I sat down to draw and the bizarre Zanesville, Ohio event – now yesterday’s news – was on my mind. A bear, three leopards, and two macaques somehow survived. Too bad one of those leopards couldn’t have eaten the keeper before he set them all loose. The drawing itself is pretty overworked, but I just wanted to keep drawing on top of my original sketch until I got somewhere that I felt ok with.
I thought the idea of being a kangaroo was just so. original. I could receive candy and collect it in my pouch. No tacky plastic pumpkin for me!
I did not consider making the costume myself. I wanted it to be a professional job. My mother, while talented in many ways, was not big on sewing. A classmate’s mother used a pattern to craft a sort of tawny-colored faux fur tunic. The front displayed the equivalent of an over-sized loose pocket and a giant stuffed tail with white trim on the underside hanging from the back. I wore brown tights and a brown turtleneck underneath it. The look was completed with a pair of ears attached to a headband. Oh, how I awaited that clear and crisp fall evening where I could bounce from door to door collecting candy in my marsupial pouch.
Central New York had other plans for that night of trick-or-treating. It rained and hailed and probably snowed and it was so cold that my mother, like any good mother would, made me wear a winter jacket while making my rounds. I was so ticked off. I could no longer easily access my pouch and people handing out candy could not recognize - and appreciate - my ensemble. One simple minded neighbor had the nerve to ask if I was a cat. The final blow was when I discovered that my tail, once full of bounce, had been dragging in the muddy snow puddles for some time. It was, as I remember, a small tragedy.
