Posted on 10/22/2009 7:01:23 AM PDT by franksolich
I disremember if it was the Halloween I was 8 years old, or 9 years old, but it was the Halloween I went trick-or-treating dressed up as Henry R. Luce.
I was not into "scary" costumes; I wanted to look like a real person.
I had recently become fascinated with the publisher of Time magazine, and so it was an easy matter for my mother to color my hair grey, and I already possessed a lilliputian three-piece grey pin-striped suit. But in case anyone missed the point, the trick-or-treat bag, a paper grocery bag with handles, was covered with pasted-on covers from Time magazine.
As then was the custom in the small town alongside the Platte River of Nebraska, children went trick-or-treating in groups, an older sibling of any one of us being the chaperone who stood far back on the sidewalk as we opened our bags at the door.
In those days, Halloween was strictly a children's "fun" holiday; nobody over the age of 12 years would be caught dead dressing up and asking for candy. How unlike today, where we have all these 50-something, 60-something primitives, decrepit balding old hippies and elephant-thighed hippiettes desperately trying to be children.
(Excerpt) Read more at conservativecave.com ...
Ping for the list.
I remember that Halloween when it seemed all 8 or 9 year olds were fascinated with Henry Luce.
That was the year I was fascinated with Paul Erdos and went trick or treating dress in a costume created out of mathematical proofs.;-)
Hero worship.
I always took things seriously.
bump!!
Reminds me of when I went as George Washington in a tri-corn hat. Of course that was my mother’s idea, and I wasn’t too happy about it...
Did you ever think you would grow up and pimp your blog?
That said...you'll have to admit, such stuff sounds a little improbable...almost as much as Amy Carter being worried about "nuclear non-proliferation."
Of course it might sound improbable.
But one has to consider the background; I’ve written about this much. I grew up in a highly literary household. We never even had television.
Big family, really big house, the great big wide open outdoors of Nebraska—for what did one need a television?
I really have no idea why we didn’t have a television, and anyone who would know is gone from this time and place.
On the other hand, the family subscribed to five daily newspapers, three semi-weekly newspapers, and too many weekly and monthly magazines to remember. Our mailbox was rarely used, the mailman having to dump everything into a wooden crate on the porch.
Add to that that the house was full of books; built-in floor-to-ceiling bookshelves in the hallways, even.
I dunno how the older siblings were handled when children—my younger brother and I were late arrivals—but I myself used to get slews of children’s magazines, as did my younger brother.
I dunno how many forests were decimated; the carnage of paper was surely great.
I assume many of my contemporaries were, at the age of 8 or 9 years, aware of Walter Cronkite. Maybe they didn’t watch him, but they knew who he was.
Ditto for myself with Henry R. Luce.
And Henry R. Luce was more of a newsman than Walter Cronkite ever was; I got the best of the deal.
Too, there was the individual matter of my being deaf; less diversions, less distractions, from reading.
Stay off my lawn!
Frank, you have great stories. Thanks a lot.
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