At parent-teacher conferences last week, both of our twins’ teachers mentioned that there are a lot of new families on Vashon this year. In each class, they’ve got four or five new kids. Parents looking for a safe place to raise their children might be drawn to Vashon for the same reasons we’re here — good schools, strong community. And it helps if you like to ride boats.
Parents of small children new to Vashon may be wondering where everyone goes to trick-or-treat. Distances between houses can be great; neighbors often live down dark and muddy driveways with no turnarounds, and there are few streetlights. And even if they might live near a dozen houses in a suitable trick-or-treat subdivision, half the houses might be giving out satchels of vegan-soy fig pellets with arcane hand-lettered labels, beads and feathers or mini ear-candles.
Welcome to Vashon!
Every year, the Vashon Chamber of Commerce organizes a trick-or-treat in town. The streets are closed to vehicle traffic; business owners decorate and dole out Halloween candy to several hundred costumed kids and their support staff from 5 to 7 p.m., or until everyone gets wet and cold and just wants to go home.
There’s mini-fun-sized Snickers, Krackels, sour worms, tiny Tootsie Rolls and Pops and the occasional full-sized candy bar (tip: Check out the grocery stores). The dentist’s office usually gives out floss. One of the restaurants gives out apples. One year the kids came home with handfuls of Indonesian penny candy. They said it tasted like hair spray.
I often show up in my regular clothes, playing on my natural resemblance to a balding, middle-aged salaryman. But last Halloween my wife Maria found me a stretch-black ninja suit with battery-powered glow-wire imbedded in the seams. When I tried it on in a dark room, I looked like a strobe-lit pedestrian fatality outlined in forensic chalk. Several people asked to have their pictures taken with me, until the batteries wore out.
Last year Maria posted photos of the kids’ costumes on Facebook. Our oldest daughter dressed as a sort of flamenco devil, with red horns, huge false eyelashes and kissy-red lipstick. The effect was unsettling. She and her best friend coordinated their hussy flamenco devil outfits and politely cruised Halloween, carefully maintaining 20 yards distance between Maria and me, and 20 yards distance from a particular group of boys.
Maria went as a purple-wigged Wonder Woman in a gold half-mask and protruding super-cleavage. It made a pretty big impression on me; I’ve secretly hoped that she wears that same outfit again.
Our oldest boy got a chintzy glue-on skin-zipper kit from Goodwill that claimed to create the illusion that you could unzip the skin on your face to display the bloody flesh underneath. It looked pretty good for about 10 minutes, but it got wet and kept falling off.
Our youngest daughter mixed a couple of holidays together and went dressed as a candy cane with interesting hair, while her twin brother dressed as a dark overlord with lots of iron crosses hanging around his neck and a black smock that he kept tripping on.
The costume ideas for this year are spinning out of control. Our oldest daughter plans to go as a piece of lined paper. Neither she nor I had a clear idea how this could be done, but I agreed that as a writer, nothing is scarier to me than a piece of blank paper. She gave me a funny look and went upstairs to tell her mom.
Our youngest girl apparently plans to be something she calls a polka-dot monster. Details are scant.
Our oldest boy plans to construct an elaborate deadmau5 (pronounced “dead mouse”) costume out of chicken-wire, computer speakers and papier-mâché, which might look very similar to an oversized Mousketeers hat.
Our youngest boy plans to go as Shaun Alexander. Conveniently, he has a kid-sized Shaun Alexander Seahawks jersey, number 37, that he has worn to school every day so far this year, which has given him a great head start on Halloween.
Our oldest boy announced at the supper table that this year his plans do not include trick-or-treating with either his parents or younger siblings. Instead, he will join his friends and together they’ll roam, free and awesome, a crew of middle-school comrades with husky voices and hairy legs.
His younger siblings immediately demanded to trick-or-treat in roving gangs, free and awesome like their older brother.
It’s looking like Maria and I might trick-or-treat by ourselves this year. I’ll bet she gets more candy.
— Kevin Pottinger lives on Vashon with his wife Maria and four children.
