The Baboon Congress

Second Hand Rose

59 Comments

A Guest Blog by Anna

Halloween in Minnesota is a dicey affair costume-wise. As a kid you need to be sure
that whatever you decide to wear will be recognizable either under a parka or over a snowsuit. It should also be something that will work on the odd Indian Summer evening in the 60s. As a result, there are a lot of ghosts and witches as the size and voluminous qualities of either costume lend themselves well to layering.

I think it was an act of desperation bred in part by lack of time on my mother’s part, but one year I went as “Second Hand Rose.” Sewing something for me was not an option, nor was Mom a fan of cheap store-bought costumes (the masks were horrid), and we certainly didn’t have a lot of money to throw at the problem. So Mom whipped open the closets and decided that one of her large, colorful dresses lent itself nicely to “Second Hand Rose” as a concept piece (and would fit neatly over a parka if need be). Two things that she had not thought of: the average kid growing up in the 70s doesn’t know “Second Hand Rose” from Attila the Hun. Also, explaining a costume at every trick-or-treat door gets old (apparently a lot of adults in the 70s didn’t know “Second Hand Rose” either, so it was good I had been schooled in the singing of my theme song).

Shortly after that adventure I quit trick or treating, at least until college. I went out sophomore year with some pals. We set the whole thing up with a short skit involving a safari and searching for the elusive Suburbanis Shopperus (“take pictures, these are rare”). Once again, having to explain at every door what we were up to got old (but it still got us candy, a few photo ops, and one offer of beer).

As an adult, Halloween parties were hosted by theater and Renaissance Festival friends. Not the sort of affairs where you can dress as a pirate or a gypsy. At these events I was variously: Elvis (with a friend as Priscilla), an Lutheran Church Basement Lady in search of a hot dish, and a pregnant alien carrying James T. Kirk’s love child. One year I “took myself to prom” in a fabulous pink tulle dress, teased and bee hived my hair to a fare-the-well to match the dress, and perched a bird on top of the whole works (friends who had arrived as a haz-mat team were kind enough to drape me in caution tape). With each of these I found if you have to explain it, it should be short and sweet, but best to have something that explains itself (see above: lessons learned as “Second Hand Rose”).

Now at Halloween I’m on the other side of the door, handing out candy to the neighbor kids. Daughter usually goes out with Daddy (in an easily recognizable costume). Barney the Basset Hound hopes that it isn’t a year he is required to wear fairy wings. And we all hope for warm evenings with nary a chance of frost.

What is your most memorable Halloween costume?

59 thoughts on “Second Hand Rose”

  1. Great one, Anna – thanks! what a picture – and i remember Second Hand Rose!
    my best costume was when i was well into my 30s in the early 80s when Saturday Night Live was funny (remember that?)
    We lived in Blackburg, Va in a lively university community and had friends who liked to give parties – and they always had a big Halloween do. i had red, footy pajamas so i stuffed them with pillows, painted my face red and hung a philodendron vine over my head. put a sword around my tomatoey “waist” and called myself “Samurai Tomato” – won first prize. (did take a bit of explaining, though)
    my all time favorite costume wasn’t mine. one year a group of grad students came as “The Seven Deadly Sins.” hilarious
    and the year the dept. chair was “dismissed” and was awaiting the arrival of the new chair she came as a “lame duck” on crutches – ha, ha!

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  2. That’s quite a story, Anna. My favorite costume of those you mention is the alien with Captain Kirk’s love child. That’s a hoot!

    My one memorable costume was when my sister and I were dressed as Swiss kids with Tyrolean hats and britches. We carried staffs to herd sheep. But the whole point of the costumes was to dress us to go with our Saint Bernard, Bobo, who was the real attraction. Bobo was just a puppy then and not yet a hundred pounds, although I’m sure he outweighed us. He had a big barrel affixed to his collar that was painted XXX (which in those days referred to booze, not porn).

