When I was a kid, next to Christmas, Hallowe'en was my favorite holiday. We lived in a small neighborhood in Philadelphia, near a Woolworths where extra candy could be bought in an emergency if we underestimated the number of trick-or-treaters who came to our door.
A household down the street from us, with thirteen children, displayed a coffin in their front hall every year. For most of the year it served as a storage chest shoved under the stairs, but on All-Hallow's-Eve it was lined with satin and the teenage kids took turns as the corpse. At exactly the right moment they would rise from their bed and utter a horrible moan, sending the trick-or-treaters rushing out the door. (Some of us thought it was a ruse for cutting down on their candy expenditures.)
We made our own costumes in those days, from sheets and pillowcases, or whatever was lying around and the parents accompanied the smaller goblins. Sometimes they dressed up, too. Once my parents came to our door in disguise. Mom was Olive Oil and Dad was Pop-Pye. My brother and I were fooled until we spied our mother's scuffed loafers. She had forgotten to change her shoes!
I remember the distinctive smells of each house as we entered. Corned beef and cabbage, lavender soap, mothballs, or cookies baking--and I wondered what our smell was. It was so much a part of me, I couldn't detect it.
The best part of Hallowe'en was dumping out our loot when we got home and poring over it. In those days some of the treats were homemade--brownies, candied apples, cupcakes with smiling pumpkin faces. No one had thought of putting a razor blade in an apple or poison in a candy bar.
But the nicest thing I ever got wasn't edible. It was a tiny hand-carved cat with amber specks for eyes. I always wondered which house it came from. The one that smelled like oranges--or beef stew?
