Halloween's gone past, part 1

When my oldest was but a babe, and Halloween was coming, I was stuck in a small town alone and lonely, my nearest friend being 2 hours away, and myself being the only one I knew who had a child.

I was also young, and still held in the thrall of Halloween's mystery, it's ghoulish presence an ever-weighing thought upon my naive mind.

I wanted so badly to take some part in All Hallows eve, and though I was far away from parties or trick-or treating with like-minded friends, I vowed I would still take some part in it.

So on that night, I strapped my son, then only 4 months old, into his stroller, clad in a beautifully hand-knit creation from my aunt, not unlike a carbag.

She had used a lovely shade of deer-hide brown with eggshell white along the trim of the hood and zipper. As beautiful her creation was, my son looked like a potato in it.

I thought to dress him up for the event, but the only costume they had for children in that pathetic town I lived in was a vampire costume, complete with fangs. I borrowed red face paint from his father, who had dressed up to go out marauding with his friends(and obviously thought I would be fine with it) and drew two drippy lines down each side of his mouth, then draped  the cape around my son's tuber-like exterior.

Vampire potato. Baked he would be in the light, my tuber of the Night....

And in that fiendishly cold evening, even though we only lasted a half hour outside, even though he had drooled his 'blood drippings' off about 2 minutes after we got outside, and even though at every house we stopped at whoever answered the door gave me strange pitied or somewhat annoyed looks, even though when we got back to the house, my son's grandfather was on the phone reassuring some random neighbour I was not crazy, even then,  I had the time of my life. And my son did too, cooing at everyone who passed by.

My little potato in a cape.