    A friend grew up in New Jersey in a family with not much disposable income. When she was about four, she got an Easter outfit, the whole thing: shoes, socks, dress, sweater and hat. Standing in front of her home in this splendid new outfit, she was puzzled until she had a flash of memory. These weren’t every day clothes: they were her costume. She vaguely remembered having a costume before. She had worn one and it got her candy. So she toddled off to the neighbor’s houses in her Easter costume, knocked on doors and sang out “Trick or Treat!” Remarkably, most homes had candy and everyone was so charmed with this Easter spook that she was at the end of the block with a big bag of candy before her parents caught up with her.

    Is this the nicest week of autumn weather anyone can remember? Have a wonderful day, Baboons, and Go Twins!!

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  3. Rise and Go Back to Bed with the Nasty Virus:

    Groan. I got sick in the night with the virus that is rampant in the population right now. Yuck. So right now I’m in the Sick Lady costume.

    My mom was not into Halloween or imagination. So we were on our own when it came to devising a costume. I was always a bum. We had my Grandpa’s old Stetson hat which served admirably for years for my sister, brother and I. Because we were all bums all the time. We ran the neighborhoods with a pillowcase to collect the candy.

    So I spent all my Halloween magic on my son’s costumes which were really fun to do — a butterfly complete with painted wings, a robot, a skeleton with iron on bones, a monster. It was great fun.

    Great picture and story Anna. You are right about people knowing in a quick glance or phrase what your costume is. You look to healthy and well-care for to be truly second hand though.

    Back to bed.

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    2. First year on our block the neighbor kid, who was about 3 at the time, came as a rocket ship – complete with flames out the back, NASA up the side, etc. Pretty cute. Glad I haven’t had to do anything that creative for Darling Daughter.

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  4. My family also scrimped at Halloween time… many years I went as a gypsy because we had all the fixins’ – a bright colored skirt from my mother, lots of necklaces, a scarf on my head, one earring for the ear that showed and, of course, lots of make-up. Luckily I grew up south of here, so never had to wear a jacket unless it rained.

    My most memorable experience however was about 4 years ago – the year that Steve Irwin died. We had a costume party at work that year and as a tribute to the crocodile hunter, my costume was khaki shorts, shirt, big boots and I made a big crocodile out of green upholstery foam. It was huge and hung over my shoulders. The reason it’s memorable is because, on a lark, I wore it out and about, to do a couple of errands over lunch and I was amazed at the looks that I “didn’t” get. You’d think a full grown woman wearing shorts and a green upholstery foam crocodile would get SOME stares. Sheesh!

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  5. I don’t know that I have had anything particularly great or clever myself in terms of a Halloween costume, or even made one for the s&h (and yes, considering my career has been as a maker of costumes, there is something wrong with that picture).

    I was the mom who sewed red elastic to the pants, grabbed the fireman’s helmet and then ran to the hardware store for reflective tape for the raincoat before morning drop-off at day care. You may have seen me putting the tape on the raincoat on the hood of the car in the hardware store parking lot that day.

    For many years, I had a big project due the day or so after Halloween, so any costume had to be the work of less than an hour.

    I did SEE some amazing stuff, as I went to UW-Madison for grad school, in the days when they had the huge street party that attracted the likes of MTV. A friend had an apartment on the second floor above State Street which was an amazing viewing platform. Saw a guy dressed as a 7′ Christmas tree (with working lights in the days before the little battery pack LEDs existed), a six-pack of Bud and my personal favorite, 2 guys who had carved out holes in one of those cheap foam loveseats, and wore brown-they were “couch potatoes”.

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    1. A costumer friend boycotts Halloween on principle – much like you she almost always has a show to finish on or around Halloween. I’ve worked on a few shows with her that opened just before or after (and one without during the Great Halloween Snowstorm of 1990…or was it 89?….). I joke about going out as a tired, cranky, set designer.

