RECORD STORE TALES #1160: Halloweens Without Bob

A sequel to #790:  Helluva Halloween

The first Halloween costume I distinctly remember wearing was a robot suit.  My mom and dad got a big cardboard box, cut out a head hole and some arm holes, and helped me decorate it with tinfoil.  Then another box became the head.  I drew on buttons and knobs with crayons.  I was so excited to be a robot that night.  That is, until I saw an older kid with a way better robot suit.  His had lights!  I briefly wondered if he was a real robot and dismissed the thought.

My costumes were sometimes store-bought, sometimes home made.  Darth Vader was a plastic mask and glow-in-the-dark sword.  Frankenstein was a costume I made myself, using cardboard to cut a square-ish wig, and green face paint.  It was so difficult to wash all that green off in the bathtub that night.  There was a green ring around the tub that my dad was furious about.  It’s very likely I went out as Empire Strikes Back Han Solo in 1980.  I already had the costume:  a blue hooded snow coat, goggles, with a gun and holster.  Another classic Harrison Ford costume was Indiana Jones.  I used brown makeup to simulate a 5 o’clock shadow, and had a rope-whip and a gun.  I was mistaken for a cowboy, which really peeved me.  How could you have not heard of Indiana Jones in 1981?  Maybe my costume just wasn’t good enough.

In 1984, my mom sewed us elaborate Ewok costumes.  While I wore mine that night, I wore a different costume to school:  that of a Cobra trooper from GI Joe!  I painted some red Cobra logos on a blue helmet, pulled my shirt up over my nose like a balaclava, and armed myself with a rifle.  Back when you could bring toy guns to school!  Weren’t those the days?  School was very particular about Halloween.  You had to participate.  If you didn’t bring a costume to school that day, the teacher would take a garbage bag, cut some holes in it, and force you to wear that.  I’m not kidding.

I went out for Halloween one more time in grade nine, but that was the last year.  I may have only gone to one house:  the “fudge house”.  There was an elderly couple who made home-made fudge.  It was so good, and so popular, that some kids would change costumes and go two or three times.  It was very sugary fudge, but so good.  Then, the era of Bob-Halloweens began!

From grade 10 onwards, Bob Schipper and I started making out own haunted houses.  That’s its own story, but I dressed as Alice Cooper that year. I painted up a black jacket with flames and wore a sword at my side.  Doing Halloween haunted houses was our thing for a few years, each time getting more elaborate.  We had mummies, scary sounds, flashing lights, spiders and cobwebs, and lots more.  It was a passion project.  We would spend a month or two preparing for Halloween.  November 1st always sucked.  Nobody likes cleanup.

When Bob moved on to college and doing his own things, I was left to man the fort by myself.  My first Halloween alone was 1991, and a lonely one it was.  I began preparing to do the haunted house, alone.  Without Bob’s collaboration or input, I made my usual mix tape of scary sounds.  I always took these sounds from cassettes I already owned.  The bit from Judas Priest’s recent “Night Crawler” with Rob Halford talking about the monster at the door was my latest addition to the scary sound library.  When I put the tape together, my sister said there’s “too much Judas Priest!”  She was right, but without Bob, I was left to my own devices.  I did what I wanted to, for better or for worse.

1991 was a lonely Halloween.  It wasn’t fun anymore.  It was a lonely time in general.  Up until then, I looked forward to our Halloween creativity.  I didn’t bother anymore after that.  We were seeing fewer and fewer kids at the front door, and for me, without Bob, what was the point?