Halloween Memories Pt. 2

There used to be three big Halloween events in my little hometown: the fireman's parade, Halloween party at school, and of course, Trick or Treat night.

I liked them all actually, because it gave me a chance to dress up as a monster. I was always a monster of some kind; none of that "hobo" crap for me. I was a werewolf or vampire several times, a mummy once, and Jekyll/Hyde once. I think there were times when I was really young that I may have just bought a mask at the local dime store, but I can't remember what they were exactly.

But they WEREN'T hobo masks!!!

At any rate, I guess I probably liked trick or treat the most because it lasted the longest (three hours back in the day) and I got candy (most of which I have to admit that my dad ate; I was never a big candy craver). It was also cool to go to different people's houses, see their reactions, try to guess what each house would give you and just hang out after dark. When I was just starting out trick or treating, my dad would take me to a pre arranged list of houses; aunts, uncles, cousins, neighbors and friends of the family. I was little and those were the days of razor blades in apples and such; of course we knew practically everyone in town, but there were always a few crazies here or there that you were never quite sure about.

After I got older I went out with friends to trick or treat. I still didn't cover the whole town. There was only so much time and it was hard to get the whole town in during that period. I remember one Halloween, I think I was in fifth grade, probably ten years old, when it rained like crazy the whole time and a friend's mom took he and I (and my mom) around in her car. I was a vampire that year, I'm not sure what he was. We got soaked every time we left the car, but it was a hell of a lot of fun.

The last year I went was in seventh grade; I was 12. After that, it just seemed silly to keep going. I found that I liked handing out the candy. I never understood the kids who kept going year after year on into high school. They just seemed like they were trying to prove something, or like they were making fun of the holiday somehow by not understanding when it was time to quit.

I guess the only point I have in this post is that it was really a nice feeling to be a part of Halloween when I was young, in the seventies. There was just something magical about the whole season; the cool air, the leaves, the pumpkins and the horror movies on TV. It was a time when fantasy sort of nudged reality aside for a time and everyone got to be whatever they wanted to be. There wasn't anything truly scary about it; there was more of a sense of wonder than fear. And to a kid growing up in a small, close minded, insular back woods Midwest town, there weren't many opportunities to experience wonder. I had a great childhood, all in all, but I grew up in an area where using your imagination was rather frowned upon.

I remember one Halloween years later when I was seventeen, I watched John Carpenter's "Halloween" on TV for the first time and got thoroughly scared. Then I walked, in a Dracula costume, to my aunt's house because she had a Polaroid camera and she took pictures of me in it so I could send it to a local horror show in hopes that I would win a Best Costume prize. I didn't win.

That's about the last time I did anything very cool on Halloween. Oh, one time in college I went to the Ground Round and watched "Night of the Living Dead" with a couple friends (one of their birthdays fell on Halloween). But the great majority of my Halloweens ever since have involved just handing out candy at home. I like doing it, and it's fun to see all the kids' costumes, but as the years pass I know fewer and fewer of them. And, as you saw from my previous post, I grow more disenchanted with the direction the holiday is taking.

This year I marched in a Halloween parade for my humane society. It was cold and the wait for the parade to start was agonizingly long. The people were EVERYWHERE and though we did have candy to hand out, it ran out way too soon and the task of handing it out while trying to handle a dog was daunting to say the least.

But I was glad that I went. Afterwards I went out to dinner with some of the people there and I had a pretty good time. I didn't know some of them, but I listened and smiled at their stories and jokes. It was OK.

I guess most of the time you don't realize you're having a good time till the time is over. I loved trick or treat as a kid, but it's only in retrospect that the times seem so sweet and precious to me. What you do is rarely special immediately; what you are doing is literally making a memory, creating something for your mind to go back to in times of stress for a sense of release and joy.

Halloween, like all other holidays, has little to do with what it was originally intended for. That can be good and bad. It's bad that we forget what our traditions really mean, because over time they are saturated so much with our own impressions they become something totally other than what they originally were. It's good in that holidays all rise above their specific trappings and become vessels of memory and reinforce our sense of community and fellowship.

But I'll be honest; I would give everything I own to be able to be able to go back and trick or treat and spread that bag out on the table and sort through the contents with my dad, or help him carve a jack o' lantern or help my mom hand out candy. We remember the people in our lives the strongest and without them, no holiday will ever again feel genuine.

And right now, I'm missing them something awful...