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      1. The one year I tried to do something great for the s&h, I tried for the knight. I should have been able to do it that year, as I was home all week. Downside was that I was home with walking pneumonia-only time I have had that in my life. We no longer tempt fate-this year, we go for the improvised pirate!

        Feel better soon, Jacque!

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      2. I’m working up to ‘Tired Cranky TD’…. another week or 10 days should do it and then I’ll get the sign for my back; the one I stole from Dale and Jim Ed:
        “WARNING! TEN FOOT CIRCLE OF EXASPERATION”

        (…Dale said that of Jim Ed one morning…)
        Thanks Dale!

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  6. Morning–

    Since we lived in the country I never got to go Trick or Treating… even my Grandparents weren’t that *into* the whole thing so I couldn’t even go to their house. I have one picture where I’m wearing a store bought mask an old trench coat and hat… not sure what exactly I was supposed to be; ‘Old Man’? ‘Bum’? ‘Flasher’??
    My wife made a dragon costume for our son (lunch bags stapled together to form the tail- attached to a paper grocery bag worn over the body) and green tights & shirt… we also made him a large orange pumpkin costume once. I sew more than my wife does…
    My daughter; she’s into the usual ‘Princess’ or, currently, ‘Hannah Montana’.

    Thanks for the memories Anna!
    (Oh, and my fall show opens 10/28… somethings never change…)

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    1. When I was in grad school I worked temp jobs on semester breaks. I was doing a receptionist gig one windy day and looked across the street, people watching to cut the boredom. A guy in a trench coat was walking by. The wind caught the coat and blew in open. He was naked from the knees up with pant legs held up by tightened elastic from the knees down. A thoughtful costume I think.

      I love the human parade.

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  7. Love the photo, Anna, and the story. I don’t remember anything memorable till I was 23 and teaching at St. Anne’s in San Francisco, where I somehow came into a black rosary. I had a long black skirt from an old witch costume, and a black turtleneck; fashioned a “wimple” out of a pillowcase (they were solid white then) and threw some black fabric over for the “veil”. I drove to party in Oakland in this getup in my bright yellow VW bug and had to stop to pump gas (and got lots of stares there). At the party they were very cautious around me, some thought I was for real. Fun.

    My preschooler “was a cat” for quite a while, so the cat costume was a no-brainer, and I made it extra long and hemmed it up so it lasted several years. I did sew a pretty cool Peter Pan costume for Joel when he was about 6 (he wasn’t very happy about wearing bright green tights), and he was said to “channel” Peter Pan.

    Thanks for the memories. 🙂

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    1. A friend of mine was wearing a nun constume while she was driving her car in town. The costume was clearly visible and there was no doubt what she looked like. Some other driver cut her off and nearly caused an accident. Without thinking she gave the guy the finger. It wasn’t until later that she realized what she had done and couldn’t imagine what the guy must have thought.

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  8. Great topic! I have friends who are master costumers. Back when Minicon was huge, still fun and had a Masquerade (costume contest), my friend made a costume based on a particular Tarot card. I presented it in the Masquerade and won an award (can’t remember which, might have been Presentation, could even have been Best of Show). I had to leave immediately, and my friend was quite gleeful to accept the award for me and tell the audience I couldn’t be there because I was doing a reading (there was lots of political tension between “literary” fans and “media” fans at that point). The second was a “hall costume”; we were selling candy for charity and two of us decided to have fun with it. We wrapped yellow cloth over Starfleet uniforms and became Space Krishnas for the afternoon. Supposedly a rumor started that fandom had been infiltrated by the Krishnas, thanks to us, to go along with the not-rumor that the FBI had tried in the 70s to find out “who was in charge” of fandom. Heh, heh, heh…

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    1. The alien and Kirk’s love child had a reprise for the Minicon masquerade – a pal of mine was my “mother” for the presentation, and she was really good at looking displeased. We won the “Dumper” award for humorous presentation, as I recall (I was on a panel that started before the masquerade was done, so I had to do the panel still in my pregnant-blue-alien ensemble…).

