Happy Halloween Stories

Many of my posts over the last couple of months have been dark and dreary – about haunting books and family losses. So here are a few family pictures and stories that show the zany side of Halloween.

My parents in bunny costumes when they were in high school:

Mother in bunny costume

Dad in bunny costume

Sister as a foundling

And here is my sister as a foundling.  When she was a baby, she liked to play in this sturdy wicker laundry basket. She would tumble about, turning it over, but usually ended up with a big grin on her face like in this picture.

Halloween night the year when my sister was one was a warm, pleasant evening. The older kids went trick-or-treating, but the baby was too young for that. So my father put her in the basket and left her on the neighbors’ porches, ringing the bell and dashing out of sight. He and the neighbors had a good laugh, and my sister joined in.

There’s another family Halloween story from when I was growing up, but I don’t have a picture of that. (You’ll see why if you read on.) My baby brother was born in mid-November, so my mother was heavily pregnant on Halloween.

Now, my mother is a small woman, and for her to be heavily pregnant meant that she looked like her belly had a bowling ball strapped to it. Or a pumpkin.

My mother had an OB/GYN appointment on Halloween. She painted a jack-o-lantern face on her swollen stomach.  I picture a happy face much like the one on the pumpkin at the beginning of this post.

When the doctor peeled back the sheet to examine her, I guess he was speechless. But I’ll have to take my mother’s word for that, because she was the only witness to his shock.

Forty-five years later, I still get a chuckle thinking of my usually prim and proper mother pulling off this stunt.

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