Halloween...

Halloween was (surprisingly) never about the candy for me. Well, think about it, as someone who is deathly allergic to peanuts during an era where no one knew about allergies, let alone clearly labelled their product, I always got a teensy little stash by the time my mum had gone through my loot and removed the pieces I couldn't have. No, it was never the intense sugar high...it was the costumes and it was the fireworks.
I remember coming home from school in the afternoon and watching tv, getting so excited and counting down the minutes until it was time to go get dressed up. We would always have a really early dinner (usually at least partly dressed in our costumes) and then go out immediately afterwards.
After tromping our way through the neighbourhood, we would return home and put on heavy winter coats (the ones we wouldn't wear while trick or treating because they covered up our costumes) and then go outside again. All of the neighbourhood kids would come to our end of the cul-de-sac and wait while my Da and Mr. Brock would bring out the wheelbarrow into the middle of the street. It would be filled with dirt and he would start sticking in the fireworks, one at a time and lighting them off. All us kids, with our faces still painted from the night, would get sparklers and run around with them, drawing pictures in the sky and bouncing around to keep warm. Da would always try to have something really spectacular for the fine firework, and I remember when it wouldn't go off as planned, how disappointed he was, but we didn't care. We each had our sparklers to play with, and we each thought our costumes were better than anyone elses. Then we'd go inside to pour over the loot, get a decent sugar high, and go to bed, because there was always school the next day.