      Space Krishnas sounds like a hoot!

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      2. Hey, a fellow fan! Do you do Convergence, MarsCon and/or Diversicon these days? I wonder if we’ve run into each other.

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      4. I go to Convergence, but that’s about it. I bet we have run into each other at some point. I used to volunteer and was on the committees for a handful of Minicons and then Convergence in the early days…

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  9. Good morning, sniff, sniff,

    I am still a little under the weather from a cold and hope you can get out of your sick costume soon, Jacque.

    We always made some effort to fix up our kids for halloween and my mother did the same. Some how I don’t remember any really out standing costumes, although I think a lot of effort was put into a cat costume that had a fancy tail. Also I think we still have a black cape and a tall witch hat that our kids used. For several years we had a supply of fake home made weapons to go with costumes, including a sword and a pitch fork.

    I haven’t heard much about holloween tricks lately. When I was young there was always some soaping of windows and you would usually see a lot of soap rubbed on the windows of houses of people who were not at home to give out treats. In Clarks Grove there was a tradition of putting old out houses in front yards as a trick. This could be done at any time of year, not just halloween. It hasn’t happen recently and one of the guys who might have been involved in the out house placements, told me the supply of old out houses may have run out.

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    1. Yes, Jim, my dad and his brother Loren used to tip over outhouses on Halloween (in Roland, Iowa, circa 1937)… then run like hell. One time it was so dark Loren didn’t see a clothesline that got him in the neck as he was racing away. He landed flat on his back and had a sore throat for some time…

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      1. Barbara, when I was young the soaping of windows is the trick I always heard about and saw practiced. It was consider to be a bad thing to do in our family and community. However, there is always a temptation to be a “bad boy”, and I did think about giving it a try. Having lived in a city without any out houses, as a boy, I didn’t know any one who did out house tipping. I did use an out house when we went to visit my grandparents so I knew a little about them and I did hear some stories about out house tipping. I think one of the stories included some one ending up in the hole under the out house. Yuck!

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  10. Belated Birthday wishes Dale! Fun to read the blogs by all the guest hosts!
    Wonderful story, Anna, and great pic, too ~
    I remember one year my sister Margie and I tried to make costumes representative of a “One-Eyed, One-Horned,Flying Purple People Eater”, that song being extremely popular at the time. Can’t imagine that it turned out very well -we were 5 and 7 yrs old.
    Favorite Hallowen costume memory has to do with the year that DS and DD and I did some fun research on Native American clothing, the Haida tribe being in our cutural heritage. We worked together to find appropriate designs, colors, and decorations, and worked on the costumes together for about a month. The local theater group in town offered to do Halloween makeup for kids as a fund raiser, so as a finishing touch we drove to town and the kids waited in line to have their makeup applied. DD came out happily sporting braided hair, with her face marked with a couple of colored stripes; DS came out with a completely white face, bright red lips with ‘blood’ dribbling down his chin and vampire teeth! I stared in complete shock and asked why he had vampire make-up on? He said, “They asked me what I wanted to be for Halloween, so I told them. I forgot I was going to be an Indian.” I didn’t realize until that minute that I had never clearly asked either child “What do you want to be for Halloween?” I had said “Would it be fun to (insert my idea here)?” and they had said yes.
    We went home, then, to find DS some black material for a cape, a white t-shirt and black jeans. DS practiced making scary faces in the mirror the rest of the afternoon. Both kids had full candy bags at the end of the night. Mom learned a lesson.

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  11. My childhood costumes were pretty mudane, but I went to town sewing costumes for my son. One year he was Humpty Dumpty and in Grade 2 he was the Penguin from Batman. I also sewed clowns and pirates, and Peter Pan costumes. By the time my daughter came along, I found I could purchase quite elaborate costumes for far less then I could sew them. She went as Marie Antoinette, Cleopatra, and Elizabeth I. (Hmm, all queens. Does this say something about her role in the family?) This year she wants to go as Lady Gaga.

