It's About Halloween...

 I don’t have to check my calendar … I just have to see the department in my chosen shopping location, to see the massive displays of Halloween costumes and other paraphilia to prepare for the end of the month. It seems that the majority of costumes are for adults. I grew up in a time when Halloween was a school party and a tour of the rural neighborhood, to sing a song or recite a verse at a neighbor’s front door as payment for a treat that could have been made in the their kitchen. There were a few pranks, instigated by some young adults, and most were accepted in good humor. There were no injuries, no food poisonings, no razor blades in home-made popcorn balls, and no defacing of personal properties.

Our costumes were put together at home, often using clothing from our own closet or our parents’ work closet. Most of the time, we used face make-up instead of masks, and often wore a warm coat and boots if there was a layer of snow, suggesting that winter was coming early. For the more creative kids, they would draw a face on a brown-paper grocery bag, and then would cut holes for the eyes, nose, and mouth, to make a mask. Common character costumes were of pirates, cowboys, and clowns were popular with the boys, and the girls liked being a princess, a fairy, or a cat with whiskers. For the kids who were braver, they would agree to be a ghost (if their mother gave her permission). We would dig out the inside of a pumpkin from the garden, carve a face on the pumpkin, then put a lighted candle inside. They were called ‘jack-o-lanterns’ and a special decoration by the door. We always hoped that there wouldn’t be any wind that evening that would blow out the candle.

There were games at school involving apples on a string or bobbing for apples in a laundry tub. We learned songs or poems that we could use as payment for any treats that were available to us. There was always candy… orange and black jelly beans, jujubes, and the ever-enticing black licorice pipes (shaped like the one that Grandpa smoked) that had some red sparkles on the bowl that was to look like the pipe was being smoked. What fun to pretend that we were smoking! Our teacher would give us orange construction paper to draw and cut out ‘jack-o-lanterns’ to decorate the window in our classroom, along with black cats with arched backs that were supposed to scare away any ghosts that may want to visit us during class.

We don’t have any children knocking on our door at Halloween. For years, we had a community Halloween party because the homes were too far apart for the children to walk, and the parents were not all the willing to drive from one property to another. I do know that neighbors, as well as ourselves stock up on our favorite candy treat, just in case someone appears at our front door, pillow-case sack at the ready. If nobody comes, we enjoy our treats as long as they last. We don’t hear any local ‘spooky’ neighborhood stories of events; such as some that happen in the city (as reported on the news).

You may not agree, but I still think that Halloween is for the kids, not the adults. Aliens, super-power characters, ‘blood and gore’, and howling witches, are not what makes the kind of Halloween that I want to enjoy. I much prefer to celebrate Thanksgiving and look forward to Christmas and a New Year.