Monday, October 31, 2011

A stroll down that street known as Halloween Memory Lane

I had my folks over to celebrate Phil's birthday (Happy Birthday, Phil!), and because Halloween was nigh upon us, I asked what they did for the holiday when they were kids. My mom was vague. "Oh, you know," was pretty much all she said. But my dad told us they used to roam around the Orem bench, knocking over outhouses.

I was intrigued because knocking over outhouses seems like a mythic American activity, something Mark Twain created when he wrote about Huck and Tom. But apparently not. Also, I was a little surprised to learn that there were still outhouses to knock over in Orem in the 30's. Sometime between then and when I was born, people got busy and called the plumber, because I don't remember outhouses in Orem.

"Were you dressed up?" I asked.

The man looked at me like I was an idiot. "No. We just knocked over outhouses."

Meanwhile, I have a Halloween memory of my own in re to him. When we'd come home from trick-or-treating, he checked our bags to "make sure everything was okay." Then he'd steal all our Tootsie Rolls.

Feel free to post a few memories of your own. And have a spook-tacular day.

4 comments:

CSIowa said...

I take all the Almond Joys from my kids. I tell them it's a tax. Nuts are never their favorites anyway. They can keep the tootsie rolls!

My fondest Halloween memory is of my grandfather taking four of us trick or treating when #5 was only a few months old. I was seven and in a ghost costume that kept tripping me up. I fell down and scraped my knee. My older sister took us on a short-cut through a field, and the two-year-old wanted to be carried before we were half done. For years afterward I loved asking Grandpa if he'd take me trick-or-treating again. He always laughed and said, "No!"

Louise Plummer said...

In 1948 my parents rented a little house on Wentworth Avenue behind what was then St. Anne's Orphanage on 21st South, and that house had an outhouse. My grandmother lived around the corner on 5th East and she also had an outhouse.

In 1966, I visited my great aunt out in the country somewhere in the Netherlands and she still had an outhouse.

I wouldn't want to be in one with your father around.

Anne said...

Remember O Henry bars? Do they still make them?

candace said...

Tipping over outhouses? That's nothing! My grandpa says he dragged an outhouse through town. It was rural Idaho, though.