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      1. I just don’t get the whole ‘Lady Gaga’ thing… call me ‘disconnected from todays youth’!

        I know who she is and all that… just don’t understand…
        (Who saw the ‘Lady Gaga’ Glee episode?? Boy, last nights show was a tear-jerker!)

        Since I have the theater credit card I’ve been ordering wigs, shoes, tights and ‘Fez hats’ for our costumer. We could have quite a party before this is over!

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      1. Lady Gaga is the newest generation’s Madonna. Though I’m not convinced she has the staying power or chops that Madonna has/had. (Not that I was a huge Madonna fan – more a Cyndi Lauper kinda gal, myself.)

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      3. Thanks. I should try harder to keep up. I have heard the name Lady Gaga but never tried to learn anything about her.

        Madonna always made me feel a little uncomfortable, which is silly. I liked Cyndi Lauper but always preferred Joni Mitchell’s cool, enigmatic, poetic style. She has real class.

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  12. Good story. Parenting can be tricky. What could possibly be wrong with “Would it be fun to —–?” But the day comes when they have independent notions. You sound like a sensitive mom to have even gotten that lesson after the fact.

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      1. Thanks, Steve, for your kind words. I am tempted to share this story with DS, now that he is in his thirties, and see if he even remembers it. If he does, I wonder what his version of the events might be? I might have a few more things to learn yet!

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  13. This is such a fun topic! It’s fun to read about all the imaginative costumes.

    My parents didn’t encourage Halloween activities. My mom thought it was cute but my dad really disliked it. He was a dentist and detested the whole thing. He revolted at the thought of his kids going door to door, begging for candy. He thought playing with costumes was a ridiculous waste of time. He despised the candy. All that said, he didn’t forbid it. Mom helped us scrounge up stuff to make costumes but we had to invent them on our own. Nothing was ever purchased. So I was a cat, a gypsy, a bum and (my fav) Glenda the Good Witch. When I was Glenda, I carried glitter and tossed it all over the place like magic fairy dust. I tossed it all over my brothers too – in an attempt to turn them into sisters.

    We were allowed only a few pieces of candy when we brought it all home. We had to take the rest to school and share it with our classmates. Candy was usually forbidden when I was growing up. It has resulted in a real sweet tooth today!

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    1. Your dad would like us, Kirsta — we always give out fistfuls of salted in the shell peanuts. Not the most popular house on the block, but oh well…

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  14. In addition to Halloween costumes, I’ve also had to costume the child (now teenager) for the holiday pageant at our church every year. The first year she was old enough (4) I asked her what she wanted to be and gave her some of the options (wise one, angel, animal, shepherd…). As soon as I said “shepherd”, she piped up “Leopard, I want to be a leopard.” I said “Did you mean shepherd?” but she was already stuck on leopard. Leopard or nothing. So I made her a leopard outfit (black sweatshirt and sweatpants w/ gold paint blotched on it and a fuzzy tail sewed onto the back and a fuzzy ear headband). While the holiday pageant at a UU church is already a little loosey goosey, that year one of the animals in the manger was a very cute little leopard!

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    1. It’s all good, one year, a set of cute pink pigs showed up to admire the King of the Jews at our Lutheran church.

      Disney’s Pooh and Friends menorah back in the 90’s also sported Piglet holding one of the candles.

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  15. best ever was wolf man i went to the barber shop got extra hair glued it on and made a putty wolf nose. had to sit and sweat and itch all night but it was a great costume. second best was the pin striped suit that looked like you are dressed to be a banker and you get odd non imaginative condescending looks then walk away and the whole back of the suit is cut out to reveal some extra fancy boxer shorts and sox held up with the garter straps. much more fun than the itch a year or two earlier.
    my daughter went as a picnic table on year. a box with suspenders and a table set around her… that was good.
    great pictures anna.. you do a nice job of knowing where its at. i have this stuff but no idea of how to put my hands on it.

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