Every Halloween when my son was young he and the other kids in our 17 story apartment building would start on the top floor and work their way down ringing doorbells.
And for the kids who rang our bell, we’d set up a spooky tableau with a floppy plastic skeleton we kept for years. We’d sit Mr Skeleton in our big bentwood rocking chair and festoon him with spiderwebs.
We still have that lovely bentwood rocker, but what ever happened to that floppy old skeleton? And where is that freckle-faced little boy in the astronaut costume?
RetroFlash / 100 Words
– Dana Susan Lehrman
Dana Susan LehrmanThis retired librarian loves big city bustle and cozy country weekends, friends and family, good books and theatre, movies and jazz, travel, tennis, Yankee baseball, and writing about life as she sees it on her blog World Thru Brown Eyes!
www.WorldThruBrownEyes.com
Tags:
Halloween
Characterizations:
funny, moving
How nice that the kids in the building could stay indoors and still go trick-or-treating! They didn’t have to worry about the weather or fear what might lurk on dark streets. Sounds like a great situation. And your spooky tableau was just the right thing to haunt little kids – the hat and guitar made the skeleton not TOO frightening. Well done.
Thanx Betsy, and needless to say in those days parents had no thought of checking their kids loot for malfeasance!
Love your last two questions, Dana, and their contrasts. And thanks for reminding me of the fun — for kids — of living in NYC in at apartment building at Halloween: just work down every apartment in the building with only an elevator needed to transport you to dozens of treats.
Thanx John, apartment-living does make trick-or-treating a breeze!
Altho rather than taking the elevator, we’d hear noisy, laughing kids running down the stairways between the floors!
Ah, Dana, time passes so quickly. Someone stole one of my granddaughter’s skeletons from her decorations this year. Maybe yours is hanging out with it?
Could be Laurie!
This is a lovely memory, Dana. I agree with Betsy, how great that living in a NY high-rise made it easy for the kids to trick-or-treat without ever going outside.
Yep Suzy, I guess at Halloween city kids have it easy!
Great retro flash, with the last line capturing the loss of those times so well. The skeleton sounds like a great prop. We had a stretchy skeleton costume for the dog, who would bark to let us know someone was at the door, and was a little scary in his own right.
Yes Khati, we loved that skeleton who was with us for years.
And I love that you had a cooperative costumed dog! We actually had a wonderful black cat who would have been a perfect addition to our tableau, but he wasn’t so cooperative!
Aw, this was a fun flash, Dana. I love Mr. Skeleton and the idea of trick-or-treating from floor to floor in an apartment building. Great memory.
Thanx Marian!
Memories as sweet as a bowl of M&Ms! Thanks, Dana.
Yep! Thanx Risa.