Scent of a Hobo (or Minnie Mouse and the Astronaut)

At 4:52 this morning I sat down to watch Sunday's episode of Mad Men.

I'm not a masochist. I don't enjoy rising at 5AM.

Well that's not entirely true. I leap straight out of bed at 5AM when I'm going to catch the 6:35 American flight from JFK to LAX.

But it ain't the 6:35 to Los Angeles that gets me out of bed these days. No, I crawl out of bed between 5 and 6 every morning because that's when my daughter wakes up. And since you can't explain to a 15 month old that Daddy really needs another couple of hours of solid sack time, when she's up, I'm up.

While the rest of the house is sleeping, while there is a chill in the air because we're trying to wait as long as possible before firing the furnace up for the season, while she drinks her bottle and I make coffee, those hours between 5AM and 7AM are time we get to spend together. We spend that time talking (although I have no idea what she is saying) or playing or, like this morning, catching up on TV.

That's how I came to be watching Mad Men in the wee, small hours.

As the show opens, Don is in the kitchen talking to his kids about Halloween. Sally wants to be Minnie Mouse and Bobby wants to be an astronaut.

Sally says to Don,

"...they sell it at Woolworth's.. There's a section that says "Halloween costumes.""

To which Don replies,

"You'll wear it once. Plus, its made out of plastic and it's crap."

Thanks, Dad.

I knew exactly what Sally was talking about, and immediately I was 6 years old again.

Before you could buy a Buzz Lightyear costume on the Internet that was made of fabric and padding and actually looked like Buzz Lightyear, if you wanted to purchase a costume from a store, you'd head to Woolworth's or your local five and dime.

Do you remember these costumes from the five and dime? They came in a box made out of thin cardboard, with a cellophane covered cutout in the lid where the mask was displayed. The mask itself was a piece of molded plastic painted to look like Batman or Aquaman or Mickey Mouse... whatever. Two staples fastened a thin piece of elastic to the mask, and this slender, stretchy lifeline clasped the mask to your face. The rest of the costume was a plastic jumpsuit, that tied in the back, printed with the uniform or outfit of whoever you had decided to be.

The one size fits all-ness of the mask made it impossible to get it positioned just right, and by just right I mean with your nose in the nose part of the mask so you could breathe, and the eyeholes in front of your eyes so you could see.

In the choice between breathing and seeing, I usually chose seeing. Which meant, on a cool October night the mask would quickly become moist inside, as the vapor from my exhale built up on the inside of the cool plastic. And so, clad in a plastic bag, half blind, with a cold, wet plastic shell pressed up against my face I'd run from house to house, pillowcase grasped in a candy fueled death grip. Trick or Treat!!!

God, that was fun.

We almost never got our costumes from Woolworth's. Mostly because they were made out of plastic, and they were crap. And partly because we would only wear them once. But the real reason for our family, I think, was a money thing. It's not like we were poor. We weren't. But a Halloween costume from the store must have seemed like a frivolous expense to my parents when a perfectly good one could be made at home.

So usually, we'd end up making our Halloween costumes. Sometimes my mom would sew them.

Sew them?

Who the hell knows how to sew anymore? Not put on a button or repair a hem. Shit, I can do that. I mean really sew. Cut out a pattern and pin it to some fabric. Stitch the whole thing together on a sewing machine. Who even knows how to operate a sewing machine? Who even owns a sewing machine?

But sew them she did.

At the end of the day though, Sally Draper doesn't go trick or treating as Minnie Mouse, and Bobby Draper doesn't go as an astronaut. She's a gypsy and he's a hobo.

A hobo.

I'd often thought that a hobo and a tramp were the same thing, but apparently, hobos are drifters who work, and tramps are just drifters. Both, apparently, are higher in stature than a bum, who neither drifts nor works.

When I was a kid, a hobo was a perfectly legitimate Halloween costume. Get an old shirt and pair of pants from your dad. Stuff some newspaper into a bandanna and tie it on the end of a stick. Set a cork on fire and rub the burnt end on your face for that authentic hobo five-o-clock shadow. Simple.

You don't see many hobo costumes these days. I suppose this is because it's no longer politically correct or desirable to dress your kid up as a homeless person for Halloween.

I'm just wondering how it was ever desirable or acceptable to dress your kid up as a homeless person for Halloween.