Memories: Mom and the Halloween Costume

I remember vividly when I discovered radio drama. I went into my mom and dad's bedroom to say goodnight, and Mom was listening to CBS Radio Mystery Theater. She explained which station it was on and I quickly went upstairs to bed and found it on my clock radio.[1]

The memory I am writing about now precedes that one, but not by much. Some few pieces from that time frame align - which bed I slept in upstairs, the location of the radio, how the furniture was arranged in Mom and Dad's bedroom, the dim light from twin hurricane lamps on their dresser, the side of the bed Mom slept on (Mom and Dad switched sides occasionally then would sleep that way for a long time).

You all know how our earliest memories work - they are distinct but disarticulated. You can match them to a degree, but not with a great deal of certainty.

Not long before I developed a fascination for radio, when I was still small enough to trick-or-treat, my mother made me a costume for Halloween. It was a scarecrow costume. I must have been in 2nd or 3rd grade at the time.

Vernondale
Elementary School
1432 Wilkins Road
Erie PA

In grade school we dressed up for Halloween and paraded through each classroom, all the way from 1st grade at one end of the building to 6th grade at the other. This was at Vernondale Elementary School Erie, PA on 1432 Wilkins Road. I distinctly remember feeling like I was on display, in a model/runway sort of way. It was a quiet affair, not a lot of whooping and hollering, mostly because were were all unrecognizable, but partly because we were generally a well-behaved group.[2]

Now, I didn't want this costume Mom had made. I wanted to be Superman for the third year in a row, and Mom being Mom, she of course said yes. She made that scarecrow costume by herself, I didn't ask her to, she just thought it would be cute and fun. Sometime after that, my little brain got to thinking, and as I dwelt on this in bed one night, my brother Tom asleep in his own bed, I couldn't bear it anymore and went downstairs to Mom and Dad's bedroom in tears apologizing for not wearing the costume.I thought I'd hurt her feelings.

She said it was okay and sent me back upstairs. I felt much better after that, but the emotion returns if I let it, and here I am, nearing 50, feeling badly again.

Some melancholy memories have sweet edges.



[1]
CBS Radio Mystery Theater ran late in many markets, 11pm in Kansas City for example, and it may have been late in Erie too. I suspect this memory was from a school vacation period, or at least not on a school night, because I was still very young and Mom would have told me to go to sleep. Tom was in fact asleep as I recall. I don't remember the radio I used as a child. I do remember my first transistor, but the bedside radio was not mine, it was just a family radio for upstairs.

Some CBSRMT themes are quite intense for the 70's. I recognize that now, but at the time I was only focused on the sounds and the scares. It's that way with children. As parents we fret over the material they're being exposed to, but except for the most egregious and obvious types, these themes go unnoticed. They are woven into our collective anxieties in many ways, and even as adults we miss them. Can any of us cite the fears expressed in Hansel and Gretel? Cinderella? Peter and the Wolf? Some of it, but very little. Those stories and many more are manifestations of our cultural DNA, and although we can decode it, it is not a trivial matter, and it's just as convoluted as our biological DNA.

As a pre-teen I found out they used to do radio drama before there was TV. I learned that through my local rock-n-roll station, WCCK 103.9 (or K104 as they billed themselves) when they broadcast Orson Welles's War of the Worlds; they did that for a few Halloweens running.

[2]
The largest 6th grade class, my class, had 36 students. I remember that because the teachers referred to the classes by their sizes and remarked that 36 was simply too many for one teacher.

Let me see if I can remember my Vernondale homeroom teachers:

1st: Miss Minucci (sp?)
2nd: Miss Leopold
3rd: Miss Anderson (my favorite)
4th: Mrs Budzynski
5th: Mr Veith
6th: Mr Locke
Principle: Mr Luscheon
School Secretary: Shirley Nickel (my best friend's mom, that was cool; you just don't want to get sent to the office when your friend's mom is there.)

There was also Miss Roslanawyck (sp?), who became Mrs Furhman in my 6th year; she taught the other 6th grade class; I did go to her classroom for English. I sat up front; I think she kept me away from some bad influences in the back of the class that I wanted to be closer too; those influences were named Jon Tushak and Steve Shloss, both of whom turned out just fine far as I know, they just had a lot of energy in 6th grade. They remained popular and became athletes in high school. They had cool jackets in with neat letters on them, and shiny pins. I wanted a jacket like that, but I couldn't have earned it, I simply didn't have the ability.

(I won't go into the time we were at Cedar Point on our 6th grade trip and Jon and Steve were caught throwing spit balls at the roller coaster and had to spend the rest of the day on the school bus. No, I won't tell you that story.)

I had a very poor English aptitude through grade school. I was a terrible speller. I am to this day. I was spelling at a 4th grade level in 6th grade, and Mr Locke was even kind enough to call this out in class. For some reason, spelling was very important in those days, sort of a barometer of character. They began something new at that time, the standardized test. Mr Locke, a very good science teacher, had a machine that could grade each test (a punch card with circles that you shaded with the correct answer) in a split second. An amazing device. We each took our tests and fed them through the machine, watching the card spit it out on the other end with red marks next to each mistake and a total right and wrong at the top. It made a rat-a-tat-tat sound like a very fast electric typewriter. Some kids scored poorly on purpose in order to get more rat-a-tat-tats out of it.

I wasn't regarded as particularly bright in grade school; I don't know why, but by 5th grade, I was placed by default in the "B" group in most subjects. ("A" was excelled, "B" was normal and "C" was remedial; they all met in the same classroom but were seated together). I think I was in the "C" group in Mrs Furhman's English class, probably another reason I was up front. I remember not knowing a lot of answers and being deathly afraid I'd be called on.

I think she talked a lot with Mr Locke, who wasn't impressed with me either.

(Something changed after 8th grade when I left Bethel Christian School and I developed into a very good student.)

I had a lot of trouble with my times tables in 4th grade, and that reputation carried through into subsequent grades. Rich Nickel was always in the "A" groups. Rich was a very bright kid.

Mrs Budzynski wasn't my 4th grade homeroom teacher, she had the other class, but I was in her classroom a lot. I can't actually remember who my 4th grade homeroom teacher was. I know we had a lot of substitutes that year, including Mrs B, so perhaps I didn't have a regular teacher. In those days in elementary school, although you had a homeroom, you spent most of the day in that room except for recess, lunch, assemblies, and maybe an art or English class; your teacher was a day-long companion.

I had a very good 4th grade teacher for part of that time, though I don't remember her name. She read My Side of the Mountain to us, which I remember fondly to this day.

http://www.amazon.com/My-Side-Mountain-Jean-George/dp/0525450300/ref=sr_1_3  ➚ 

I developed an aural aptitude very early.