Thomas G. Fiffer

My mother was both extravagant and frugal. She entertained abundantly, but saved the mushy bananas for her famous cake. We traveled around the world together, often in grand style, but she hated buying a new car. And while my suit for debate tournaments came from Brooks Brothers, I proudly wore my brothers’ hand-me-downs and was told I could play any band instrument as long as it was the clarinet or saxophone, each of which we already owned.

When it came to Halloween, Mom was cheap and inventive. In Kindergarten, I was an octopus, sporting powder blue tights (her old stockings, dyed) on my arms and legs and four more stuffed with rags secured to my chest. A year later, I was a firefly, with mesh wings from an old screen and a blinking flashlight strapped to my belt.

My oldest brother had been Peter Pan in the school play, so his costume got recycled one year and repurposed the next as the Jolly Green Giant—pictured here. Look closely and you’ll spy my Wacky Pack stickers covering the fridge. One year I went as a pack of “Muleburros,” stuffing myself into a cardboard rectangle, barely able to walk.

But the pièce de résistance? In sixth grade I became Manet’s portrait of “The Fifer,” with red pants, blue jacket, borrowed recorder (substitute flute), and cap, and a picture frame—yes, a full-size picture frame—over my head. Trick, treat, or travesty—or all of the above. You decide.