Halloween costume parties have always been alot of fun and James Dad attended many of them in various outfits. In this one, he dressed up as a Keystone Cop with a mustache and dyed his hair black, the only time in his life he did not have blond hair.

The costume party was much fun, although James Dad did not win. The picture was taken by James Grandma when his dad came home after the party. Everyone liked the costume I think because they never saw me with anything other than light blond hair and got an idea what I would look like with dark hair, I think.

One year after getting out the army and watching the Tigers win in 1984, James Dad decided it was time to do a Halloween display and using odds and ends around the house put together a very interesting display at very little cost. This was actually the second big Halloween display James Dad did at home, the first was when he was in college in 1980. The guitar player actually played the guitar with a little motor that controlled his hand, unfortunately we did not have a video camera at the time so we never got any live footage of him playing.

The Halloween display was well received and several people mentioned that we should have called the newspaper which I think would have been an overkill. Most everything in the pictures moved at least a little bit and we were fortunate to have very good weather as some of these props were very light and would have blown over with a strong gust of wind.

Continue reading “Halloween 1985” →

James Dad had just started College when he decided to take Halloween decorating to the next level. In the past, the house had always been decorated for Halloween but the decorations amounted to paper decorations hung on doors and windows, nothing really 3 dimensional. This year using whatever items he could find including an old electric weight loss machine and an old adjustable sewing mannequin along with some cheap Halloween masks and made a pretty decent Halloween display at a fraction of the cost for current animatronics. Most of the items moved, including the guitar player, a guy stirring a cauldron made from a laundry basket, Frankenstein arms went up, etc. This was Dads first attempt at a large Halloween display, but it certainly would not be his last.

Continue reading “Halloween 1979” →

We can’t forget devils night when I was young. I was too young to be out at night and it was devils night,we were suppose to go out and ring door bells and soap windows and I wanted to had to be a part of it,but Mom said no way was I going out on devils night,meant only trouble and was too young to go out after dark anyway. I pouted for awhile then forgot about it until the next day when Mom called me and accused me of soaping her windows,told her that I was always blamed for everything that happened around there and was tired of it and that I had not gone out that night because she would not let me and she told me that she knew it was me because they were soaped from the inside.

I also remember that every Halloween we went out got bags of candy,that’s when they gave the big candy bars and you could be out until 11 without getting hurt or the parents being worried. We would come home and I would empty my bag and my girlfriend and I went back out,did this a few times. When I got home for the night and wanted to look at all my treasures,I asked what happened to the big candy bars. Dad had gone through each bag as I left it,not as a caring father to make sure everything was ok with the candy but to take the big candy bars for himself.

I did all the work and he got the candy. I was left with the junk candy and apples,said the apples were better for me