Spooks I Have Known
Halloween is again upon us. As I write this, raindrops are dripping out
of a sullen gray sky. The wind is
supposed to pick up briskly this afternoon, and it is predicted to be howling
by the time that the ‘trick or treaters’ begin to appear. I have to admit that my participation in
Halloween has only been limited to yielding to my love of candy. The whole witches and goblins aspects of the
way that the secular day is celebrated never appealed to me.
In my day – it kind of bothers me that I am really old
enough to use that phrase – there wasn’t much effort put into Halloween at our
house. My mom would come home from the
store with a pumpkin for my brother Mike and I to carve a couple of days before
Halloween. My recollection was that the
most thought we put into carving the face was whether the triangle eyes and
nose would be right side up or upside down.
The number of teeth in the jack-o’-lantern’s smile was always less than
planned; one or two always were lost with the slip of the knife-blade. The trickiest part was getting a candle to
adhere inside the pumpkin uprightly with a few drops of wax and to light it
without getting burned. But, once the
candle was lit and the jack-o’-lantern was placed on the front porch in the
gathering dusk, they always looked just fine.
Supper on Halloween was always a bowl of chili. It was easy for Mike and I to have a bowl a
little early so we could get going; my parents would have a bowl at our usually
suppertime. The chili also fortified us against
what was usually steadily falling temperatures during our rounds. And even though we wanted to rush, no one
would even think about heading out until it was fully dark out.
Our costumes consisted of a plastic facemask. We picked one out at the local store from the
huge selection of four or five different types.
The mask was pulled squish to your face by a simple rubber band. Although there were always holes by the nose
and mouth, condensation always formed so that every few houses you had to take the
mask off and wipe the moisture from the inside.
If you were lucky the rubber band didn’t break at some point; otherwise,
you had to hold the mask in place with one hand and hold out your goodie bag
with the other. Sometimes, if this caused
you to not have the top of your bag fully open your treat could ricochet off
and possibly get trampled by another kid.
Our simple costumes were superior in one way. We tended to blend into the crowd of kids
prowling the sidewalks. Once, we went
with Julie, a neighbor friend. Her mom
had sown her a black cat costume. While
she was quite proud of it, we learned the first time we tried going for seconds
to a house that was giving away chocolate bars that they recognized her costume
and our hopes for double chocolate were quickly dashed.
The first thing Mike and I did was run past all the
houses for the first two blocks to get to the big farmhouse on Dousman
Street. The people there passed out
caramel apples, but they only made a couple of dozen. So, you had to get there early. And even though we ran as quickly as we could
I only remember getting there in time for one of those apples just once. Alas, every other time the porch light was already
turned off – the universal sad signal that there were no treats left.
Our candy bags were pillow cases. These, we learned, were superior to paper
grocery bags that could weaken and tear, or get soggy and rip if it happened to
be sprinkling rain.
Although we always dutifully yelled out, “Trick or
Treat” I have no idea what the trick would have been. We never gave it any thought. My recollection is that everyone paid the
treat toll, even if some gave you the cheap suckers with the string handles, or
the sort-of peanut butter flavored petrified taffy that tasted like it was from
the Army Surplus Store.
I think that Halloween night when we got back home was
the only time all year that we came in the front door. First, one of us had to blow out the candle
in the jack-o’-lantern if it was still burning.
I never cared for the smell of scorched pumpkin, and I always felt a
little sorry for old Mr. Gourd with his lid/cap shrunken and half-tilted in,
and his face distorted from the candle flame.
Then we poured our haul out on the living room floor to
admire our hoard. My wife tells me that
her sister would actually count each piece of her candy, so she could tell if any of her
siblings had raided her stash. I didn’t
have to worry about that with my older brother.
Whenever he ate a piece of my candy he would throw the empty wrapper
back in my bag – I guess he wasn’t overly concerned about being found out. Oh
well, it saved me from having to count!
His Peace <><
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