‘The Bear’ makes Halloween special
Posted on October 27, 2007 in Holidays, Personal thoughts by DM
Larry’s post about past Halloweens reminded me of the year my dad took us trick-or-treating in his bear costume. Lifelong residents of Des Moines might remember a television show on WHO called “Beat the Bear” from the early 1970’s. I think it was resurrected in the 90’s for a brief time. On this show, college football and basketball coaches (and host Jim Zabel) analyzed the past week’s college games and predicted winners for the following week. “The Bear” was a person wearing a Hamm’s Bear costume (Hamm’s Beer was the show’s sponsor), who also made predictions and generally antagonized Zabel about his alleged hairpiece. The Bear never spoke, but communicated with little hand-written signs. In the early 70’s, the person wearing the bear costume was my dad.
So one Halloween, Dad decided he was not going to just take us trick-or-treating - he was going to trick-or-treat with us. He dressed in the Bear costume - I have no idea what our kids’ costumes were that year - and walked us not only around our neighborhood at 63rd & Rollins Ave., but also around our OLD neighborhood at 58th & University. We had a blast that year showing off our dad and basking in the extra attention - and extra candy - he brought to our efforts.
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2 comments to “‘The Bear’ makes Halloween special”
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Great memory. I especially like it when my husband is home and he dresses up like McGruff, the crime dog. Sometimes scares the really little kids though. When I was a child my favorite place to go was the neighbors who played spooky music and gave you a shock when you shook their hand.
Sandy, there’s a really neat house over here in our neighborhood that has all kinds of spooky stuff in the yard, ghouls hanging from trees, and a strobe light illuminating the whole thing. I can imagine how much fun (but terrifying!) it would be to walk up to that house in my costume in the dark!