Backwoods Washington Halloween 1960s Style

It wasn't really the backwoods.  It was more like a sort of rural suburb of north Seattle.  There was a gravel road past the house.  The road didn't go through anywhere. It was called the loop by us kids.  Still in dreams, cheesy reference to yesterday, I am often walking around that block or two.  I still know who lived where.

We lived where all of this had gone down.

Halloween was a kids' thing in that time and place.  No adult would have been bothered except to walk some little guys safely around to see a couple of neighbors.  There were no adult Halloween parties.  Come on!

There were no commercial costumes.  You cooked something up yourself with what you had or you didn't bother.  Big kids went begging anyhow in their jeans and coats, maybe a funny hat or something.  I remember helping my younger sibs with something fanciful to wear, put together with what we had.  It wasn't that every one was too poor, it was just that it was a kid's night out thing.  You did what you could.  Honestly I don't even remember dressing up, though I must have at some point.

Honestly, I think what we were thinking of were pranks that we thought we could get away with.  Some TPed trees, soaped windows, turned over garbage cans.  Real high-powered stuff...

The thing is, we were safe wandering the neighborhood at night.  Nothing was going to happen except some messy pranks, getting some dogs excited and mooching a bit of candy off the neighborhood moms.  I guess it was a pretty good time in its way.  

The neighborhood is still out there, but now the road is paved and it goes through to the Bothell-Everett Highway.  All of the old neighbors are gone.  My own parents who lived out there until the end are gone now.  I don't even like to go back.

My parents sunning themselves on the steps years later.  Well, I wandered off from Halloween huh?  Maybe its just as well, nobody was out there snapping photos of us busily.  It was our own private lives as kids.  We became the Boomers of today, and we did ok.

Much more elaborate now. lol.  My kid and his kids a couple years ago.