The Death of Halloween

For decades American children have enjoyed Halloween and built memories from cool nights running through the streets, falling over poorly made costumes and, as comedian Jerry Seinfeld says, yelling “Wait up!” in whining tones to our siblings and friends as we try to fix the flimsy rubber bands on our plastic masks. I actually only had two “store bought” costumes as a child: one was Tweety-Bird and the other a gorilla. Both had great masks, but the rubber bands, not so good.

Later, as old black-and-white photos will attest, older sister Lynn always dressed as something glam like a fairy princess or something. I stand next to her in oversized clothes from my father’s closet with charcoal on my face and sometimes a tooth blacked out—a hobo, or something similar. Those were the times when we could run through the neighborhood with those lousy pre-printed Halloween bags that when the bottoms hit the damp ground or bushes gave way and spewed our precious candy everywhere. I was a picky eater and didn’t really care that much for most of the candy, anyway; I’m still the same way; I don’t have much of a sweet tooth, but I enjoyed the hunt.

Once my Dad put his suit coat on backward and wrapped his head in gauze, Invisible Man style. He wanted to scare some of the big teenagers who he thought were well past the door-to-door age. So he crept up behind one who was standing on our front porch and tapped him on the shoulder. His little trick backfired because the kid ripped our screen door right off the hinges and ran through our living room screaming leaving muddy footprints all over my Mom’s carpet. She wasn’t pleased.

When son David had his first go at Halloween at about two-and-a-half years of age, we dressed him like a Jack-o-Lantern and took him to my parent’s neighborhood. (It’s the only age that parents can ever get away with that type of costume.) Once we coached him on the right words, he was unstoppable, running from one door to another shouting “Fwick o Feet.” He was one persistent pumpkin. Then I think he was Batman for the remainder of his Halloween career with one brief sojourn as Sonic the Hedgehog. Now all these politically correct do-gooders, along with their twisted sicko counterparts have just about ruined the tradition. Kids have to roam around in brightly lit shopping malls and collect candy. What a drag!

I devised an elaborate treasure hunt for a Halloween party one year, at the age when only boys were invited and that was fine with them. I hid cool stuff like squishy eyeballs, skeletons, and rubber fingers throughout the woods and handed them all a poem I’d written that included clues to the bounty. What the hell was I thinking? Within five seconds of telling them about goods in the woods, I was picking up a ream of orange handouts and listening to what sounded like a re-enactment of the Civil War in the trees. It started to drizzle as I prayed that no one broke any noses or limbs during the rampage. My brother-in-law, dressed as Freddy Kruger ran out of the dark with a chain saw as Jack pulled wagonloads of them through the woods on the tractor. (They loved that.) And Grandma as gypsy read fortunes. They were naively amazed when she told them revealing things like, “You appear to like baseball.” Jennifer the pirate tried to apply rub-on tattoos as the kids said things like, “These tattoos suck!”

“Aye, me matey, just hold still,” she replied.

The piñata fell on the floor after the first hit and as a scene from “Lord of the Flies, a Halloween story” ensued I was witness to what vicious little beasts the male gender can be. As the parents retrieved their muddy children, they looked at me like I was insane, but there may have been just a glint of admiration in their eyes, a nod to my bravery. Nah! Probably not. To this day, I have never fully recovered.

But my real disappointment regarding this upcoming festivity is that we don’t have Trick or Treaters. As David grew up, we had eighteen children on this small rural road—one was mine and the remainder belonged to two, yes two, other families. These are the ones who go around telling their children that Halloween is evil and so on, but one such family would let the kids go from room to room in their own home while the Mom and Dad answered the interior doors and gave them candy. Now if that isn’t scary, what is?! The daughter from said family once spotted a plastic pumpkin filled with candy on my kitchen counter and admonished me that Halloween was the devil’s birthday. “Oh it is not! Have some candy,” I told her. Then the all-of-six-year’s-old tyke looked at Jennifer and asked, “Have you accepted Jesus Christ as your personal savior?”

“I don’t think a little girl should be asking an adult that question because it’s none of your business,” Jennifer replied blandly. (I thought that was a great answer.)

Now you can’t even find a damn Halloween puzzle depicting this most sinful of celebrations where God forbid, kids dress up in costumes and laugh and giggle and eat candy. Blasphemy! I’ve given up putting a bowl of candy on the steps for the kids that never come if I’m not at home, becaue I occasionally go to a friend’s house to view the paltry few little cherubs that show up at the door. It’s a shame, but I still decorate with my plug-in pumpkin and cardboard skeletons and witchy lawn ornament. So Happy Halloween you bad, bad people! One of these days I’m going to follow through with my idea to put a big sign in my front yard that reads, “Happy Birthday Satan!”