Age 12 -1989
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Grade 8 -Age 12
OMG, I’m in high school now!! I hung around mainly asians at that age; Vancouver Tech was like 75% asian anyways. Now that we’re older kids, there is no silly halloween crafts anymore. I now have to do this stuff on my own time, hahaha. I cannot for the life of me remember what I dressed up as… but it was a groundbreaking year as I went trick or treating with my friends! Amy, Linda, her brother and a couple others (all asians). We trick or treated around Van Tech and then made our way back towards T-Bird. I ended up leaving them around Renfrew and 4th as they all lived around there & walked the 3 blocks home myself. It was about 8:30-9pm and I stopped at quite a few houses along the way getting whatever treats I could; there were still houses with the lights on & punkins out. Now Trick or Treating stops so early; you’d be lucky if you could find a lighted house after 8pm.
The funnest part is getting home and dumping your loot on the floor & sorting through it. All the chocolate would go in one pile, another pile for lolipops and the rest goes in it’s own pile. Of course you want the chocolate bar pile to be the biggest!
Age 11 – 1988
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Grade 7 – Age 11
I REMEMBER WHAT I WAS!! I dressed up as Ozma of Oz, after the queen of the Oz series (an offshoot of the Wizard of Oz) that was my favorite reading series, other than the Hardy Boys, the 3 Investigators and Enid Blyton ( the Secret 7 and the Fabulous 5) amoung others. My classmates didn’t have any clue who I was, they just thought I was a princess.
My dad still drove us around trick or treating, but this was to be the last year. Big step…
I started collected the Halloween week comics in the Vancouver Sun that year. They came free with each Saturday edition of the paper, which we had a subscription of. This is when I started noticing how beautiful the autumn weather was and (don’t laugh too hard) started writing poetry about it. This is also the first year I started taping the Halloween specials on the telly because I didn’t want to wait a whole year before watching it again.
Age 10 -1987
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Age 10 -Grade 6
Ahhhhh…. was this the legendary year that we actually ran out of candy!? That is almost impossible since my dad always buys an excess of it, the huge super huge “mega bulk family packs” of name brand chocolate bars. I’m proud to say my parents never cheaped out on Trick or Treating, but my dad always made sure I came out ahead anyways, driving me around to find the well lighted blocks. Back then many houses partook in handing out candy, I would say like 70-85% of the block would be lit up!! Now it’s more like 50%… some blocks are a graveyard now; no one wants the responsiblity or bother anymore. ..
I may have used the sandwich board thing one more year… hmmmm… let’s jsut keep this open.
I has the same teacher for grades 6 & 7, a big bellowing fellow with a belly to match. He was also a gym teacher so all he wore has blue sweat pants and sweatshirt… ALL THE TIME. Somehow I picture him with a whistle on a string around his neck, maybe it was tucked in under his sweatshirt. Even if I recall it incorrectly, it would’ve suited him perfectly. At this age, you kind of stop doing crafts in class. No more cutting out paper Halloween shapes and glueing colored macaroni to paper plates to make masks. Damn, I miss that.
Age 9 -1986
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Grade 5 – Age 9
The year of the World Exposition Fair 1986, in Vancouver, what an honor. It did a lot to change the city forever. My dad was a hardcore born again buddhist. I know that sounds quite contradictory but that’s how it was. He printed up all these brochures about Buddism and we’d stand around outside the Expo gates handing them out to everyone. Sorry, they weren’t a brochure, that would be too easy. They were like a freakin 14 page booklet. I guess that’s what he felt like he had to do to redeem himself through his second chance in life after almost dying in a car accident a couple years back.
I remember a lot about Expo that year but unfortunately I don’t remember much about Samhain. I do recall it was insanely packed in the streets, my dad driving me and my friend around, earning our treats, running as fast as we could to get the treats.
Age 8 -1985
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Grade 4 – Age 8
Everything gets kinda blurry now… and it all starts to meld together. I think this is for sure when my dad would take us trick or treating and it was more of a challenge to get as MUCH freaking candy as humanly possible. My dad had extra pillowcases in the car so when we jumped back in the car at the end of the block, we’d empty out our bags and start fresh. The streets used to be so bustling with packs of costumed kids, the yelling and laughter, the smoke from firecrackers and other bright noisemakers. It was what Halloween essentially should be (more about this later). It was a nice bonding time with me & my dad, coming together for the greater ultimate goal. We used to run for our candy and be rewarded greatly. None of those cheap salt water taffies, non name lolipops & junk. People still had pride to what they gave out as a token of their generosity. What happened to that?
