When I was in elementary school, the town of Parker hosted a Halloween drawing contest for schools on the reservation and in town. Students in each class would first compete with each other and then vote for the best drawing to be submitted. Sometimes a class would simply elect a team to draw for them. Why bother competing when they knew who the artists were and who would win anyway? Although the teachers would encourage competition, classmates of the twins–my brother and sister–would simply throw in the towel before the contest even started and designate the two to represent them. The prize was a classroom party paid for by the hosting committee. And the Indian kids who had very little definitely wanted to win that party and all the treats that came with the winning. So it was always the twins, and maybe a few add-ons, who drew for their class.
My brother was the artist. He still is the artist. His twin drew alongside him but he was the “chief” artist and all others were his underlings. Even his twin. Chalk was their medium. Art supplies were severely limited. The teachers generally provided the chalk or paint which they paid for out of their own pockets. Besides the white chalk of the classroom maybe 4 or 5 other colors were given to the artists to use. Remember, this was way back when. No Michaels, no Hobby Lobby, and everybody was poor. The twins’ artwork generally depicted the typical Halloween scene–the haunted house, graveyard, a full moon, and much more since my brother was given to details. My brother had a knack for twisting things around, for combining colors to make shades and tints that seemed impossible to be gotten from 4 or 5 sticks of different colors of chalk. How I wish my folks had a camera back then so we’d have photos of every entry the twins submitted.
I remember one picture very well. It was done mostly in purple and black. How he manipulated that one stick of purple chalk is beyond me but out of that one stick, many shades could be seen in the drawing. Black was used, of course, and taken from the original black to the lightest gray, and only splashes of green and orange were applied to accentuate things. The overall drawing was outstanding. They took the competition that year. Most years their entry won. Occasionally, they came in second.
My class never won. Darn it! And I was so jealous when their class had their celebration party!
As for Trick-or-Treating…well, we’d go up to Camp One and hit every house there. We come away with a small harvest, small when compared to the huge stash kids who went up to town with pillowcases managed to haul in. They’d brag the next day at school about how heavy their half-filled pillowcase had become as they trudged the streets of town. Yeah, whatever. But, one of my male relatives (actually his wife was my cousin) was a candy fiend. He’ take his mob into town, encourage them to get their pillowcases loaded up with treats. He was the ultimate cheerleader-driver during the Halloween custom but when they got home, he became the Candy Monster, the Lord of the Loot. He doled out a few pieces of candy and then hid the rest. Of course, he’d eat as much as he wanted whenever he wanted. That is until one afternoon, while he was out plowing, his kids came home from school and discovered the hiding place and, like a swarm of locust descending on a green field, quickly wiped out what was left of the loot. When their father found out that all his candy was gone, he threw such a fit that the news of it traveled around the reservation. People still laugh about it today. “Remember when…..”
