Unfamiliar curls in my stick-straight hair bobbing, with my little sister Alyson and a few other younglings keeping up with my hasty pace, the gypsy-to-be in me skipped/raced for once to Mrs. Hayward's b o r i n g 6th grade classroom. The great granite boulders of the hillside looked coolly down upon us, and the palm trees waved us along in the fresh autumn air. Gripping paper sacks with our costumes in our sweaty hands, we raced over the train bridge, and two long blocks down, joined up at the corner of Jurupa and Riverside Ave with dozens of other paper-sack grippers en route to school.
Our feet crunched the bushels of fallen pods, along Briscoe Street, under the canopy of pod-laden Limburger cheese-scented carob trees while the sacks' contents met with approval or disapproval amongst the walkers.
The morning dragged on inexorably through a bog of spelling lessons, math drills, and chapter readings.
Bursting forth from all exits for lunch and our longest recess like a flock of sparrows, we kids tittered and chirped during foursquare, tether-ball, and on the big concrete pipe under the pepper tree in anticipation of the parade. The teachers in our modular class block headed for their lunch break in varying stages. Mrs. Sompayrac snuck off to the gate by the parking lot to grab a quick smoke with Mrs. Ryno during the exodus, Mr. Stephenson popped his head into Mr McGoon's to tell a bad joke, and Mrs. Hayward and Mrs. Bates ambled slowly to the teacher's lounge in weary anticipation of the 33rd Halloween Parade of their teaching careers. At that same school, no doubt.
It took approximately 128 hours in kid-time for them to return, after the bell rang, as we all lined up in boys' and girls' lines at each door, poking each other and engaging in general grade-school stupidity.
Finally, finally, the gaggle of upper grade teachers were spotted -- walking as though to execution down the long covered sidewalk from the office, past the library doors, and disbanding reluctantly with great jangles of keys in hand to their respective doors.
It took approximately 5.3 seconds for every kid in the upper grade block to bust out their own paper sack, as soon as the word was given, and costume up.
My unfamiliar curls had somehow miraculously lasted through the day, thanks to copious amounts of Dippity-Do and my mother's Final Net hairspray lacquering them in place. My colorful skirt (snagged from my older sister Karen's closet), her hand-me-down white fluffy peasant blouse, strands of my mother's costume jewelry, and a big colorful scarf holding back my curls greeted me as I checked my gypsy-image in the wavy mirror over our classroom sink. I'd been given some old mascara, for the occasion, from Karen, and my lashes darkened ever so magically in that fluorescent light. Transformation not yet complete, I held a tiny sample tube of bright-red lipstick from the Avon Lady's most recent visit with my mother. As I applied it I thought of my mother and every Avon Lady in my childhood looking at lipsticks, over cups of fragrant tea.
The girl in the mirror became suddenly beautiful. The awkward sturdy girl with a giant forehead and big shoulders and big teeth disappeared into a vision of gypsy loveliness. Blonde curls bobbing, red lips smiling, the for-once-in-my-life-pretty-as-BeckyBottel-in-the-class-next-door beautiful. My gypsy feet floating, I paraded out with the class for the school festivities.
From the sidelines, as the Oldest Kids in School, we 6th graders had to fawn over the kindergartners, which were too cute, the first graders -- among whom my sister dressed-as-a-fairy-Alyson numbered -- and then the rest of the young ones, until it was our turn to stroll along in the last Halloween Parade of our Official Childhood. We strutted and sauntered through the halls, at the lofty ages of eleven and twelve, owning the moment. Having skipped kindergarten, I was ten, yet still sauntered in my gypsy-euphoria as though I were as old as my peers.
The euphoria lasted through the evening, at least for me, when my dad let me go with a gaggle of my older peers, on our own to trick-or-treat, way down on Sunnyside. He had escorted me with Alyson on our own cul-de-sac and up on Pachappa Drive, skipping Dr. Kushell the Dentist who gave us apples and lectures on good dental hygiene. ( You'd think he'd be happy in the rise of business after such an event...) We had to solemnly swear to stay in the horseshoe ( a great curving of streets leading back to the walkway, which led to OURS) and then we were off. Margaret Kish, aka the Wicked Witch of the West and Jeff Cassidy, dressed as Einstein of course with that shaggy hair, and a few others raced down the seriously scary-at-night walkway which gave passage from the canal bridge on our street to the neighborhood below.
Between two fence lines spanning the length of back yard/house/front yard, we held our breath and thundered through the inky darkness expecting to be murdered any second by Unseen Forces Behind the Slats.
Emerging unscathed, with pillow cases in hand,we plundered every trick-or-treat bowl offered along the way.
Both sides of the 1950's-built neighborhood of comfortable one-story homes witnessed our journey, including hitting the two houses on the short segment exiting to busy Riverside Ave. Briefly considering doorbell opportunities along the homes half way up the block on the Forbidden Outer Street, we turned inwards, back into "the horseshoe" as promised, to pinball back and forth up Mono Drive and out onto the OTHER side of Sunnyside, right by the gate to our old playground of our former school. Now home to what were then-labeled TMR students
(trainable mentally retarded), we glanced over, momentarily saddened at the locked gate to OUR PLAYGROUND.
Short-lived reminiscing gave way to Our Mission.
We soon cheered up as we made the final dashes back and forth towards home.
Once again surviving the seriously scary walkway, Jeff promising to get Margaret safe to her house as the bottom of his seriously scary hillside driveway, I ran down my now-empty street.
Was it midnight? How long had we been out there??? Creepy noises creaked from behind the cypress trees at the corner house. I scrambled past our next door neighbors' house because they freaked me out during daylight, charged through our front door armed with my loot, and safely shut it behind me.
Sitting under the billowing hood of my mother's beauty-case hair dryer like a mouse under a mushroom, Alyson looked at my pillowcase containing unknown treasures. Her big brown eyes bugged out. She had already sorted out her candy, put away her fairy costume, and taken her shower. The antiqued-olive green kitchen clock read 8:15!! I had never been out that late on a school night! Without parents!!
I snuck her a few fun-size Milky Ways to enjoy while her hair dried, stashed some others in the folds of my gypsy skirt to stash in my room -- then dumped the rest into the big wooden bowl for my mom to inspect, my dad to plunder, and for me to pretend to limit myself to two pieces a day until consumed.
Halloween, 1976. ♪ Those were the days...♪
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