Ghosts of Halloween Past
When I was growing up, my small town didn’t allow trick or treating. Someone told me it was because something dangerous had happened years ago. Someone else said it was to prevent Halloween pranks and destruction. Whatever the reason, when I say that I had never been trick or treating until I went out with our own kids, people are horrified. They actually pity me. The truth is, I never knew the difference. Our town had a huge community celebration with adults and kids alike, marching in a big parade through the three blocks of downtown and around the corner by the railroad tracks. I loved it. Local men acted as judges and seemed to take their job seriously, walking through the crowds and dutifully handing out prizes, though some of the judges may have been a tiny bit inebriated. It was, after all, far northern Wisconsin. One year my friend and I took two large boxes, cut holes for arms and legs and one for our head, painted them white with large red dots and went as a pair of dice. We won a silver dollar each. A week or so before Halloween, the local grocery store came to school and handed out a free carving pumpkin to each kid. The merchants in town also volunteered to let kids paint their store windows. We drew scary pictures on huge pieces of butcher paper and taped them onto the outside of storefront glasses. We painted Halloween scenes on the inside with poster paints before taking the paper off for passers-by to marvel at our artistic talent. I don’t know who cleaned the windows on November 1st..
We accompanied our kids for trick or treat when they were young and eventually they went by themselves. We lived on Cape Hatteras for a while in the 1980’s. The village where we lived had only 500 people and the custom there was for the teenage kids to throw eggs at the younger trick or treaters, instead of at houses or cars. Scared the hell out of our kids, trying to dodge flying eggs as they wound through the dark island streets but it’s one of their favorite Halloween memories.
Tonight I walked down to a nearby church that was having something called “Trunk or Treat”, where kids trick or treated between decorated cars in a parking lot. There were tons of both kids and adults there. The event was thriving and yet made me a little sad. I’ll take running in the dark to keep from being “egged”, over a parking lot full of people handing out candy from their cars. Aren’t spooky and scary what Halloween’s about?
Photo courtesy SzaboJanos on Pixabay.com
