Making Halloween memories

By Staff
Suzanne Langcuster
Franklin County Times
Think about the month of October when you were a child.
What do you remember?
It is a favorite time for children of all ages. I remember coloring black cats, pumpkins, and witches.
Recently when going through some of my mother's keepsakes I found some of the Halloween pictures she had kept that we colored in school.
Trick or Treat leaned more to the tricks we played on others on Halloween. Fall festivals were so much fun. We even celebrated fall in school at night gatherings.
Every time we passed College Avenue's Grammar School I would have flash backs about when we were students there. Many of the PTA meetings and festivals were at night with our families.
During these festivals we bobbed for apples, and even had a fortuneteller, a disguised teacher of course.
But one of my cherished memories is the homemade treats made by mothers and sent to the school for us to sell. When I started teaching at College Avenue in 1957, mothers would bring popcorn balls, cookies, homemade candies, and all kinds of treats to be sold to raise money at the fall festivals, or sometimes called Open House. Later on when we had a librarian we had a book fair that was going on during the festival.
The classroom doors and rooms were decorated in fall colors and the children's art and work was displayed in their classrooms. They were great gatherings. It was enjoyable to meet parents and other relatives of our students.
Some things have never changed.
Parents have better access to costumes, Trick or Treat bags, T-shirts, and caps and many other choices of Halloween costumes now.
Occasionally parents would make costumes for their youngsters especially if there was a costume contest like there use to be at the Coliseum in Russellville.
Our son, John, was retrieved by his brother by grabbing his black cat costume by the tail when he tried to run off the stage at a costume contest. We still have that costume and we still have the memory.
If you had a large family you passed down the costumes or you do like I did as a child and dress up like gypsies every year.
Just put on a bright skirt, a blouse, and some of your Mom's costume jewelry.
We hope your children will have a happy safe Halloween and they will get all the candy their heart's desire and their stomachs can tolerate.
That is why we are sending out all these candy recipes this week. Choose one or two or more to prepare and make the little gobbling happy. Thanks for giving me time to draw up some fond memories.