all those seals now you know why. 

Here's the Wiki page on it:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicago_Tylenol_murders

So let's set the stage.  Some waste of a human being poisons people in 1982.  Come Halloween 1982, and the fury of people worrying about people poisoning kids candy is full on crazy mode.

This is a true story.  I was in first grade, and my grade school teacher asks my class why you should have your parents look over your candy when you get it home.  I was the first (and I think only) one to raise my hand, and smartly answer that it was because crazy people were putting needles and razor blades in candy.  You know what happened.  The entire class laughed at me.  (True.  So true.)  I started to cry.  You know how it feels in first grade to have your entire class laugh at you? 

However, my teacher Mrs. Scott was a strong black woman.  That's the short way to say she didn't take no crap and was kind of a bitch to us most the time.  She immediately shut the class up, and told them in no uncertain terms that what I said was true.  And how would they like to bite down on needles and razor blades?  Basically she jumped all over them, and told them that they were going to have to get serious about checking their candy or risk dying.  That really did shut them up.

So you can now see how that sets the stage for trick or treating in the 80's.  My parents did what they thought was the responsible thing.  For me there was no costume.  There was no trick or treating.  There was no candy.  That's right.  I was not allowed to go trick or treating.  And we're not talking about just one year.  We're talking about every year except for one. 

And that one year I went to three houses.  My little old lady neighbor on the left.  My little old lady neighbor on the right.  And my babysitter.  That was it.  No other houses.  And you know what my Mom did when I got home?  That's right.  She went through all my candy.  All nine pieces.  And the funny thing, she found one Mini-Crunch bar that had a corner kind of torn, and she threw that out.  (Really, I can't make this stuff up.)

Other than that one Halloween, I never went trick or treating.  At the house, we gave out plenty of candy.  Lot's of people knew our family, and our house was on the main drag so people knew we were good folks to get candy from.   It really made me angry.  Here we gave out a bunch of candy to all these kids, a lot of them I went to school with, but I couldn't go get candy.  Year after year after dismal year this happened.

Now years later, and also thanks to Snopes, we know that most of this was urban legend and old wives tales.  Seriously, kids these days have the internet and have no idea about old wives tales.  But when I was a kid I'm sure they took up at least 15% of my day.  In all fairness I did have women teachers through grade school. 

Basically, it took urban legends combined with old wives tales, with just one or two "real" cases plus that jackhole who poisoned the Tylenol bottles to ruin Halloween for my entire childhood.  I realize every parent does the best they can.  My parents just didn't want to take the chance of me getting hurt.  I can't fault them with that.  I just lay the fault with the previous named jackholes. 

You'd think that would have ruined me for Halloween.  I mean, just by writing this post you can see just how bitter I still am over what happened during my childhood.  But no.  It is still my favorite holiday.  But still, the inner kid in my still wants to go trick or treating.

Editor's Note:  For those of you who think I am taking "artistic license" with this, take a read of this Snopes article. 

http://www.snopes.com/horrors/mayhem/needles.asp