Daily Local News (West Chester, PA)
Halloween Fun Jim Early
The ghoulish season brings back fun, sweet memories
One of my favorite Halloween stories is not about me, but my kids. It was probably mischief night, before Halloween. They decided that they were going to throw eggs at cars for the Halloween. And one of the cars that they threw the eggs at stopped, and the guy got out and chased them. And he caught my youngest daughter, and scared her real badly. My son, who was with her, came running home to tell me about it. In a little while, my daughter came home, and she was all upset, wanted to know what I was going to do about it. I said, “Well, did you get the fella’s name?” She said, “No, why?” I said, “Well, I didn’t want to go and criticize him, I wanted to go thank him!” And they couldn’t understand why I wanted to say thank you, but they learned a lesson. That was one of the best, as far as the family was concerned. They were always into something!
Nancy & Wes Fasnacht
When I was a kid, we rang door bells, and then we’d run away. You know, in those days, when I went out Halloweening, you didn’t have to worry about anything. We’d go on all different streets. You didn’t have to worry about getting candy that wasn’t fit to eat. We had so much fun! Now, I feel bad because today you can’t do that. You have to make sure that you know where they’re getting their candy from.
When we lived in Elizabethtown, our nextdoor neighbor took me (Nancy) out Halloweening, and the next week we had our third daughter! I was very much pregnant, and Nancy and I went out Halloweening. My nextdoor neighbor’s name was Nancy, too. We would go to people’s houses and she’d say, “That’s real! She’s expecting a baby!” I was dressed up as a witch… a pregnant witch! So, the next week, we had Melanie.
When we lived here in West Chester on Yorktown Avenue, we had a lot of leaves that we had to rake. The kids would help to do that and jump around in the leaves. We had a good time. We used to live near Nussex Orchards, off Five Points Road, it’s no longer there. We would go apple picking and I would make homemade applesauce and freeze it.
Nancy Becker
I recall a Halloween when my son was about six years old, and we bought him a very elaborate costume. All the children in the neighborhood were going trick-or-treating. Right when he was going to depart from the house, he started to cry. I said, “What’s the matter, Steve?” And he said he really wanted to be Casper the (friendly) ghost! So, we put a sheet over him, cut the eyes out and sent him on his way! The same thing with my daughter… We got her all dressed up like Raggedy Ann, mop on her head, rosy cheeks, everything, and the same thing happened. She said, “I don’t want to be Raggedy Ann!” She took everything off and I think she went as a princess. So, you can’t put the ideas like that in your children’s head because they’ve got their own ideas!