This Halloween my neighborhood isn’t going to have it’s Haunted Forest. No COVID is much more scary than the Haunted Forest ever was. There also won’t be trick or treaters this year in my neighborhood. Less candy around our house will not be a bad thing. I plan on making a pumpkin-flavored Jack O’Lantern cake instead. I have to do SOMETHING for Halloween. You all know how I love a good theme! I couldn’t resist making light-up ghosts for the front porch, either. Darn Pinterest!!!! I wasn’t sure if I was going to put Halloween out this year. But, my neighborhood was starting to get decked out in orange and black. The blow-up decorations were popping up everywhere. It all made me smile. Boy, do we need smiles this year! I howled when my neighbor put her scary mannequin in her hammock. He is definitely relaxing this Halloween. I vote my neighbor, Kim, as the Halloween decorations winner with her spooktacular sense of humor! I remember one year I bought a witch in Mobile, Alabama, on my layover. I hung it from our front porch on a broom with bats flying around her. I loved that witch. My Dad wasn’t a fan of her. When I came home with my witch, I put her in the rocking chair in the family room. That October my sister and her girls were living with my parents while their house was being built. In the middle of the night one of my nieces got out of bed. She saw the witch in the chair. Only she didn’t know it was a “material” witch. She got so scared she went in my parent’s room and woke my Dad up. She told my Dad there was a scary person in the family room. My Dad got out of bed not sure who he was going to encounter. Yep, it was my witch happily sitting in the rocking chair. My Dad chided me for leaving her there and scaring my nieces. I thought my innocent mistake was hysterical. I cackled just like my material witch would have,….if she could have!
Halloween has never been one of my favorite holidays. Sure, I love candy. I just hated trying to think of a Halloween costume to wear each year to go out and get some. My favorite Halloween costume was my Bugs Bunny costume I wore when I was a young girl. The costume came with a face mask. I can still feel the moisture on my face from the warmth of my breath hitting the plastic mask in the cold air. I would stick my tongue through the small mouth slit constantly. It was weirdly comforting to me. Plus, I thought it was funny to see my tongue poke through that little mouth slit. My costumes after Bugs Bunny were your basic hobo and witch costumes. My friend Liesl had fabulous costumes. Her Mom sewed them. My Mom didn’t sew. But, she could smear green eye-shadow all over my face and plop a witch hat on my head…and off I would go on my Halloween route. Every year I would walk the same route. I always went up the street to the house where the man worked for a toy company. Each year I picked a yo-yo toy. Yes, he allowed us to choose our favorite toy out of his candy bowl. Eventually, I would head down the street to the house where the woman made popcorn balls. They were my favorite. I loved them more than any of my candies. Sadly, I always forgot to go to the Clatt’s house. Rick worked for Nestle. He gave out one-pound chocolate bars to each trick or treater. The Clatt’s weren’t on my Halloween route. They were on my sister’s and brother’s routes, though. Each year, they would come home after I took my costume off and proudly pull the one-pound candy bars out of their pillow cases. It was always at this moment I would remember…. that…. I forgot to go to the Clatt’s house….again!!! Somehow, those one-pound candy bars always went to work with my Dad. He liked to go trick or treating in our freezer after we put our Halloween candy in there.
I was so happy when I outgrew trick or treating. I no longer had to worry about a Halloween costume. There were a few Halloweens when I commuted to Cincinnati. My friends would have parties and they would always invite me. Trying to think of a Halloween costume I could fit in my Skytress suitcase was never an easy task. I eventually just wore my regular clothes and went as a Skytress on a layover. No one seemed to question my outfit. They were just happy I came to the party. I always was happy I came, too. They were extremely fun friends. Plus, unlike me, they all were very creative with their costumes. If I had enough room in my suitcase, I would have rented a bunny costume. Not like my Bugs Bunny costume or a Playboy Bunny outfit. Rather, the Easter Bunny. To this day, it is my dream costume. One day I will hand out Halloween candy as the Easter Bunny. Several years ago, I almost dressed up one Halloween to give out candy. I bought a fabulous witch hat in the Minneapolis airport. It had marvelous black feathers around the rim. I saw the hat in my favorite airport shop. It was expensive. However, after I saw it, I couldn’t stop thinking about it. The following week when I was passing through Minneapolis, I went back to the shop to look at the hat. Amazingly, it was on sale because Halloween was fast approaching. Of course, I bought it. My dog Finley barked excessively when I put it on to hand out candy. So, never wore it. I can only imagine what she will do if I wear the Easter Bunny costume to hand out candy. Finley, apparently, loves me just the way I am!
