Autumn changes bring memories
Mangia! Mangia!
ANTOINETTE JACKSON

Autumn in the Midwest was always one of my favorite times of the year.

Ushered in by Labor Day-summer's last hurrah-the days shortened all too quickly, turning the nights suddenly cool.

Soon summer's crisp cotton wardrobe was replaced with the warmer fall fabrics.

In a little while, the leaves on the trees began to pale.

Then, with a plummeting of the temperature, maple and oak foliage turned to brilliant shades of gold and crimson set against a clear azure sky.

Autumn in Chicago also produced the phenomenon known as Indian Summer. Just as we were getting used to the frosty fall temperatures, a reprieve of warm summer afternoons and evenings would appear.

Once again it was the perfect temperature to sit out on the front porch while the final games of the pennant race played on a portable radio.

Every year since 1906, the front page of the Chicago Tribune featured an editorial cartoon entitled "Injun Summer." It had two scenes.

On the top half of the cartoon, a child and his grandfather are overlooking a golden field of cornstalks. The older gentleman is telling the boy how Indians of past times celebrated the harvest of the season.

In the lower scene, it's now evening. There's a full moon and the stalks have become teepees. The young lad is looking out over the field and can see the dancing spirits of the Native Americans.

As a young child, I looked forward to the cartoon. It

signaled that a favorite holiday was just around the corner.

Halloween, or All Hallows Eve, in the late 1940's was a pure and innocent time in our lives.

For weeks we pondered "what to be" for the annual festivities at school and in the neighborhood. It was an important decision because you got to behave like that character for the day.

Once decided, your mother usually helped to put your costume together. Unless you were lucky enough to have a mother who was a seamstress, outfits were simple and never store bought.

When the day finally arrived, we dressed in regular school clothes in the morning. Most of us lived within walking distance from school.

At lunchtime we changed into our costumes and returned to school. When the special bell rang, each class filed out of the three-story Eberhart Grammar School building. Slowly and in pairs we paraded around the school block.

Neighborhood mothers and grandmothers lined the grassy space between the street and the sidewalk. As we passed, they "oohed and aahed" at the characters their children had become.

The boys' favorites were monsters, pirates, hobos, cowboys and Indians. Some were soldiers, with a real World War II souvenir as part of their costume.

Girls were cowgirls, witches, princesses and fairies.

Our masks were made of starched gauze with a peculiarly pungent odor. Adorning our faces were sweet tasting big red wax lips or fanged teeth purchased for 2 cents at the corner candy store.

There were no prizes and no competition for the best costume. Only the opportunity to let your imagination run wild and allow you to become someone else for an afternoon.

The 3 PM bell, which signaled the end of the school day, began the ritual known as trick or treating. It was time to go home and pick up our brown shopping bag.

Together with our friends and siblings, we went door-to-door in the neighborhood.

It wasn't necessary to have our parents standing at the curb protecting us with a watchful eye, nor was there fear of receiving apples with hidden razorblades. These were times when we could venture safely beyond the ordinary boundaries of our daily play.

Our first targets were the brick bungalows two or three blocks away. The "rich" people of the neighborhood who gave the best treats lived there. There was a veterinarian who gave us money. A businessman, who owned a sheet metal works, passed out Hershey bars.

And the man who worked for the Wrigley Company gave us five-stick packs of chewing gum.

Darkened homes with no response to our bell ringing were prime for "the trick." Usually it was the boys, not the girls, who marked their windows with a bar of soap, or the dreaded wax whistle they carried just for those purposes.

We curled hurriedly up and down the streets, anxious to cover as many houses as we could before the streetlights went on and we had to be home.

A good haul produced a bag bulging with apples, pennies, Mary Janes, candy corn, Double Bubble Gum, Life Savers and Hershey's kisses.

On some years, Lynne and Joan Highland's parents continued the celebration with a party. We ate hot dogs, and dunked for apples bobbing in a huge washtub.

We played pin the tail on the donkey and drop the clothespin in the milk bottle until it was time to call it a day.

It was nice to be a child in an era when Halloween was a pure, innocent and fun-filled holiday.

Pork Hocks in Sauerkraut

Musings of fall would be incomplete without recalling the familiar aroma of a big pot of pork hocks simmering in sauerkraut on the kitchen stove. If you cannot find the fresh, not smoked hocks, ask your butcher to order them for you.

The onion soup was Mom's later addition to her neighbor's authentic German recipe.

6 fresh pork hocks, parboiled 20 minutes and drained 3 cups water 1 teaspoon salt 1 tablespoon sugar 1 package dry onion soup mix 1 quart sauerkraut, rinsed 1 large onion, sliced 3 boiling potatoes, quartered

1 green cooking apple, sliced

Combine all ingredients in a large pot. Simmer for 90 minutes or until meat pulls away from the bone. Serves four.

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Antoinette Jackson is a Bullard-area resident. You may reach her at Antojxn@aol.com.