false face

As a kid I don't remember so much Mom taking us to the store to buy costumes. Best I can remember, most Halloweens we just found stuff already in the closets and made something up at home. Scarecrows were always pretty easy. Take a pair of bib overalls, a flannel shirt and some straw and there ya go. Paint a couple of big red dots on the cheeks and a little black on the nose, a hat if we had one... More than once I was a product of last-minute planning and ended up in one of Mom's outfits. I was a pretty little thing, 'cept back then Mom didn't wear makeup which made for a homely looking girl. One year we stuffed a pillow under my "blouse" and I was a pro-life, pre-teen example of what you should do if you get knocked up unexpectedly.

One year me, my brothers and a friend or two decided we wanted to be Kiss. This despite the fact that the visiting preacher at church said they were devil worshippers. I insisted on being Gene Simmons. I thought he was the coolest of the singing satanists, and as much as I didn't want to go to Hell, I did want to be coolest. Somehow we got some white and black face paint, some glitter and made due with the hair we had - spiking it and teasing it and mussing it up as best we could with mousse and gel and hairspray. My brother, Loren, ended up cutting his own hair to better get into character. After Mom delivered her cow she administered his punishment - which couldn't have been much worse than the ribbing he got at school the next day.

Ever once in a while, come Halloween we'd splurge and buy a mask. My mamaw called them false-faces. She seemed sorta fascinated with the concept. The first time we'd see her after trick-or-treat, she'd always ask us what kind of false-face we wore. "Evil Knievel," I said once. As much as I liked being more like the richer kids who could always afford to buy masks and costumes, I liked better the time Mom and I spent together sorting through drawers and closets trying to put together a crazy outfit that I'd wear just that once. They were usually over-the-top fashion disasters, but clowns and drag queens are funner than nuns and teachers. Besides, after a while of walking the neighborhood with a rubber band cutting through my face, no peripheral vision and smelling my own Tootsie Roll breath, I learned it was a whole lot more fun and freeing skipping door to door in a sheet, er, toga and Flip Flops. Besides, false-faces are dishonest.