It takes a village to survive the scary season -- and I don’t mean Halloween

We had never been Trick or Treating before. But after five long years, sugar rationing was over and we were ready to try something new. As it turned out, we weren’t very good at it.

It was 1947, the year sugar rationing ended, and treats could be available again. Each family member had a ration book full of stamps (which had to be surrendered if the member died). Stamps had to be torn off in the presence of the grocer. Tiny red and blue tokens were the change if your purchase didn’t quite match the stamps.

Almost everything was rationed, from automobiles, tires, gasoline, fuel oil, coal, firewood, nylon, silk, and shoes. You couldn’t get even a minimum share of household staples without the stamps. That included meat, dairy, canned milk, coffee, dried fruits, jams, jellies, lard, shortening, and oils.

My mother befriended the butcher at Safeway so we were OK for meat.

Rationing didn’t officially end until 1954.

We had no butter, of course. On the radio, The Mystery Chef gave recipes for dishes like Mystery Margarine. We followed the recipe hopefully but it was pretty bad.

So naturally, we were desperate for things to be normal again. Why not try Trick or Treat?

Costumes went together quickly from sheets, Dad’s old clothes or whatever was handy. Boys generally were happy to throw a sheet over themselves or paint a hobo stubble on their face with soot from the wood stove. Girls were more elaborate, of course.

The trouble was, the masks melted. After about 20 minutes, if you were determined to keep breathing, your whole face drifted down to whatever feature stuck out the farthest. In my case, the nose.

Our masks were made of stiffened gauze molded into horrifying shapes, and we carried teeny, tiny paper mache pumpkins to collect treats in. There were occasional lighted jack o’ lanterns in neighborhood windows but nobody decorated.

Treats were homemade cookies mostly, apples quite often, and popcorn balls were a rare delight. We never gave a thought to such possible inconveniences as razor blades in the treats, just as long as there was sugar.

My mother absolutely loved Halloween. I don’t know what was wrong with her. I remember coming home from an errand after dark, and running into a tall, silent figure with dark red face. It would not speak and it was on roller skates! To this day, the most frightening Halloween apparition I’ve ever seen. Yup. It was my Mom.

The wonderful thing, when the blackouts ended, were the huge torchlight Halloween parades. They started as a municipal celebrations of the end of the war with lots of lights and patriotic tableaux. I still remember a Red Cross float depicting a nurse in a Red Cross uniform tending a wounded soldier silently rolling down darkened Riverside Avenue in Spokane.

We felt our way into the New Normal, though we didn’t call it that. Over the years, the little pumpkins turned into bigger pumpkins, then shopping bags and pillow cases to collect the treats, bigger and better every year.

It looks as if we’ve come to the end of an era again. There were no Trick or Treaters last year and we don’t know what to plan for this year. It looks as if what’s been rationed now is good sense.

Listening to the news is hard. COVID. Rising crime rates. Rising violence. Can’t anyone play nicely together? Bad news, livened by worse news. I don’t have to wait for Halloween. I’m already scared to death. Anything normal would be new.

I told my Firstborn, the health care professional, that I felt worried and scared. “Of course,” she said in her no nonsense, you’ve-missed-the-point-again voice. “That’s because you haven’t activated your village.”

My village? I have a village?

“Certainly, You need your people around you. There are always the people who care,” she said firmly. “Actually TALK to them. You must let them know you need them.”

Then I read in the very newspaper you’re holding, that the kind of casual relationships where you strike up a conversation in a coffee shop or on a walk are essential for older adults. Do something together with someone who has common interests. Play pickleball, for goodness sake. For instance, The Meditation Garden at St. John Bosco Church in Lakewood needs volunteers (See last month’s column.) Let’s do something together.

“You have to ask,” First Offspring says severely. “Start with your children and build from there.”

Can I practice with you?

“Hello. You look like an intelligent, caring person. Let’s turn off the phones, grab a cup of coffee — and build a village.”

Where to find Dorothy in October

• Oct. 3 and 9: Reading with the Silver Sage Radio Players from Better Than I Deserve, at the Fred Oldfield Western Art Show, Western Heritage Center, Puyallup.
• 9 a.m. Oct. 4 and 18: Zoom Coffee Chat and Change The World. A fast community building hour introducing resources, special guests and new ideas.
• 2 p.m. Oct 7: The Zoom Book Doctors. Topic: getting your book into print and launched. Special guests Robbie Samuels, Larry Fowler, and Susanne Bacon.

Request information and Zoom links for events from Dorothy@SwimmingUpstreamRadioShow.com

Listen to Dorothy’s podcast, any time, wherever podcasts are available or https://SwimmingUpstreamRadioShow.com

Contact Dorothy at PO Box 881, DuPont, WA 98327, phone 800-548-9264 or Dorothy@itsnevertoolate.com

This story was originally published October 3, 2021 at 5:00 AM.