Costumes

Little One is being Tinkerbell this year, wings and green slippers and all. She’s been, so far, a Pumpkin, an Oatmeal Bear, Cinderella, Minnie Mouse, and the Little Mermaid. Patch, who’s a little taller and a whole lot bigger than her older sister was at age two, is skipping a costume and jumping to the Cinderella hand-me-down.

Which got me thinking about what I used to dress up as, oh so many years ago.

My most creative costume? The invisible man. Bandages, shades, gloves, scarf, and a great big black overcoat. Good thing it was a cool Halloween that year. Must’ve been ten or eleven that year.

Lamest costume? I don’t remember those ones that you’d wear as a real young kid, with the painful plastic mask attached by a rubber band and a picture of the monster you’re supposed to be on your chest. But I do recall being in eighth grade or so, too-cool-for-trick-or-treating, when my brother and I suddenly decided to go out on a whim to score some candy. We went into our uncle’s closet and found a Yankees baseball cap and a cowboy hat. And those were our costumes: a fan and a rustler. Believe it or, we got a lot of candy.

Most ubiquitous costume, c. 1975 – 1980? That’s easy. Bum. Hobo. It seemed every year there was about a half-dozen of us who dressed up as bums. They even have bum kits in the stores for our parents to buy for us. I was a bum maybe two or three years. Now, not so much. I don’t know if it’s a case of political correctness or Christian compassion (probably something in between), but you don’t see many bums today. Or maybe that’s because I have a six-year-old daughter. I’ll get back to you once she gets to the fifth grade.

Best costume for those hard-drinkin’ adult Halloween parties? That’s easy, too: Angus Young. I was a huge AC/DC fan back in those days, and being a guitarist, I played a 1969 Gibson SG. I was Angus I think three times in my early twenties. Have a couple of pictures, so I’ll see if I can figger out how to post them here. There’s one of me as Angus and my singer as Jimi Hendrix that’s just loaded with memories for me, and not all of them stupid.

Last costume? Gee, this is embarrassing. The wife and our best friends, a couple, decided to throw a big Halloween party in 2003. We all went to a local party shop to buy some authentic, well-done costumes. The wife was a 50s bobby-soxer, for example. So I searched in vain for a Catholic priest costume – hey, no jokes now! I was going to be an honest man of the cloth. But, no, none was to be found, and to make matters worse, they all decided I should dress up in a bathrobe, pipe, and yachtsman’s cap … yes, paragon of virtue, Hugh Hefner. Sigh. I was embarrassed during the whole party. Good thing there’s no surviving pictures from that night.

What would I wear if I was going to a Halloween party this year? What does the father of two young girls who’s in his early forties go out as? Hands down:




DJ Lance from Yo Gabba Gabba!