The Halloween Parade

One of the unexpected pleasures of living on our street is that, every year around Halloween, the entire population of the elementary school, half a block away, dresses up in costume and parades up one side of the street and back down again the other side, one classroom at a time (preceded by signs identifying the teacher).  Today was a bright sunny Halloween Monday, and there they all went.  I stopped eating lunch to watch them.

Some of the costumes were really imaginative.  We had the usual brides, tramps, witches, wizards, and ghosts, of course.  But I also saw:  two little girls dressed as a pair of dice (yes, square cardboard costumes); two different boxy robots; a child in a totem post costume more than twice as tall as he was, with accurate Northwest Indian designs; and a young lady dressed as an 18th century court lady, in white satin and lace, with a full Madame Pompadour wig almost a foot high (the jeans visible under the skirt hem kind of took the edge off that one).  There were several penguins (at least one adult), wearing floppy yellow felt feet, with red chili peppers on the breast and a sort of crown of flames made of construction paper.  I saw a Spiderman, but also a Flash (the Justice League RULES!).  Orange and black striped knee socks were popular.  I do think the young lady in the frilly dark red tutu should have reconsidered the hot pink leggings, they didn’t go with it.  My husband said he saw a bunch of chicken suits, but I missed those.

Our neighbor across the street stared in amazement, he said he’d never been home for it before.  Then he went and got his camera.  I didn’t get any pictures, sorry, but it was a lovely parade.  We have an elderly neighbor who walks a very small elderly dachshund; they waited in our front sidewalk for quite a while as the cavalcade streamed past.  I don’t think the dog appreciated it.