What was I that year?? I am sure I utilized last years costuming & painted the cardboard cutouts a striped black & yellow for a bumble bee!!
Age 7 -1984
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Grade 3 – Age 7
I think I was a ladybug this year. It was the first year we utilized the cardboard sandwich board contraption. We’d (my mom & I) cut out shapes from the noodle boxes, paint them and tied them around me, hahaha. Man…. I was freakin 7 years old!! How am I supposed to remember this stuff!!?? I just wanna skip ahead to like 19 years old… but that wouldn’t be fair.
I was in the open area classes again & I do remember doing some paper halloweeny crafts. This would’ve been the year that Michale Jackson’s BAD came out…
Age 6-1983
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Grade 2 – Age 6
I was in a normal classroom this year with Ms. Carrie who has the quiessential grade school teacher with glasses, long flowery dresses, a bob cut and a patient yet perky personality. That was the first year I remember making halloween crafts though I don’t remember what I made. Even at such a young age, Halloween had ALREADY established itself as being important in the year. I recall being at home & actually making up Halloween songs about Trick or Treating and pretending to trick or treat around the kitchen.
I was a princess that year! I wore a pink dress with a crown and a silver wand. It was a fun day at school as all the kids were dressed up running around in costume. I can’t believe I remember this. I’m not sure if I went TTing with my dad following in the car or just with my mom.
Age 5 -1982
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I really can’t remember my costume or what I did. I think it ws the same thing as last year, with part trick or treating down the block & then coming home early to pass out candy. But I still have to make a blog post for each & every year just in case I do recall something later on, there won’t be any blank spaces.
For my reference, I was at Thunderbird Elementary school and in the open area classes (where grades 1-3 are share the same common space).
Age 4-1981
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1981 – 4 years old.
I was in Kindergarden at Renfrew Elementary School and this is definately my first ever Halloween memory, let alone being my FIRST EVER MEMORY… EVER. Perhaps that is part of the reason why Samhain holds such signifigance in my life. & it was definately a good memory. At school that day, my moms dressed me up in a cheap ass plastic pig mask. The ones with the thin little elastic to hold it on, attached to the tiny pin-pricked hole on the side of the mask. And of course the plastic is a sharp cut all the way around, cutting into your skin. Under the mask I was sporting a red silk Chinese style jacket, you know with the pretty embroidery. I couldn’t understand what I was supposed to be but now, I think I remember such a character from ancient chinese lore. I must’ve looked like quite a sight; it was even worse when we had to parade through the other classes to show off our costumes. In one of the older classes a boy thought my costume was hilarious & he poked me right in the tummy to try and tickle me or make me jump! I was really young then so it freaked me out! Previously, I had no dealings with the older kids & this was my first experience!? lol
Later that night, my dad was off driving his taxi for the Yellow Cab Co. My moms took me out for the first time Trick or Treating. I half hoofed it and was half carried in her arms; we had to make it quick because she wanted to go back home to hand out candy. Very little is remembered of the actual going house to house, only that kids were outside setting off firecrackers and the smoke & noise scared me so my mom carried me through it to the front door. Handing out candy was super fun but really scary for me as I didn’t understand why people were dressed up as weird characters, hahaha. Most of the time I would just stand there gawking at the kids with the candy in my hand while my mom moved my hand upward towards their bags for me. To a young kid, all of this would’ve been really really weird. Period.
oh god u found me
Posted by admin in Past Halloweens
Just the rantings of a closet halloween freak. Ok, I’m not that closet, really. Most of my semi-close friends know that I love halloween more than anything else (except for maybe my grand-puppies and husband) and my close friends know that it’s the only thing I celebrate all year and they better have a gift for me since I will have their gifts wrapped up by the 1st of October. My first goal of this blog is to recount all the halloween I have experienced, in ascending order.
As I get older, my mind is slowly forgetting stuff, sometimes as early as say… oh a few days ago. Maybe it’s selective memory, but if it is that reason… well I should be able to remember all my Halloweens clearly… but as the years go by and Halloweens passed, there are some years I cannot recall what I dressed up as or what I did. That worries me to some degree so I feel I should keep an online diary & recollection so I don’t lose the memories. Online because… I’ve tried doing this before at 22 and I lost the freaking paper diary somehow (probably whilte moving). But I didn’t write this for anyone else, this is really just for my memories as I get older.