Dried Corn and Bars of Soap

During the last week of October when I was a child, our quiet evenings at home were interrupted.  Neighborhood kids -- usually teen boys -- collected dried ears of corn from the fields on the outskirts of our tiny village, removed the kernels, and, by the handfuls, threw them at our house.  They clattered and banged against the windows then clattered again as they fell onto the porch.  The quantity of kernels and the force with which they were thrown varied, but they were the announcement of Halloween.  "Those kids are out already!" my mother would say.  I assume that having an attractive teenage sister encouraged the boys to run by the house with their pockets bulging and their hands overflowing.  The next five or six mornings my mom swept off the porch after having heard the clatter the night before.  Then magically, it all stopped after October 31.

A quieter Halloween trick involved soaping windows.  Kids would pilfer bars of soap from their closets or sinks at home.  During the week before Halloween they roamed the streets of our community, stealthily crept onto porches, and rubbed the bar of soap across the windows.  I don't remember that they wrote any messages or drew pictures.  They just left scribbles and marks.  My mom disliked the soap more than the corn because it was so difficult to remove.  She determinedly cleaned the windows but I think I remember her once insisting that my sister help.  (As if my sister had any control over the other kids.)

My mom would never have considered spending money on a pattern and fabric for a Halloween costume, nor taking the time to cut out and sew one.  Consequently, our costumes were simple affairs:  what we could make from clothes at home or from a trunk of old clothes in my grandmother's closet.  The most common costumes were hobos, gypsies, clowns, or old women, but really, anything that made us look unlike ourselves worked.  We hid our faces behind half-masks that surrounded our eyes and covered the tops of our noses.  They wrapped around our faces, held in place by an elastic band that stretched around the backs of our heads.

There were only about a dozen homes on our street and only about 4 or 5 more streets in our village, each with as many or fewer homes than ours.  Trick-or-treating was slim when I was a child.  When I was 5 or 6 my mom walked with me to several houses and stood on the street while I walked up the steps and knocked on the doors.  At every home the person who answered the door tried to guess who was behind the mask.  If unsuccessful after about 3 or 4 guesses, we were asked to remove our masks and identify ourselves.  We received a treat only after the person at the door knew who we were.

Our community was so small that we never collected much candy, but always I sorted mine:  chocolate; other desirable-but-not-delicious candy; and the stuff I wouldn't eat (including chocolate with coconut or almonds).  I can't remember but I doubt I was allowed to eat more than a few pieces a day.

When I was 10 or 11, I sometimes went trick-or-treating with a friend or two.  But by that time throwing corn and soaping windows had completely gone out of style.  I missed my chance.

Happy Halloween to  you.

--Nancy.

Copyright © 2014-2022 Nancy Messier. All Rights Reserved.