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PrintA Hutch helmet on Halloween
Throwing the Tribune increased the take.
Don’t kid yourself that the 1950s was a more placid, peaceful and safer time than today. Halloween is proof of that. While the contemporary urban legends about foreign objects in apples designed to maim little ghosts and goblins are part of the fabric of today’s life, similar fears enveloped trick-or-treating in Tulsa during the 1950s.
The TG&Y store in Utica Square carried the flimsy costumes of the day. The fabric was more fitting for a wedding night than disguising its wearer. And the orange-boxed gowns with stiff, thin plastic masks were more suitable for Florida climes than Tulsa falls. Wearing one of those costumes in Tulsa without ample clothing underneath would result in a teeth-chattering experience.
Halloween in Tulsa in the ’50s always fell on the coldest day of the fall.
My pal, Jon Fister, and I conquered the cold in the third grade by trick-or-treating as football players. Actually it was the same garb we put on each day after school to repeatedly run into each other.
With our faux leather Hutch helmets (actually a kind of pressed cardboard with wool padding for “protection”); fiberboard shoulder pads; a gray, fleece-lined sweatshirt underneath; and a gray, fleece-lined sweatshirt as our “jersey,” we would embark on our chilly house-to-house jaunt. Oh, the Halloween part? A black, Lone Ranger-style mask. We surely earned great Brownie points for saving on costuming.
We were both reasonably well known among the houses along Boston Place and Court south of 26th Place. I was the neighborhood paperboy for the Tulsa Tribune (the late, lamented afternoon newspaper).
Jon and I originally shared this job when his older brother, George, the real Tribune paperboy, decided that throwing a quirk in his route — a kind of musical half-note with the stem starting at our house near 26th Place and Boston Place and attaching to the circle of Boston Court — was a pain. He subcontracted the dozen or so houses south to Jon and me for 50 cents.
After several days, Jon decided he didn’t want the job and dropped out. Since my total weekly allowance at the time was 25 cents, getting the grand total of 50 cents for the route was a bonanza. For the school year that I had this route (George’s district manager later discovered his pact with a third-grader and ended my paperboy days — my revenge was to later work as a reporter for the Tribune), people on it got the best service in town.
There were no plastic bags for rain in the mid-1950s; for that matter, there were no rubber bands. You hand-folded/rolled the paper into a cylinder capable of being thrown. But, when it rained, my dad insisted that I place each subscriber’s paper in between the screen door and the front door to keep it dry. So the neighborhood knew me. Or thought they did; most presumed I was Jon, George’s brother.
So, on this particular numbingly cold Halloween, Jon and I set out to gather as much candy as possible. With keen customer service as our advantage.
We hoped for a bounty of wrapped candy. This was important.
Yes, concerns about evildoers, even in our 1950s placid, peaceful and safe neighborhood, were paramount. Parents forbade the consumption of cookies (even wrapped) and popcorn balls. The prohibition on fruit wasn’t that big a deal because getting fruit from a house on Halloween was as much fun as getting underwear from your aunt at Christmas.
We came home with plenty of loot, even after parents eliminated the occasional cookie, apple and popcorn ball. Our bounty increased by exemplary customer service.
