Halloween Decorations Recovery

As I'm still searching for my old VHS collection in my parent's basement, I have had no luck and it appears that they may be lost in space and time. Though I have found dozens if not hundreds of recorded VHS tapes, mostly from the 1990s, which I look forward to exploring one day and committing to digital to upload.

Of particular interest was about 80 tapes of recorded Dark Shadows episodes. My mother grew up on the gothic soap opera in the '60s, and in the '90s she began recording every episode possible. Now I've inherited her collection. Commercials included, so there's a bonus with these tapes. What a treasure trove...

A small personal jackpot of several cardboard Halloween decorations from the early 1980s were found. We used to hang these up in our home every October until probably the late '90s when they were packed away and lost in their basement of their old home. There is nothing special in the find that would blow anybody away, but I was happy to find these decorations that covered our walls when I was a youngster. The Dracula head is a special favorite that I was going to purchase online this year. I'm glad I held off because I now have our original.

These decorations are innocent and childish, I get it. These were our original Halloween decorations when my sister and I were not even 10 years old yet. My mom was great at decorating for all of the holidays, but especially Halloween and Christmas. But especially Halloween. She knew I loved vampires, scary movies, and candy. Lots of candy. We would make chocolate milk and watch Dark Shadows together.

 

These four jolly Jacks above are felt on one side. I'm surprised that most of these decorations, among others I found, have lasted in at least decent condition. 

Halloween in Dundalk in the 1980s was kind of magical. We lived among dozens of rowhomes, which were called the ABC Streets, as each street was named according to the alphabet. A main road intersected two sides of these rowhomes (Lynch Rd), and a kid could essentially go up and down each of these streets, on both sides, on both blocks, and fill a bag in a half hour. Like I said, magical. And the streets were lined with parents so bag thieves were quelled until around 9pm. Then Dundalk became the Wild Wild East Side of Baltimore... 

The bag-snatchin' thugs showed up when the last parent headed inside with their little ones and all of a sudden it was Detroit pre-Robocop beat. This is when we switched from plastic bags with easily-tearable handles to pillowcases that wouldn't launch candy all over the street like a rotten piñata with a fouled snatch attempt.

After a couple hours trick-or-treating we'd head home, anxious to eat some Reese cups and watch Halloween or The Wolfman on television.

My Halloweens in the 1980s were far more pleasant than not. I don't know if I remember ever having a bag snatched, but I remember seeing the low-penalty high-yield crime happen often enough. Going out as Dracula for four straight Halloweens gave me an appreciation of all things vampire and Halloween that persists to this day. Today, however, instead of a single night to celebrate, I gave myself an entire month dubbed Halloweentober. 31 days and nights to celebrate the greatest holidays on the calendar.

Long live Halloweentober!