Great pictures. When I was a child, we generally made our costumes out of things we had on hand. I'm not sure when buying commercially made costumes became a widespread practice.

Cute!

What stood out to me were all the leather shoes, not a Croc or trainer in sight.

Those are great photos. You just needed one item and you had a costume.

I was born in the 50s and wore costumes my mother made. By the time they fit me, they'd been worn three or four times. I remember a black cat costume with a wired tail. When I got home from trick or treating, I was surprised to see that the crotch had been completely torn down to the leg.

Great photos!

Way simpler times.

I hope I can find some of our old photos.

We live off the beaten path an no one but a neighbor’s son, years ago, has ever come by. I gave him a treat of King Oscar double layer sardines — his fave!

I understand that sardines are a very healthy food to eat but I've never heard of a kid who thought of them as a special treat. I guess there has to be at least one. ;-)

I remember common costumes from things on hand were pirates (as in your pic), bums, ghosts, gypsies, fairies and fairy princesses, and in my part of the world, loggers. Times have changed and several of those would no longer be socially acceptable!

Love the photos. We always came up with our own costumes when i was a kid. I madecostumes for my kids. One of them actually asked me if hecould please have a costume froma box!

Those photos are absolutely priceless!

Thank you for sharing.

Your pic reminded me of the Halloween scene from "Meet Me in St. Lous". They were burning furniture in the street as I recall. The "tricks" were not anything I would want to return to.

Great photos, Alisande.

When I was a kid, many just took an old shirt and dirtied their faces and said they were "hoboes." Remember that terminology, "hoboes?" Also we called them bums at that time, then they were street people, then homeless, now unhoused, I guess. How things have changed.

Petalique, I like sardines, and King Arthur is my favorite brand, but I'm pretty sure I didn't like them in childhood. They were probably one of the foods my father would have described as "an acquired taste." Your young visitor has a sophisticated palate!

We lived in an apartment house with marble hallways. When my fellow trick-or-treaters and I arrived at my apartment, my dad would open the door and toss a handful of pennies onto the marble floor. We had fun scrambling for them!

Nice story! The sound of pennies on marble ;)

I almost called them ”King Arthur” as well.

The kid loved them. I used to babysit him (for free). I caught a lot of colds and flu from taking care of kids like him and some others. The mother lived nearby and the kid’s father bought a house nearby. The boy was mixed race. The father turned out to be very controlling, screwed up, manipulative and litigious.

One New Year’s Eve day our hot water heater died and we were going to a dinner party. I asked the boy’s mother if I could take a shower at her house (we had done similar favors for her. She demurred, hemmed hawed and made some excuse that Pedrocchio (kid’s) father was going to be around and might not like it. We had given this controlling screwed up jerk rides to the train station, child care and let him use our tools.

I didn’t get a shower. That was the beginning of the end or our “friendship.”

I used to let the young baby then toddler then boy cook with me. I even introduced him to some spicy Thai and Vietnamese shrimp dishes. (He wanted to know what I was cooking, I told him and then offered him a taste of shrimp, telling him that it would be OK with me if you did not care for it because it was spicy and that I understood that sometimes younger people don’t care for spicy foods.) I took him sailing and let him take the helm one day to cross the pond on our way back in. He was really proud of himself. I would have loved to have taught him sailing or tutored him in math, or whatever. My husband even drove 100 miles round trip to get a free used wood stove for his cash-strapped mother.

But the kid’s father was a head case and a nasty one. Very controlling and he later told me not to talk with his son. The mother, who I had liked and who seemed intelligent, toed the line and stopped talking with me. DH and I crossed our fingers for the boy, wondering how he was going to fare in that situation.

Some while later and on several occasions, the police were called (by the mother, apparently) for a domestic violence incident or two. One involved a knife.

The controlling father was weird, messed up and scarey. He once came close to intentionally hitting me with his car and was always watching when I went to a neighbor’s to water plants while they were away.

When the kid would walk up the hill, I would say hello, _______, but he would not acknowledge me.

Years have passed. I think the boy maybe did not graduate from high school, but later did a GED. He was for a time working at a MacDonald’s. The mother works hard. The father was/is on some sort of work injury disability. Doesn’t seen to do much but has about 3 SUVs and a whole lot of stuff. He had a nice little house, but has painted it here and there some loud wild color — randomly. Looks ugly. I think of it as the color “help me I am bipolar and volatile.”

I am so thankful that I do not live next to them and have nothing to do with them. If I must walk past their houses, I have my phone to my ear, talking to no one.

Sad for the child who is probably in his early 20s now. I have no idea what he is now like or what he is doing.

When I was little my mother dressed me as a wich or gypsy. I wanted to be a princess or ballerina. I dressed my little girl as a pretty doll. She said it was Halloween, she wanted to be something scary….

My dad loved sardines and I grew up eating them on saltine crackers with him. I loved them then, love them now. l would love candy more, tho!

That's a sad story, Petalique. Some kids have such a hard start in life.

I didn't realize I wrote "King Arthur" until you mentioned it. It's probably not the first time I've done that (nor the last).

Pekemom, I'm thinking your daughter may have inherited some genes from your mom. :-)

Heritagehd07, thank you for the correction. I believe I heard that term from a young white woman, married to an African man with a young mixed race child.

I am sorry and did not mean to offend anyone.

What are some acceptable terms? Just say, ”mixed race.”

And is it acceptable to state that and why I did?

Alisande, it is a sad story. I am disappointed in the mother and don’t feel that the parents did right by their son. The father, I heard, used demean him and, of course, the kid probably thought the world of his father and wanted to please him and wanted love. I cannot think about it much because it makes me angry and frustrated. Life was going to tough enough on the child (poor-ish, single parent household, isolated from other kids (out of the way location). It is a real shame.