FH Costume Parade: From the Archives

'Like everyone else, they just want their scarytale ending'

In the post below, we celebrate the winners from the 2023 FH Costume contest held last weekend.  Although FH has been around awhile, our first costume parade wasn't until in the early 2010's. We weren't around, let alone having Halloween parties, back in the 50's, 60's, 70's and 80's.

But... the hall we rent each year has been around for awhile, and they building has been hosting holiday parties going back many decades.  As you walk through the building, especially in the main hall and dance room, can almost feel the spirit of past party goers, dancing, laughing and living.

Of course most of the past partiers are not living any longer, most are long gone, dead and buried.  There are however, signs of their existence still hovering around the hall.  It's not just that the bathrooms and kitchen look like they haven't been updated since the building opened in the 40's, it the visual signs as well.

When you first enter the hall, there is a large glassed in cabinet on the wall, holding images and mementos, from parties form the past.  Old photographs, ticket stubs and banners, promotional posters for long forgotten events.  Images from Christmas parties, Halloween bashes, New Year's dances and fundraising events.

There is something beautifully eerie about seeing images of costume wearing party goers from the past. Halloween party attendees you know are mostly gone, or shoved aside by their families,  watching Wheel of Fortune in some out of town nursing home, too far away to visit too often.

Thankfully, the buildings attendant/janitor/manager, a guy who looks himself, long overdue for Wheel of Fortune nights in a lazy boy, was kind enough to open the glass cabinet for me to take a closer look.  We've become friendly, given I've now rented the space for our parties the last many years.

When I asked if I could take a few pictures with my phone, he initially said no, siting privacy issues.  When I mentioned that I was sure most of the people in the pictures were probably dead, he signed and agreed to let me take a few snaps.  These were some of my favorites.