Through a Lens, Darkly

I've always loved Halloween. My first Halloween - at least, the first I remember - happened in Leaf Rapids. It was an unseasonably warm October that year - "unseasonably warm" for northern Manitoba meaning that it was merely freezing, with wet snow chilling me to the bone. I only remember that wet snow and the ghost costume my mother hand-made for me sticking to my skin, soaking. I think I had fun anyway.

The next Halloween I remember happened in Leduc, grade five or six. I made my own costume this time; I was a robot. I stapled cardboard boxes together with a staple gun and covered everything in tin foil. There was a dance, and the costume was so hot that I felt faint...plus the staples were jabbing into my body. It was extremely uncomfortable.

Here's a photo of Jeff Pitts and Kevin Kelly and me, ready to head out for some Halloween event or another in 1987. I don't remember anything about what we might have done that night; without this photo, I wouldn't have been able to tell you that I did anything for Halloween in 1987 at all. It's odd that this picture was taken at Mom and Dad's place in Leduc, since I would have been living at Lister Hall at the U of A at the time, in my first year of post-secondary education.

I do remember Halloween 1990, though; a bunch of friends gathered at Earl's on the university campus and then headed over to Lister Hall for the Halloween dance. I think Ron Briscoe's defrocked priest was the best costume, although Jeff and Susan as Prince and Princess Charming were pretty awesome too. Then again, so was Tony's genie...and so was Carrie's harem girl. I'm not sure who Steven Neumann was supposed to be...I think Michael Snyder was a pirate.

The next Halloween I remember was back in 1996, when Leslie, who was my boss at the time, took me to a GLBT-friendly Halloween party. She was a vampire, I was "Ensign Woods on shore leave." (That is, I wore my old grade nine home-made gold Star Trek tunic, beach shorts and carried around a frisbee.) No pictures of that event, unfortunately, but as you might expect because of gay stereotypes, the costumes were really terrific. The people were really nice, too, especially considering I was still pretty naive about gay and lesbian culture at the time.

Sylvia's birthday falls just a few days before Halloween. I don't recall what we did for the holiday that year, but it was Sylvia's 35th birthday - the first I'd experienced as her boyfriend - and we celebrated the milestone by throwing a huge party.

By 2006 we had our own home and were carving pumpkins together.

Only a few of the intrepid folks at the Official Opposition dressed up for Halloween in 2007, but our boss Judy was one of them, in an amazing Three Stooges mask.

In 2008, Sylvia borrowed my phaser and my old Star Trek command tunic (originally made in grade nine!) to gently mock my pop culture obsessions.

I wish I had more photos to prop up my Halloween memories, but these will have to do. Until next year...happy haunting.