Halloween Hometown Heroes

It was probably right around the year that my brother walked down the cul-de-sac on his own to get the "regular size" candy bars, maybe a year or two later, when there was a year that neither of use really had a concrete costume picked out. I was tired of being a princess each year, though none of the stereotypical costumes & characters of our day appealed to me in an I-really-want-to-dress-up-as-that type of costume. So I never did. This is probably also why I spent so many years recreating something that could be considered a princess costume enough to keep ringing doorbells & explaining what I was supposed to be to the (much) older generations answering their doors.

My brother had something he'd figured out to wear for a costume. It may've been the (first) year of the white collar worker, & borrowing Dad's briefcase, or an old one Dad had used to use, though couldn't bear to pitch, because, well, that's the kinda guy Dad is, & also - for use in these such occasions. For me, it was a "dead end" year; I'd nothing.

Weather to the rescue. Rain that is. Yep. 😛 Any other household would've been fretting & reconsidering & knowing that their kids really wanted to get their Halloween candy, & that other kids would soon be coming a-doorbell-ringing...Mom figured it out. We wore these & these & went out as hometown ball players. We already had owned hometown team ball caps. The only thing we needed were rain jackets. At one of the last games we'd attended, rain jackets were the freebie handout - so our hometown team's large size logo had been stitched into the, otherwise ordinary, rain jacket. Mom found them in the corner of the foyer closet, took them out of their fresh-off-the-press plastic wrap, shook them out into their wearable positions, & instructed us to put them on with a simple, "Here, wear these."

They were simple, over-the-head rain slickers, not as cheap as a dollar store poncho, yet not top quality either. After all, they were the freebie handout for having shown up as a spectator at the local hometown ballgame.

We wore whatever we'd worn to school for the day, & added these jackets on top. Jeans, & long-sleeves, & sweatshirts with socks & our tennis shoes. We hadn't gotten into running just yet, so we'd no quality hiking or running shoes at the bottom of our closets to secure our soaking feet from the apparent rain. We did our best.

We looked like ballplayers on break, out-n-about our town, meeting & greeting, wearing our team's "colors" & supporting ball cap. Really, it worked. It probably worked better than most any other partially thought out Halloween costume we'd managed through as kids.

Every other neighbor has seen an attempt at just another princess. Though every other neighbor, an adult themselves, could truly appreciate these rain jackets, might've had one of their own in their hall closet, & knew that it was raining out there, & that any mother on the street was brilliant to have created such a concoction & send her kids out supporting it. Each adult chuckled, laughed, & rolled their eyes a little as they opened their front door for us that year. No "bonus bars", or regular-sized candy bars that year, though I did get to enjoy the expressions of many of our neighbors.

Practical, comfortable, reasonable...Sometimes winning the ballgame (or Halloween) just comes as natural.



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