At the start of October, 1957, when I was eleven years old, things were as usual. The regular baseball season had ended and once again my Red Sox, though their record was a winning one, had finished behind the Yankees who would, once again, go on to the World Series.
On October 4 of that year, the Soviet Union launched the first artificial satellite, Sputnik, into orbit. We Americans were shocked. The Russians had beaten us. The Commies were winning.
Day after day Sputnik was the news and the news was Sputnik. Stories on radio and television and in the newspaper. Shown again and again on tv was film of the satellite, a white dot passing over a dark background accompanied by a monotonous beep – beep – beep. The newspaper printed instructions for viewing as it passed through the night sky.
I already had an interest in astronomy, initially kindled by a visit with my mom to New York’s Hayden Planetarium and nurtured with books and observation. I could hardly wait to see Sputnik and when at last the night was clear, having checked the newspaper for the time and direction for observation, I went out to our backyard along with my parents to watch.
Finally, there it was, a faint and distant speck of light traveling silently from left to right. I was thrilled to see it; an object from Earth that had been sent into space, something that had not long before seemed possible only in a distant future.
And then, having seen it, I found myself somehow let down. That was all? There was nothing more to see. We went back into our house.
After a few days, while Sputnik remained in the news it was no longer the front page story. Life went on with a happy result from the World Series as the Braves beat New York. Halloween became the next thing to which to look forward.
Halloween. What a great time to be a kid. I counted the days to when friends and I would be out the door at the first hint of dusk. We would go house to house for hours collecting unspeakable amounts of candy. Trick or treat, but we had no interest in tricks, collecting as many treats before it was finally time to go home was the game. We were at an age old enough to go without the oversight of parents and so would range beyond our familiar neighborhood, crossing paths with other small groups of kids with whom we exchanged intelligence regarding where the best treats might be secured. A nickel candy bar! Really!
I would, of course, need a costume. Costumes were homemade, never bought at a store, and usually not very imaginative. We were cowboys or hobos, ballplayers or ghosts. But this year my dad had an idea.
He took one of my mom’s hatboxes, a large circular one. He cut out the bottom so that it fit over my head, and holes for eyes so that I could see. He covered it with aluminum foil. Then he took some wire clothes hangers from the closet, untwisted and straightened them, and stuck them in the hatbox such that a wire stood out straight in each of four different directions.
Sputnik!
I liked it. My friends liked it. Off we went, each of us with a large brown paper grocery bag in which to collect our candy, our treats. We did our usual, ring the bell, “trick or treat,” candy into the bag, on to the next house. But this year something unusual occurred.
At house after house the door was opened, the adult looked at us, looked at me, then asked me into the house so the rest of the family could see my costume. “Look at this!” they would say to the people in the house. And they looked and chuckled and admired and praised. And then they would tell me to take some extra candy. Of course they had to give extra to my friends as well. By the end of the night we had more candy than we had ever collected before.
When I finally arrived home my folks asked how things had gone. I showed them my bag, filled beyond any reasonable expectation. I told them of my adventures and recounted the plaudits my costume had received.
Then I spread out my haul on a table, began to sort through it and offered them their choice.
It was the best Halloween ever.
Originally appeared in Good Old Daysmagazine.
10/27/2025
05:48:31 PM