We kids would converge on that house until the generous handouts were gone. However, rumors would sometimes run rampant around the neighborhood about how a certain house was giving away small candy bars or a nickel. In 1950, adults handed out penny candy, hardly ever a candy bar, no matter how small. It was apparently a common “costume.” As I’ve suggested, it was a different time. I also came across a number of photos of kids in blackface. Despite their diminutive statures, I think I would get out of their way if I saw them coming down the street toward me. So despite Dale Evans (Roy Rogers’ third wife) and a few other cowgirls to emulate, I never saw any of the few girls who were out trick or treating dressed as cowgirls.Īs I was browsing through the vintage Halloween images in Google, I came across this photo to the right of a creepy gang of tiny trick or treaters being led down the street by a skeleton. There might have been little cowgirls out trick or treating in 1950, but in my neighborhood, decidedly working-class, trick or treating at that time was mostly an activity of boys. This was a time when Roy Rogers, Hoot Gibson, Gene Autry, and the rest of the B western movie actors were a regular staple of television and movies. All he needed was what he probably already had: a cap gun in a plastic holster, an oversized hat to serve as a cowboy hat, and a scarf around his neck. If a boy didn’t want to go as a hobo, he could get by on the cheap by going as a cowboy. There were masks, of course, in the form of clowns, witches, monkeys, pumpkins, Indian maidens, and so on. In fact, I don’t remember any in my neighborhood. In 1950, not many kids had commercially made costumes. a boy who thought that his gigantic breasts were fricken hilarious. (I suspect there was a boy behind that mask. Sometimes a kerchief, simple mask, and a stuffed chest (like the kid on the far right) would do the trick. In 1950, you could get by (see the second kid from the left) with a painted-on mustache and a towel over your head. Here are some kids in their homemade costumes. Voila: eleven-year-old boy transformed into a miniature bindlestiff on the hunt for candy. Since I was something of a rumpled kid anyway, my knees usually torn (I was an inveterate marble player), all that was left to do was to rub a bit of dirt on my face and then throw a stick over my shoulder at the end of which was a kerchief filled with crumpled newspaper.
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