Most Halloweens I would chose to fly. More Skytresses and Skyters call out sick on Halloween than any other day at my airline. I figured if I flew the holiday someone else would be able to be off and not call in sick. After I moved back to St. Louis, I would bid the day off. I loved seeing my nieces get all dressed up to go trick or treating. My niece Jill still gets dressed up at college. This year she is going as Belle from Beauty and the Beast. She even painted scenes on her shoes. She is a Halloween enthusiast!
My favorite Skytress Halloween memories occurred when I was a relatively new Skytress based in Cincinnati. My crew and I were scheduled to fly to Cleveland and then back to Cincinnati. After that, we were to fly to Denver and then to Calgary to layover. Our Skytress In-Charge brought a multitude of Halloween decorations with her in her flight bag. Her Dad was going to join us in Cincinnati and come with us to our Calgary layover. So, she wanted to decorate the plane for him and the other passengers. We flew to Cleveland with a full airplane. While we were there the weather in Cincinnati deteriorated. A spooky Halloween snow storm had moved in. Surprisingly, crew scheduling decided they didn’t want us to fly back to Cincinnati. Crew scheduling was afraid the plane would get stuck in Cincinnati with the weather. So, the schedulers decided we would fly directly from Cleveland to Denver. I felt bad for our Skytress In-Charge. Her Dad was in Cincinnati and wouldn’t be able to fly to Calgary with us. Unlike our full-flight from Cincinnati to Cleveland, we didn’t have many passengers in Cleveland flying to Denver. We, actually, only had 1 passenger. That was passenger Ed. Ed was really cool. When we first referred to him by his last name, he said just to call him Ed. Ed quickly realized when he was the only passenger on our flight, we were all going to have a lot of time to get to know each other. Thus, formalities were not necessary. Ed was at a wedding prior to getting on our flight. He told us he had a lovely dinner at the wedding. He had already had his cocktails for the evening at the wedding, too. I think he felt a wee bit guilty we couldn’t get him anything and finally decided to have a Coke to make us happy. Ed was extremely nice. We had a fantastic time talking to him and kidding with him. Our Skytress In-Charge, Susan, told Ed she had Halloween decorations for the plane. She asked him if he would like to help us decorate the airplane to help pass the time. Ed, thought this was a great idea. He helped us string crepe paper from the front of the plane to the back. He helped us make ghosts out of the pillow cases. He helped us string cobwebs from the overhead bins. Skytress Susan, also, brought a fake arm with her. We placed that in an overhead bin so the arm was hanging out. Of course, we had to put cobwebs in the hand, too. Later, when we got to Denver the Captain got a boarding card and put it in the fake hand. He had wrote “reduced fair” on the boarding card. After we decorated the plane, we all headed back to first class to chit-chat some more. We were on the Boeing 727. Our three pilots took turns coming out to talk to us and passenger Ed. It felt more like a casual friends gathering than an actual flight. When we got to Denver we were all so sad to see passenger Ed leave. I still think about passenger Ed when I fly into Cleveland or Denver. I hope passenger Ed has fond memories of this flight, too.
When we boarded the plane in Denver, the looks on the passenger’s faces were priceless. They saw all the Halloween decorations and couldn’t make heads or tails of it all. They were dumbfounded. They actually questioned the decorations. We just smiled and said, “Happy Halloween!” I’m quite sure, later, they told all their friends they had the weirdest flight from Denver to Calgary. We didn’t mind their lack of enthusiasm for our Halloween decorations. We had enough enthusiasm to make us quite proud of our and Ed’s hard work. Of course, when we got to Calgary we left all the decorations up in the plane. The ground crew in Calgary loved it. They completely understood our Halloween spirit. We did, however, take the fake arm with us. Skytress Susan made sure it was hanging out of her bag as we walked through the airport. My crew and I loved that she did this. When we went through customs, not one customs officer questioned her about her fake arm. I guess they have seen it all. We, on the other hand, couldn’t contain our laughter. Skytress Susan had a great sense of humor. When we got to our layover hotel we ran to our rooms to quickly change out of our uniforms. We planned to meet back in the lobby to go get some dinner. As you may remember from last week’s post, we love to eat at my airline! Skytress Susan brought the fake arm with her when we went to eat. We all walked happily down the street to the restaurant with the arm handing out of Susan’s over-sized purse. No one on the streets or in the restaurant batted an eye. I’m positive they all knew we were Americans. I’m sure many Canadians think we Americans are all a wee bit weird at times. We had the best evening at the restaurant. Sadly, I cannot remember the name of the restaurant. But, I do remember it was hands-down the best pizza I have ever had. Maybe it was the the spirit of Halloween that made the pizza taste better. It didn’t hurt. No matter what it was, it is still one boo-tiful Halloween memory.
